An extremely interesting article on the efficacy of telemarketing from a survey of American professionals shows telemarketing is one of the most powerful B2B lead generation tools.
The most effective methods for generating B2B sales leads are outbound marketing (telemarketing, virtual/remote sales), event marketing (tradeshows, webinars, and seminars), and online marketing (email newsletters, websites, search, and blogs), according to a recent report by InsideSales.com.
In the survey published just this week generating leads and improving the quality of those leads were rated as the biggest challenges faced in B2B marketing.
On the other hand, the B2B sales and marketing professionals surveyed rated social media as the least effective lead generation strategy. Among the top social networks, LinkedIn was rated the most effective tool, but it still barely reached above the bottom quartile in marketing method effectiveness.
There are probably some skewing as its an American survey e.g. they still rate “Trade shows” pretty highly whereas in this country good trade shows seem to be a dying breed.
Interestingly those surveyed where marketing pros savvy enough to understand that the quality of leads varies widely. It is pretty straightforward to get a barrel load of “leads” through the web and social media. Often we get asked to follow these up – quite regularly they are hopeless. Names on forms not much more. This is NOT what we at Broadley Speaking term a lead. For us to pass a sales lead on they have to be properly qualified – they are a buyer, with authority, need and the wish to fulfill it within a reasonable time.
Professional B2B telemarketing should enhance the brand and take the lead far further through the sales cycle than almost any other lead generation tool. Get in touch and ask us how.