|
|
This is a long established direct marketing tool, mainly in B2B situations. Much routine reordering can be handled over the telephone without the need for an expensive personal visit. The telephone is used to keep in touch with customers between visits. It can be used to make ‘cold call’ appointments and re-appointments with established clients. In consumer markets it is now used extensively and has grown in importance as a marketing tool. Services like banking are offered over the telephone and customers can give instructions to pay bills and receive a balance on their account using special access codes.
Telephone marketing is divided into incoming and outgoing call telemarketing. With incoming call telemarketing the prospect makes the call to the marketing firm, usually in response to a direct mail advertisement or direct response television advertisement giving a free phone or toll free telephone number. Hence, telemarketing is often used with other direct marketing tools as a part of an integrated programme. The caller may wish to sign up to a service such as insurance, apply for a loan over the telephone, order a product seen on the television or in a direct response advertisement or ask for further details. The call is logged. The caller is followed up with an outgoing telephone call later, or sent information through the post. A personal visit might be arranged for example from a kitchen surveyor. Outgoing telephone marketing may simply be the return of an incoming call. Often existing customers are telephoned to ask if they want to take advantage of a special offer. For example, if a loan has been taken out with a finance company by a good customer, the firm may ring that customer to offer another loan at a special discount rate. A bank may telephone a customer to ask if they would like to make an appointment at the branch to have their house borrowing reviewed or discuss house insurance.
Often telemarketing involves making telphone calls to individuals in their own homes or businesses which are unsolicited. The marketer has not obtained or even sought the customer’s permission to call and usually has had no previous contact with the customer. This is referred to as cold calling and is often outsourced to specialist call centres. This type of telephone selling can cause annoyance to some customers and many believe it is intrusive and should be outlawed. This has led some countries to introduce legislation including fines. In the USA, a national ‘do-not-call’ list came into effect in 2003 and it is now illegal for telemarketers, who are fined, if they call anyone who has registered themselves on the list. After one year over 62 million people in the USA had signed up. The telemarketing industry is opposed the creation of such lists as it restricts their commercial activities.
Jobber and Lancaster8 cite a set of guidelines that have been suggested by Bell Telephone Systems of America in relation to best practice for this type of telemarketing, particularly in B2B situations, as follows:
Like direct mail, telemarketing has developed something of a poor image. As already mentioned, many householders and businesses resent unsolicited telephone calls to sell something. As we have discussed, there are codes of practice in the industry regarding the use of this tool, but the more unscrupulous telemarketers can legitimately be accused of pestering customers in their own homes. Despite these problems and criticisms, telemarketing’s importance as a marketing tool is underlined by a growth rate, in the UK at least of approximately 20 per cent per year over the past ten years. The advantages of telemarketing include easy and widespread access to customers in their own homes or offices; low cost per contact compared to personal selling; and the ability to contact customers outside normal shopping hours.
When setting up a telemarketing system staff must be recruited and suitably trained. In addition, suitable equipment and software packages must be acquired, and in the first instance many newcomers to telemarketing use agencies at least as the first step.
Companies can exploit the telephone as a marketing tool in a number of ways:
If they do not ring to make a purchase, they may telephone for further information, which in turn produces a qualified lead for further marketing action. The above list is not exhaustive, but it serves to demonstrate how versatile the telephone can be as a direct marketing tool. As we have seen, the use of the telephone is still growing as a marketing tool and advances in technology and the linking of the telephone to television and the Internet is bringing further developments, thus making it an even more important marketing medium.
|
|
Marketing Management Related Tutorials |
|
---|---|
Consumer Behaviour Tutorial | Marketing Strategy Tutorial |
Marketing Research Tutorial | Principles of service marketing management Tutorial |
Advertising Management Tutorial |
All rights reserved © 2020 Wisdom IT Services India Pvt. Ltd
Wisdomjobs.com is one of the best job search sites in India.