Are phone calls still a major source of marketing?

If you believe people on this forum, yes.

IMHO no.

The interwebby gives you lots of info that allows you to target your audience without annoying a lot of people who don't want to know... Sending those targeted people a message that entices them to call you is less intrusive... They can do so when it's convenient to them...

Yes. telemarketing still works. I use this method constantly to get clients, it's both fast and effective. Contrary to popular belief, it is not intrusive. True, you may call someone when they are in the middle of something, but real business people understand sales is necessary, and speaking with people who sell things/services is necessary. Every fortune 500 company uses it as a tactic to get sales.

Email works, Direct Mail works, and Telemarketing works, you need a mixture of all of these tactics to get clients.

Scott, who I mentor, has sold 100,000 Pounds worth of advertising in a airline in-flight magazine in the last 90 days.

He comes up with his own list of company executives and calls them on the phone.

Much of the ad space is being bought by those that control websites
and that's the only way their products can be brought.

He's in a office of about 60 pure ph salespeople selling advertising in just about
all the international airline in-flight magazines.

The company has 2 other offices with phone sales people.

He operates out of London.

So yeah, phone sales is alive and well.

I've helped Naren in phone sales.

He sells Stock investments over the ph to those that made an initial inquiry.

He operates out of Bali. Head office is London with branches around the world.
He broke the record for sales brought in for a rookie.

Phone sales are working there also.

Best,
Ewen

Yes phone calls still work.

I got called recently by Ebay making a special offer to set up a business listing.

Most major businesses utilise cold calling as part of their mix particularly if they are focused on B2B.

It is a quick and easy way to filter ideal prospects.

Where most people fail is starting with the wrong list coupled with a non-native speaker and a poor script.

Best regards,

Ozi

Yes. But you should change your mindset- IMHO

The phone is a business marketing tool, just like the internet, emails, and direct mail.

Saying 'telemarketing" is just like purchasing a home music system -

It's a stereotype! do not buy that mindset. Buy In to what works.

You're a Business person and an Entree-Prenuer.

Best wishes on your journey

Kirby

Some great insights guys. Thanks for the amazing replies. I was thinking of creating a plugin soon that could target such telemarketers and allow them to track and analyse their calls like they could do so right now with their emails and clicks - analysis on conversions, duration of the call etc...

SO, that was some amazing insight to encourage me more to do this.

Thanks. More suggestions and opinions are welcome

Ringless voicemails are better than phone calls. I am suprised most people marketing a home business, product or service have no idea what this is. It's like phone broadcasting but the phone never rings the prospect. The technology drops your voicemail on their phone. It's 10x more effective and the response is better. Your voicemail is the key to getting the prospect to respond and call you back direct or leave their info on your voicemail line.

Hello Friends

Telemarketing is commendable and viable method for advertising..

Here are few reasons -

1. Financially savvy showcasing

2.Immediate input on items/administrations

3. Era of a fresh out of the box new client base

4.Sell to existing and new clients.

Telemarketing in the contemporary market has become solely associated with cell phone companies because they always trap you in offers that are sometimes pretty helpful.Also they have the authority to go up and down on a certain offer based on the customer's response for example a while back I was overcharged on my internet data and I succeeded in bringing up my maximum data by staying within the same price bracket because they sensed that I was pissed. Keeping all that aside, I think emails are taking over this cold calling phenomenon because people sometimes need time to think about a certain offer instead of agreeing with a cold caller right away.

Absolutely. I've been relying on PPC, telemarketing, local networking, and Craigslist over the last 5+ years. Each channel has generated valuable clients and partnerships.

Hi Anshdeb,

Phone calls are absolutely a major source of marketing. I see so many articles claiming that cold calling doesn't work anymore; infographics claim the same thing too. The truth of the matter is that calling still works extremely well but you need to spend some time qualifying your data.

Let's take the internet marketing industry for example, as I see from your profile that this is relevant to you.

You can find someone on Fiverr to scrape yell.com for a couple of thousand leads from different locations and industry sectors; this will give you company names, phone numbers, website addresses, and physical addresses, but the quality is going to be questionable based on the source of the information. Large business directories find it almost impossible to keep their data up to date.

By comparison, you could find a few keywords that are extremely competitive, type them into Google, manually retrieve the data from pages 2 & 3, and then call them based on the fact that there is a good chance they are trying to reach page 1 for the keyword in question.

With years of experience under my belt within internet marketing sales, I can tell you that the second method will yield much better results every time.

Don't get me wrong, even with the best data you will still have challenging times, but you will also have a lot of positive times too.

The final thing that I will say is that you should prepare yourself for some long days with a lot of rejections. It use to take me approximately 150 dials to sign up a new client; it now takes approximately 60 but that is still a lot of rejections to deal with on a daily basis.

If you want any free one-to-one advice, then please feel free to send me a message. I would be happy to help you out.

Telemarketing operates on the basis of timeless principles...


27 years ago I worked in a room that was already 20 years old, and had used the same pitch on the same town directory for twenty years... a similar pitch to the one that 10 other companies were using in that town... my room of ten people or so wrote maybe 70 leads per day... day in , day out, all year long.... now it has been 47 years... I checked 7 years ago, and the company was still using the same pitch... still successfully, still in the same local phone directory that ten other competitors are calling...


The same happened ten years ago... in a room I managed of 60 telemarketers... This room had been using the same pitch for twenty years, and collecting millions of dollars per year... getting consistent results, day after day... and still do today. I have seen this many times...


You can look around at the warrior forum and see it too... Telemarketing will never "not" work.


In the first company I mentioned where I worked 27 years ago.... As stated, that company was already 20 years old when I came on. At break time, all the telemarketers would say "Our days are ending... telemarketing is over, the market is burned out...."


Twenty years later what proves to be true is that "THEY" were just the ones burned out.


Telemarketing is based on a perfect storm of timeless principles that will ALWAYS work, if you work them. They are simple, and relatively easy.


What do I mean by principles? Principles are rules and laws that transcend everything that works and is successful, as well as what fails. The "principles" are the driving force behind a new marketing tactic, which makes it successful, which are the same principles simultaneously driving many other diverse marketing tactics, all over...


Principles, transcend all of it, and telemarketing is based on many timeless principles. It
will never be irrelevant in sales..


Many things work, among them, telemarketing does..., absolutely, by natural law, and timeless principles.


The type of marketing I do today is not primarily telemarketing based, but it is ABSOLUTELY 100% based on all of the principles I learned from telemarketing, which is still successful ,and I can use it dependably, at will , at any time. So can anyone else.

Hope this helps.


- John Durham

It still works for me! But I don't like those who tries so hard to convince me even though I have declined it twice already.