The telephone is one of the most effective media for marketing. 

Salespeople consistently report achieving better results when they can speak to a lead directly. 

This is backed up by the numbers at most organizations. However, many organizations find that their outbound calling efforts are not sufficiently effective, and their inbound calls are not frequent enough.

Fortunately, you can make some changes to improve your outbound calling campaigns. With the right strategy, you can empower your sales team to take more initiative and increase your sales.

Calls Are Best Served Hot

First and foremost, it is important to understand that even if you are running an outbound campaign, the leads should be hot and qualified, not cold. While cold calling may have its place in some organizations’ marketing mixes, it simply isn’t that effective. In many cases, it is a waste of time and resources.

Your lead generation techniques should focus on generating qualified leads. Furthermore, your sales team should be following up on those leads promptly. Time is the enemy of sales.

In a sense, your outbound campaign should be an extension of your inbound marketing efforts. Draw leads in and qualify them, then your sales team can reach out. Don’t think of them as separate channels!

When To Call Cool (But Not Cold) Leads

You may have some leads that have cooled off but were qualified and interested at some previous point. For example, you may have someone who previously bought from you but hasn’t recently. This is an especially significant pool for subscription services. People who have canceled a subscription may be good targets for your outbound campaign.

Additionally, if someone requested information previously and was unreachable or decided that it wasn’t the right time, that can serve as a cool lead. Whenever your flow of new, hot leads slows down, you can draw from this pool of cool leads to try and reignite them. This can help keep your sales team busy, and converting.

A Well-Prepared Team Makes All the Difference

If you have an experienced sales team, you are in good shape. However, it isn’t always possible to be entirely staffed with veterans. Creating a strong training program to prepare your people to sell effectively on the phone is a good idea.

Even if you are bringing in people with experience, they may not be familiar with the common objections raised for your products or services. Preparing them to respond to these key objections is an excellent way to improve the efficiency of your outbound calls. They will convert more sales when they are able to anticipate concerns that leads may raise.

It’s All About Measurement

Ultimately, the right strategy for your business will be different from your competitors. The most important technique for optimizing your campaigns is to measure them.

If you have strong measurement techniques, you can make well-informed decisions. Chances are that you are implementing measurement in your other marketing channels. You are likely already tracking your phone sales as well. Try to find additional metrics to track and establish your key performance indicators.

With these in hand, you will be able to run A/B tests and other techniques to optimize your campaign. You can adjust everything from call scripts to lead qualification questions. You’ll gradually be able to hone in on the details that work best for your brand.

Techniques for Measuring Success

Many teams struggle with identifying good data points for their outbound call campaign. It may seem like either a lead converts or they don’t. However, there are some finer points that can be measured. These are the three main categories of performance analytics for calls:

• Contact List: When you generate leads for your sales team to call, you want those leads to be high-quality. They should be qualified and hot. If you are calling the wrong people or have inaccurate details, you are going to struggle. So, the first point to measure is how accurately you are qualifying leads and capturing their information.
• Dialing Effectiveness: The second aspect to measure is whether you are getting through to the right people at the right time. Some calls may reach your leads at times when they aren’t receptive. If you are getting a lot of requests to call back later, that is an indication that your timing isn’t right. You also want to make sure your phone system isn’t getting in the way of calls.
• Conversion Data: Finally, when you have someone on the phone and conversing, you need to measure how effective your team is at converting them. If they are getting through to interested leads and not converting, you have a problem you need to resolve.

The simple way to measure these categories is to tag your reasons for call failure. A successful call was a success on all fronts (although you can get bonus points for identifying issues that were overcome!). However, a failed call didn’t work out for a reason. Keep track of those reasons and you can determine where in the sales funnel your leads are dropping off.

Always Be Ready on Inbound Calls

One of the best ways to ensure that your outbound campaign always has qualified leads is to always be ready for inbound calls. If you are letting callers go to voicemail or ring for too long, you are missing out on qualified and interested leads.

Plan your phone processes so that callers can always speak to a real person. This first interaction can be as simple as qualifying the lead and getting callback information for the sales team. However, just letting the call go is a huge missed opportunity.

Of course, not every organization has the in-house resources to provide 24/7 responses. Fortunately, you can turn to an outside solution to help.

Empower Your Phone Marketing With HelloSells

HelloSells is a 24/7 lead qualification service. 

We provide valuable services and features including 24/7 lead response, appointment scheduling, form response and click-to-call. Explore our solutions to see if we can help your business improve its inbound and outbound phone marketing processes. 

Call us at 800-550-4955 to speak with a representative and learn more about how we can empower your business.