Contacts, Customers and Telemarketing

Growing with telemarketing and database

I don’t think that one can make clean surgical cuts between telemarketing, direct mail, direct marketing, database management and other tools. They all work so well together. As a business, you should be constantly seeking both to grow and to improve your customer and potential customer database.

I have found some tactics to be really useful in that area:

• • Have several databases but in a single spreadsheet. I learned early on that if you have several databases (e.g., one for the photography business, one for the advertising business, etc.) in several spreadsheets sooner or later some of them will be completely outdated, or worse, you might erase one by mistake. I keep all of my databases in a single spreadsheet organized by tabs
  • Also, keep all the databases in the same format. For example, MailChimp uses a format which is “first name, last name, email address” so all my addresses are kept that way.

• • Harvest emails. Another thing I learned early on is to harvest emails; if someone sends me an email with all his contacts on the “cc” field, I’ll take a look at all of them and, if they are useful, I will copy all of them to my database under the appropriate tab. In a really memorable one, a couple of years ago, an assistant in Univision included the entire mailing list of about 2,200 people in the mailing as an attached document. Naturally, she tried to recall the email right away but, by then, I had already collected all the emails in a spreadsheet. For a Hispanic agency (at the time I was a partner in one) having all of the names, companies, emails, phones, etc., of every client invited to the Univision upfront party is worth its weight in gold.

• • Buy a database-mining or web-mining program. There are hundreds of them on the web. With these, it is easy to go into a website such as YP.com (the old Yellow Pages) and extract the information in a useful format.For example, let’s say that you have a body shop. It would make sense to perhaps contact every insurance agent in your area to offer your services. An address mining tool can put together a list with names, addresses, phones and any other information in the base. With that information, you can do several things:
    • Turn it over to a telemarketing company and have them call every agent for an interview, or to offer a “VIP Package” with discounts
    • Create a postcard campaign by printing all the addresses in labels. In my experience, about 25%-40% of all addresses in sites like YP.com are outdated. You might want to do a test.
    • Request lists from Chambers of Commerce, networking groups, etc. For example, I remember receiving a GLBT Chamber of Commerce book with hundreds of business names, address, phone and even emails of companies that were affiliated with or interested in doing business with the GLBT community. Dozens of services (legal, accounting, advertising, financial) have found the GLBT market a profitable and loyal one. You can select 100 or so companies, turn it over to a telemarketing firm and, for $300, have them call all these companies to get appointments.
    • You can also buy highly targeted lists with phone numbers from many vendors. The names go for between $50 and $125 cpm depending on several factors such as the wealth of the members of the list, the number of filters or variables you include, the exclusivity and its segmentation. A list of neuro-surgeons operating in Miami, for example, is more expensive (and way smaller) than, say, a list real estate lawyers.

Finally, when should you use outbound telemarketing:

1. 1. When your sale price is high. A $5,000 software package designed for plastic surgeons is better than a $49 massage at Massage Envy.
   2. When your target group is small or manageable. You could certainly call every real estate sales person in Miami –  but there are cheaper, more efficient ways to get your message across.
   3. When your sales pitch is complex. Yes, we all hate the “you’ve won a free cruise” scam but for complex pitches (e.g., specialized software directed at the legal industry) a telemarketer has the edge.
   4. When your conversion ratio in other media is too low (and given the above conditions). For example, if you spend $1.00 per mailing to reach lawyers and your conversion is low (say, 10-15%) and your telemarketing can bring a conversion ratio of, say, 35% at $3.00 per call, it makes all the sense.

Is outbound telemarketing the end-all, be-all? Not by a long shot. Every tool has its place, its costs and its efficiency ratio. But if you have never considered telemarketing from the point of view of an assistant… perhaps you should.

Related articles:

Part 1 No Marketing, No Ad Budget, No Problem 

Part 2  What’s in Your Marketing Toolkit? 

Part 3 Limited Budget Marketing Essentials 

Part 4 The Electric Coupon Technology Goes Local