General Procedure of Telemarketing

Telemarketing may be done from a company office, from a call centre, or from home. It may involve either a live operator or a recorded message, in which case it is known as "automated telemarketing" using voice broadcasting. "Robocalling" is a form of voice broadcasting which is most frequently associated with political messages.

An effective telemarketing process often involves two or more calls. The first call (or series of calls) determines the customer’s needs. The final call (or series of calls) motivates the customer to make a purchase.

Prospective customers are identified by various means, including past purchase history, previous requests for information, credit limit, competition entry forms, and application forms. Names may also be purchased from another company's consumer database or obtained from a telephone directory or another public list. The qualification process is intended to determine which customers are most likely to purchase the product or service.

Charitable organizations, alumni associations, and political parties often use telemarketing to solicit donations. Marketing research companies use telemarketing techniques to survey the prospective or past customers of a client’s business in order to assess market acceptance of or satisfaction with a particular product, service, brand, or company. Public opinion polls are conducted in a similar manner.

Telemarketing techniques are also applied to other forms of electronic marketing using e-mail or fax messages, in which case they are frequently considered spam.

(Wikipedia)

Telemarketing started in 1970s and was introduced for the purpose of easing the process of marketing for businesses. It can be started from any place, whether it is an office cabin, home or a call center. It requires a computer with the data base information about the customer, a dedicated phone line and either an agent who can call up people or even an automated recording.

The automated recording is generally a pre recorded message of a sales pitch and is mostly used by government organizations. It is important to make at least two calls per customer to have an efficient telemarketing campaign. In the first call usually the agent gets the information about the needs of the customer and in the second call is made to convince and motivate the person to buy the product.

The potential customers are gathered by either lead generation or by purchasing a data base of customer’s information from other companies from which the customers have already purchased in the past. These can also include information about the person’s credit limit, purchase history and other personal data.

It is also very important to have a good telephone line and a properly trained agent who is well informed about the product for which he is about to pitch to people.