Think telemarketing is all about the hard sell? Not these days.

Modern marketing has evolved beyond pushy sales tactics. Now, it’s all about building brand awareness, understanding your customers, and delivering exceptional value.

Telemarketing is no longer just for sales: it has evolved to become a valuable tool that can help grow any business. Whether your aim is to gain new leads, update your database or create more authentic relationships with your customers, telemarketing can deliver.

Learn about the many benefits of telemarketing for your business below.

The Benefits Of Telemarketing – More Than Just Sales

Nurture Customer Relationships

In the digital age, it can be challenging to build genuine, one-to-one relationships with your customers. Most marketing is done online, via commenting, emails and messaging, making it difficult to create a human connection.

But a personal, human connection is exactly what today’s consumers are looking for.

They don’t want to interact with a fake business persona; they want to hear from the people behind your brand. But most business owners don’t have time to call and chat with every customer to nurture those relationships.

Relationship building is one of the key benefits of telemarketing. It allows your customers to have a genuine conversation with a real person rather than a chat-bot. They can speak with someone who can directly answer their questions and address their concerns rather than having to search through a FAQ page on your website.

Better Understand Your Customers

There are various ways to gather data about your customers. You can analyse the data from your different marketing channels, send out surveys via email, or interact directly with your audience on social media.

These methods can help you to understand your customers for sure. But, one of the best ways to get accurate, up-to-date information is to actually talk to them.

Why not use telemarketing to gain a deeper understanding of your customers? We can conduct a specialised campaign to gather reviews and measure the levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

We can run surveys to find out your customers’ pain points so you can better tailor your products, services, or marketing efforts to your ideal audience.

Enhance Customer Experience

Customer service and marketing are no longer two distinct concepts; they are inseparable. Satisfied customers are more likely to become loyal customers, and loyal customers are more likely to become advocates for your business.

One of the most underrated benefits of telemarketing is its ability to enhance customer experience. It allows both prospective and existing customers to feel like valued acquaintances, not just another number in your follower count.

Telemarketing can be used to follow up with your customers to get feedback after a transaction or interaction with your business. This helps you improve your customer journey and make sure your clients feel valued.

Keep Your Database Updated

Did you know that it costs five times more to gain a new client than to retain an existing one? That’s why it’s so important to keep in touch with your current customers, even between purchases.

But many business owners don’t have time for this kind of one-to-one interaction. They might have a CRM populated with names, numbers and email addresses, but have no idea if that information is up to date, let alone if the list contains clients who are still interested in purchasing from them!

Telemarketing is a fantastic way to update your database. Experienced telemarketers can work through your customer list and ensure the contact information is correct. They can find out which clients are still engaged and active, and identify who might benefit from your offerings.

This is exactly what the Hot Leads team did for the NZTE in a specialised telemarketing campaign.

Practically Updated

With a CRM crammed full of contacts that hadn’t responded to previous emails, NZTE weren’t sure which of the businesses were still active and who might benefit from their value-packed digital platform.

We updated contact details, created connections with customers, and provided 500 hot leads interested in doing business with NZTE.

Does your customer database need dusting off? Are you looking for cost-effective ways to build authentic connections with your customers? Why not experience the benefits of telemarketing by working with the experts at Hot Leads.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can help your business grow.

The Pukekohe branch of Barfoot and Thompson boasts some impressive statistics. They were the #1 Branch of the Year in 2021 and won the Residential Sales, Large Office of the Year in the 2020 REINZ Awards. I think we can agree, their agents know how to sell property!

But Pukekohe agent, Neil Sharpe, recently discovered his marketing needed a more strategic approach. Auckland had entered a level 4 lockdown and all the usual methods of open homes and meeting in person were off the table.

So, he turned to a method that would allow him to keep marketing during lockdown restrictions.

Tactical telemarketing

During a citywide lockdown, many things grind to a halt – including a lot of the functions of the property market. So as you can imagine, it is an incredibly difficult time to launch a new career path in real estate! Unless you have a secret marketing weapon up your sleeve like Neil Sharpe discovered.

