Telemarketing Question

Hey tropstorm, have you ever thought about local marketing? That's one of the best ways to get foot traffic into your business.

First of all, I would create a one page letter that introduces your business and warms the prospect up before the call. That way the prospects will be anticipating the call, and you will get better results.

I would focus on only mailing the household demographics that are most likely to become your customers.

Second, I would hire a telemarketer for my staff and pay him or her by commission only for every free meeting that a prospect actually shows up to. In the beginning, before I know what percentage of prospects that show up actually turn into clients, I would just pay the telemarketer a fair amount of dollars for every person that showed up.

After I know the percentage of people that actually became clients from those free meetings I would adjust the telemarketers commission and give him or her a more accurate amount.

lol, don't waste your money on experian,...I wasted a 1000 bucks last year buying 1000 millionaire's contact info, 95% of it was dead wood. I suggest buying the 30 day guerrilla marketing book, and guerrilla social media one as well. Social Media would be the way to go. Set up a nice informative site with medical blog. Have the doctors/nurse write a few blog posts a month about different medical issues facing the community and facebook/tweet your way to new customers.

Btw people hate telemarketers <------not the way to go for medical services in IMHO.

Before you do ANYTHING, i'd say get on google local for business:
www.google.com/placesforbusiness/

Since you have an actual office in a physical location that in itself is money. Once someone types "Doctors in XXX" in google if its somewhere that you are close to you will be at the top of the front page with google.

Then, once thats done, I would read the following:
How to Mail Fliers Through the U.S. Post Office | eHow.com
USPS - Welcome to Business Mail 101

Instead of cold calling, I would go the above route and use the USPS to mail a flyer (that includes some special you are having) or information to your specified mailing list (Name and addresses of people in that area). If you have no idea about the names of the people near where you are consider finding a mailing list provider of the area. Through the USPS website I was able to find this link:

Home - Mailing Industry Product Guide

From Google I found the following two that looks promising (Never Purchased a Physical Mailing list before, Had college kids hand out flyers for me):
Maximize Leads with Targeted Mail Lists
Buy Mailing Lists | LeadsPlease

If you have a 25% off on current checkups or free flu shots or something that people will no doubt need it may very well catch some people's attention.

Personally a lot of people hate cold callers, so i would avoid that route. Most wont be mean to them (some will), but cold calling is pretty much spamming in most people's eyes. I find a lot of people I associate with feel the same about cold callers, screen them, or just dont pick up the phone if the person isnt on caller ID. People will however browse through mail when it comes to find deals and things interesting to them. Personally I only spend maybe 10 seconds looking at it before it goes in the rubbish so make sure whatever you send offers some deal and makes it visible. Company name, Address, services, and contact number helps too.

Of course there is the tell your friends, tell the people next door to you and in the business areas of your service. Since they are also business people work out deals for them and ask that they tell you two people that could benefit from the same free service (now you're not cold calling if you can call and say "I helped Nancy the other day and she said you would be interested in a free XXX".

Ah well, good luck with whatever you choose!

I would also check out this area for cold calling Offline Marketing Discussions