It wasn’t all the long ago that the telephone was an advertisers go to item. It has lost a little flair and customers are a little bit less accepting to marketing over the phone. There are a few reasons for this; overseas call centres, persistent (harassing) techniques, perceived invasion of privacy, etc.
It’s a pretty grim picture really.
So that’s the negatives out of the way. Now let’s looks at advantages of phone marketing.
- All the big players do it.
- Results are immediate.
- 100 successful calls provide the same information of 1000 mail outs.
- True emotional feedback.
- Cheapest feedback loop.
- Ideal to test new concepts or services.
Phone based marketing, especially in a B2B environment can provide significant advantages over other marketing techniques. And it’s the B2B space that phone marketing is best suited to now. Unless there is a call to action, paper based marketing in this space is at best a slow feedback loop. The greater the number of gatekeepers in front of your intended recipient the greater the chance that it will not reach its mark. Phone marketing is not a universal tool, but in the right environment and with the right end products it quickly can become the most cost effective tool in the shed.