“Having Hot Leads on my team during lockdown was invaluable. Due to Covid, I wasn’t able to carry out regular marketing methods like letterbox flyer drops. But, by having a professional team making calls on my behalf, it kept my name out there, and allowed me to book a whole bunch of appraisals to start my career off in a really positive way.”

A hot partner

“I loved the idea that I could use this service to build relationships with people.” Neil knows that Real estate is a competitive profession and there are a lot of other agents in the region. But, a telemarketing campaign allowed him to stand out and open the door on a number of opportunities that he would not have had access to otherwise.

When following up with the interested parties, the connection had already been established. So, it was a lot easier to move them onto the next step of booking an appraisal service.

“Everyone I have followed up with was very impressed with the friendly nature and professionalism of the Hot Leads team. When they called the prospects, they made it seem as though they were part of my team. It made the connection far stronger when I called.”

Impressive results

In a time when door knocking and open homing is not allowed, Neil was able to connect with a huge number of people through the telemarketing campaign. And the timing could not have been better.

During lockdown, people spend a lot of time in their homes. Which means they have a lot of time to seriously think about their property, life circumstances, and next moves. Coupled with the onset of Spring and the imminent arrival of new property valuations in Auckland, lots of people were ready to take action, but weren’t sure how to do it.

“The results of the telemarketing campaign are really promising – it is going to pay for itself.” And, it has been so much more effective than a letterbox flyer drop as the results can easily be measured.

“Off the back of the campaign, I’ve booked 18 appraisals, had 70 people sign up to my email database, found 2 people who wanted to discuss the purchase of a property, and have 72 people who have requested follow ups, 8 of whom are keen for appraisals. I could not have achieved this level of connection with traditional marketing methods in the same time period.”

Neil is excited about the remaining potential for further telemarketing campaigns and feels this is just the tip of the iceberg. “I am happy with the results we have got so far and I know something further will come out of this. It will be well worth the investment!”

So, if you are looking to make an impact in your region, telemarketing could be your secret lockdown weapon for keeping you active and visible.

Get in touch with the team today to chat about how we can help you achieve great results like Neil!

Sadly, it often takes a bad experience with a telemarketing service to appreciate a good one.

One of the most constant pieces of feedback we get from new clients is the difference they experience working with us compared with their previous lead generation partners.

In our latest case study, Brendan Drury, Orbit World Travel’s Managing Director said: “From my perspective, the difference between using Hot Leads and our results from the previous two to three years is like comparing night and day.”

Here comes the sun again.

After outsourcing their lead generation services to a local company for several years, Brendan wasn’t happy with the results. A lack of quality information combined with a disappointing volume of appointments led them to pull the plug on their investment. Dark days, indeed!

And he’s not alone. We’ve won the hearts of many clients who have been just about ready to give up on finding a telemarketing company they can trust to deliver results.

So what makes us shine so bright?

1. We keep a tight focus on the quality of the data we collect – making sure it’s accurate, current and appropriate. As far as we’re concerned, near enough is never good enough.
2. We find the people you need to connect with – we’re great at tracking down those hard-to-find-and-even-harder-to-reach decision-makers. Yes, we’re rottweilers of the telemarketing world, smart, strong, tenacious and well-trained!
3. We make you look good – we’re professional, local, friendly, approachable and take pride in representing your brand and explaining your value proposition. We think on our feet and don’t use scripts, so the people we call won’t even realise that we aren’t your employees. Our consultants get rave reviews!
4. We help you break into new markets – we’ve delivered significant, high-value opportunities to our customers in industry sectors they’ve only dreamed of penetrating. We’ve literally seen jaws drop when our clients see who we’ve arranged for them to meet.
5. We generate detailed reporting – we collect a wealth of valuable information, so you always know what’s in the pipeline.
6. We give valuable advice – we can help you improve outcomes through our knowledge and experience.
7. And we do it all with a smile. Because we’re doing what we love.

Ready to walk into the light? Call us.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

 

We’ve just published our first Hot Leads ‘Essential Guide’ to Lead Generation. It’s packed full of practical, step-by-step ‘need to know’ stuff that you well…need to know, to run a telemarketing campaign that will seriously boost your sales pipeline. As written by the experts (that’s us).

Why do you need to read up on telemarketing? Isn’t it all pretty straightforward?

