Telemarketing planning

If you are planning to use telemarketing for your business, you should determine whether you are operating in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) sales. The skills and expertise required to deal with each group are different.

You can either choose to conduct your own telemarketing campaigns or use a provider that offers B2B or B2C telemarketing services. When operating your own telemarketing operation, you need to be aware of the different characteristics and issues each group poses, and how this may affect your approach.

Considerations when running your own telemarketing operation
B2C companies usually:

run their business to sell a product
focus on sales turnovers rather than building customer relationships
look to get as much value from sales as possible
have a large target market
aim to create a brand identity to appeal to customers
use merchandising and point of purchase activities to increase sales
use ’emotional buying techniques’ to sell to customers – based on status, desire, or price
When dealing with B2B companies, you need to consider that they:

are usually relationship driven
aim to generate profits through repeated sales through returning customers
have a small and focused target market
create a ‘brand identity’ by building on personal relationships
use educational and awareness-building activities