Telemarketing is one of the most effective methods of lead generation. But its success isn’t random, and it doesn’t come without planning.

Great marketers and sales professionals apply best practice to deciding on, setting up, running and measuring a campaign that delivers value – and, importantly, a return on investment. They understand how to amplify a campaign’s impact and to present their brand professionally and consistently.

Become a lead generation know-it-all – for FREE

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced sales or marketing manager looking for new tips to boost your campaign outcomes, or you’re just exploring the possibilities for your business and want to understand the process.

Either way, we’ve got you covered. Because one thing is for certain – when you download and read our FREE eBook you’ll improve your know-how, starting with:

  1. Know your objectives and define what constitutes success
  2. Know your target market
  3. Know how to get a great prospect list
  4. Know how to design and test a compelling campaign
  5. Know how to work your CRM
  6. Know how to put together the perfect lead gen team
  7. Know your next steps! (Your campaign checklist).

Get your FREE DOWNLOAD here! Happy reading!

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

We do a lot of work in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector. And while all our clients are important to us, I must admit that helping others ‘do good’ gives us a big case of the warm fuzzies.

There are countless businesses and organisations doing wonderful work in New Zealand, so trying to catch the attention of the people who can help make the difference to their critical and ongoing fundraising efforts is critical.

That’s where we come in. You see, we know that a friendly chat goes a long way towards reminding people that their help is genuinely needed and appreciated.

In the Pink

We recently had a chance to help New Zealand’s Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation. Like most NFPs, they need to be sure every marketing initiative is targeted and cost effective.

Nicky Sinclair-Perkins, the Foundation’s Campaigns Manager, called us as they were looking for a way to get new businesses to support their work – in particular their Pink for a Day campaign.

With a limited budget she said it was super important to know that the Foundation’s brand was in safe hands.

Her confidence in us was well placed. We’re passionate about everything we do but this one really struck a chord, as almost everyone in our team knew someone affected by breast cancer. Shockingly, one in nine Kiwi women are diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives.

Here are some far more positive figures. We made 2030 calls and signed up 158 new businesses that wanted to be involved in the Foundation’s work.

We also followed up all those calls with a personalised email, so they really felt they were getting involved and were part of the team. That made a huge difference.

Great results

In the end, one in every four organisations that registered for Pink for a Day came from the people we called.

That meant the Foundation was able to speak to thousands more people about breast cancer awareness. Better still that helped raise over $150,000 for breast cancer education, research and support.

Not only that, but we were also able to give Nicky and her team a list of new businesses that were keen to be involved in the future.

“The results were great,” says Nicky. “It was a successful campaign and we are very happy with the outcome.”

If you’d like to read more about the Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation NZ campaign, then check out the case study.

Having a great pipeline of properties is the lifeblood of any successful real estate business. Of any business, really.

I repeatedly hear of property agents taking a passive approach to building their sales pipelines and wondering why they aren’t doing as well as others. They try everything (including passive tactics like social media, Google AdWords campaigns and paying search engine optimisation specialists) exceptpicking up the phone and putting in the hard yards.

The real estate industry is highly competitive and it’s all about building one-to-one relationships. And like it or not, that requires human contact. Lots of it.

The smart sales team

Steve and Miriam Davis, aka the formidable Team Davis from Harcourts Real Estate, tried all the passive sales methods (see above) on top of their normal strategies, but weren’t getting an ROI on their time, effort or investment.

They knew that their success was based on building strong pipelines using Miriam’s personal touch. Now, she’s a real go-getter when it comes to finding new listings, but the time making calls took her away from doing what she loved – helping people buy and sell properties. While other agents were calling it a day and putting their feet up with a G&T, she was typically back on the phone driving that pipeline.

Great attitude and great for business, but not quite so positive in terms of work/life balance! Team Davis really needed to clone Miriam and her formidable lead generation skills!

Hot Leads to the rescue

Steve checked out our website and was impressed by what our clients had to say about us. And when he discovered we had real estate experience – he was sold.

“Their consultant proved to be extremely good,” said Steve. “She knew the right questions to ask and the right information to gather. She added valuable information to our database and encouraged 50 additional people on our list to sign up for our marketing emails. We’d been struggling to grow our email reach, so what she achieved was superb.”

We ran two 40-hour Team Davis campaigns, generated 27 qualified appointments, and identified a significant number of ‘warm’ leads for Team Davis to nurture. And as Steve said, we grew their marketing list.

Top tips for building pipelines

  • Just do it. It’s an active, one-to-one process. Yes, the passive lead generation tactics all help, but nothing is better than personal contact!
  • Think smart. Pre-empt a telemarketing campaign with a marketing promo (think letterbox drops with a special deal) to significantly raise response rates.
  • Don’t sit on your laurels and admire your pipeline. What’s next? What leads (no matter how distant in the future) should you be keeping ‘warm’ with emails and calls?
  • Get a life. Let us do the prospecting and nurturing calls for you, so you can do what you do well. Sell!
  • Last, check out the full Team Davis case study here.

Let’s face it, as a business owner you probably don’t place as much value on your data as you think. Just take a look at your accounting system, vs. your sales system, vs. your marketing system.

Yep, your sales team want to make sales. But they aren’t worried about updating the bill payer.

Your accountant just wants the books to balance, they don’t care who the decision maker is.

Your marketing team are focused on correct email addresses and the number of times some transient or external telemarketer has used extra.co.nz instead of Xtra. Fixing those sorts of mistakes can be time consuming and annoying.

As for you, the business owner, you just want growth and a return on investment from your inbound and outbound sales teams or your external marketing partnerships. And of course, you want your client’s billing details to be accurate, so the bills get paid on time.

So, what’s the problem if a few contact names are wrong? Why should an incorrectly populated address field worry you? If telephone numbers are in multiple different formats, who cares? if email addresses are missing a letter, a full stop, or the correct service provider address – is that such a big deal?

The short answer is ‘yes’.

Here’s why you should care about the accuracy of your data (the long answer)

If a phone number is missing a digit when you need to chase a debtor, your accountant has to check online, or elsewhere, for the correct number. Sure, only a 60 second job. That’s unless the same record has a missing letter in the company name, or part of that name is incorrectly spelled, or maybe the branch address is listed instead of the head office. Okay so now it’s a couple of minutes to sort out. All good. But then again at the rates accountants charge, aren’t you paying over the odds for data cleansing when they do it five times a day?

Or perhaps you think it’s sustainable at that level. But if you looked at every minute your accountant, sales team, marketing team etc. spends each day researching the right contact name, number, job role, phone number, mobile number, DDI, email address, street address, postal address and multiply that by their hourly rate over 12 months – we’re not talking peanuts (as we’re sure you don’t employ monkeys).

And it’s stealing productive time that should be going towards growing your business and making it more profitable.

Another reason why you should love your data

As a professional lead generation business, we utilise a sophisticated, intuitive cloud-based system to run your lead generation campaigns. This maximises the opportunity to generate qualified leads for your business.

We use a streamlined, cost-effective and efficient call making and recording process. We can’t do that off a spreadsheet which has been printed out or has to be kept open on their screens. That’s just downright nasty and cumbersome (and old-fashioned).

Why does this matter? We aim to deliver accuracy, clarity, and brevity in all our reporting, and minimise the time spent in project management and set up. We can’t do this if we are diverting time to repairing unloved and neglected data.

The dirty data list of shame

Lead generation is our business, so we see a lot of data. And sadly, we spend a disproportionate amount of our time correcting that data before we can get on with contacting with your prospects.

Here are some of the issues we most frequently encounter:

  • Incorrectly or inconsistently formatted phone numbers – e.g. – 091234567, 6491234567, +64091234567, +6491234567 and more.
  • Mobile numbers added to the Main Phone field, or vice versa.
  • Multiple phone numbers added in one field.
  • Email addresses in the incorrect field.
  • Incorrectly spelled first and/or last names resulting in incorrectly addressed emails.
  • Inconsistent naming conventions for company names – e.g. ABC Company LTD, A.B.C Company LTD, ABC Limited, and other variations. This often results in duplicate records or multiple calls being placed to the same company unnecessarily – and annoyed prospects.
  • Various business address details, especially in data systems running NZ formats versus US formats. Most CRM, ERP and SAP systems use the US format for addresses.

Who you gonna call?

So, what’s the fastest way to verify address details and update the correct contacts? Picking up the phone is always the quickest option – but your team don’t have time for that, it is Christmas rush after all!

That’s where our Dirty Data Hit Squad comes in. Let us start the big clean up now, so you and your team can start the New Year with clean, green data.

Imagine:

  • Your sales team will have the latest decision maker details for renewing contracts or upselling.
  • Your accountant will have a clear contact to deal with, potentially minimising slow payers.
  • Your marketing team will get minimal to no email bounces.
  • And as the business owner, you’ll have clean, current data so you can hit 2019 hard!

Give me a call. Send me an email. Let’s talk.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

One of the most short-sighted things you can do in business is to rest on your laurels once you’ve completed a successful sales campaign. And it’s also a waste of the time, money and effort you’ve invested in getting that far. Rather than making a cold start each time you get worried about sales revenue, it’s easier to build on the momentum you’ve already achieved.

Doing it right

The Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand are an organisation who know how to do things the right way. As they’re a registered charity, and reliant on the kindness of corporate sponsors and empathetic individuals, they are careful to only invest in activities which help them meet their objectives. So, when they signed up in 2015 to become part of the global Steptember initiative they had a tight marketing budget, and an ambitious fundraising goal firmly in mind.

Building up the steps

Steptember challenges everyday people to walk 10,000 steps a day for 28 days over – you’ve guessed it – September of each year. The programme has already raised almost $9.5M worldwide through corporate sponsorship, with our wonderful Kiwi corporates contributing nearly a million dollars to that total.

To start with, the Society allocated us a small part of their Steptember marketing budget to provide telemarketing support for their other activities. This was the first time they’d ever used a lead gen company, so they were happy to start with a conservative approach.

And it worked. We made our 10% of their budget go a long way!

For every dollar the Society spent with us, we raised $10 of corporate sponsorship for their cause. In fact, telemarketing turned out to be the most successful tactic in the Society’s Steptember marketing kit.

As you can imagine, they were happy and impressed and could see the strategic value in enlisting our services on an ongoing basis.

Let’s do it all again!

By the end of last Steptember’s campaign (see what I did there?) our telemarketing efforts had raised almost $15 for each dollar the Society spent with us. That equals 53% of their total Steptember revenue for 2017.

While we’re always happy to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, we credit the success of Steptember in NZ to the Society’s ability to look beyond their year-by-year success. They accurately measured the results of their marketing activities and saw how they could continue the fundraising momentum gained through previous telemarketing efforts. And they built on it.

As I said, they’re smart – you can Steptember

Takeaway

“It’s easier to grow your business by building on existing success. And if you’re not successful to start with, then find better a better toolkit.”

And you can quote me on that.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

PS: If you’d like to give the Cerebral Palsy Society of NZ a helping hand then step right up! You can make a donation here, or preregister your interest for Steptember

 

You’re busy. But when your phone rings you answer cheerfully (as the effects of the recent holiday haven’t worn off yet).

Then it happens.

‘Hi ! This is Jane Doe from ABC Ltd, and I’m part of the Super-Duper Saving Team. Would you like to get the best price every time you shop, without having to shop around? With our Super-Duper Savings exclusive membership, you will save…’

You’re a) surprised she’s called you on your mobile, must talk to receptionist about giving out that number, b) vaguely irritated she used your first name to presume acquaintance with you, and c) really annoyed that you couldn’t even get a word in edgeways before she started or during her sales spiel.

And that holiday feeling just wore off. If you’re nice, you’ll say ‘thanks for calling, but I’m not interested’ and say goodbye. However, if you’re like most of us, you’ll just hang up.

This type of call is why we disassociate ourselves from telemarketers who provide ‘cold calling’ services. We specialise in lead generation, and we’re a whole different kettle of fish.

Why we’re not cold callers

There’s an art to successfully calling and initiating a positive relationship with someone who is, let’s face it, a total stranger

If their first perception is that you’re a telemarketer reading a script at full speed, you’ve lost an opportunity. And in all likelihood, you won’t win back any lost ground during the course of the call (even if you’re not hung up on).

But it’s not all about the script delivery. This is why we’re so much more effective than the old style ‘cold calling’ telemarketers.

  1. We leverage our professional sales and business experience to call prospects without sounding like cookie cutter telemarketers. We break down inherent barriers by being instantly warm, empathetic and professional – and by listening, not just talking.
  2. We’re trained to call strangers. We not only know the right things to say, but we also know what we’re talking about. As part of our campaign training we learn about the pain points your prospect is experiencing, and how to use this information to engage their attention and interest.
  3. We use scripts. But they are only guidelines, not a stream of words that gives your prospect no opportunity to become involved, and gets their back up and the phone down. We have natural, flowing and intelligent conversations – the sort of high-value exchange of information that well-targeted prospective customers rarely hang up on.
  4. We make sure that your campaign messaging meets your market profile. If your value proposition is missing the mark, we proactively come back to you to discuss how we can achieve higher conversion rates by trying alternative approaches.

Win-win-win!

After a good call, everyone walks away happy.

Your prospect feels as though they have learned something of value that they can act on to benefit their business or themselves. You achieve a higher conversion rate, resulting in a more compelling ROI on your lead generation campaign investment.

And we have done what comes naturally to us, which makes us feel great. High-five!

lisa@hotleads.co.nz

Meet John. He wants to do a telemarketing campaign. He’s never done one before; he’s not even sure if it’s going to work. But he wants to do it right now, and most definitely on the cheap. So, he’s going to organise it himself.

Let’s think of John’s telemarketing campaign in terms of a running a race. An event which generally requires training, strategy, and commitment.

On your mark, John

First off, John has to procure a list which will be a goldmine of up-to-date contacts, and all their details.

John’s going to: 

a. Use that old spreadsheet list. He’s not sure how old the list is, and what permissions are in place for its use. To be honest, John doesn’t really know which companies are still around, if the same people work there – or sadly if they are even alive.

b. Purchase a list from someone who just won’t stop spamming him. Hey, it didn’t cost much so nothing to lose.

c. Extract a prospect/client list from the CRM or finance software. No-one has actually kept it current, but he reckons it can be updated on the go.

Get set, John 

Then, he needs to put together his team. The people who will represent his business and his brand to the world. How will he source them?

He’s going to:

a. Look around the office to identify who doesn’t seem to be busy and start there. Perhaps his receptionist could make calls, or he could get a high school or university student in over the holidays or after class? And he or his sales guy could write a script.

b. Outsource the calls. He’s heard about a contractor/company who offers very keen prices. He’s not quite sure where they’re based, or how good they are. But does it really matter as long as they call everyone on the list? It’s a numbers games, he reckons, so the odds are they have to make some wins.

And go, John, go!

John’s got his list, and his team, but then there’s the campaign strategy. He wants to generate sales and appointments.

So, what to offer them?

a. Everything! The perfect prospect will want to know all about what John’s business does and buy every product and service he offers. Or at the least be interested enough to listen to a long call to find the one thing that could be of interest. Yeah, right.

b. A super-hot price or giveaway. How about a cut-throat, never to be repeated offer? Sound too good to be true?

c. Sell ice to Eskimos. Can never have enough, right? And don’t forget, it’s a numbers game, so the telemarketer will have to strike it lucky eventually.

The after-race party

Well, we can guarantee that John won’t make the after-race party. He’ll barely get off the starting block. And his takeaway lesson (the one he will share with everyone who cares to listen): Telemarketing doesn’t work.

Post-race analysis

John is doomed to fail. Without a decent list he’s wasting time and effort. With poor quality and/or inadequately trained low-cost resources his prospects won’t engage. And by not thinking through an offer carefully tailored to his target market, the campaign conversion rate will be low. Instead of saving, he will waste time, money and effort doing a lousy job.

You know where I’m going with this. The results you get from telemarketing are dependent on the investment you make. And that isn’t just a financial investment, but doing the research and planning to make every campaign a winning one.

In a nutshell

Give the task to us; you’ll get a different outcome! We’re fleet of foot, nimble and always get to the end in great time! And we leave the Johns of this world to eat our dust.

lisa@hotleads.co.nz