The first day of Prospect Research

Eight years ago, I cut a ribbon across the door of my spare bedroom in my London flat, sat down at my Argos desk and started calling.  The start of Prospect Research was not the grandest of affairs, but it was the beginning of creating outsourced B2B telemarketing and market research services that has helped hundreds of companies achieve their sales targets.

Things have moved on a bit from then.  The team now offer a whole spectrum of business development services, and we’re looking forward to an exciting 2012.  But what have we kept from the ethos of that first day?

Well, I hope that we have kept the personal touch for our clients.  Lots of the companies that we work for have outsourced to big call centres before, and come to us being disheartened with telemarketing.  There’s lots of great telemarketing companies out there, but the main complaint that we hear is a lack of communication between them and their clients.  Days of no contact, while the telemarketing bill gets bigger.

I hope that’s where we stand out.  We like to operate as an extension of our clients’ sales team. It works just as well for us as it does for them if our work is intrinsically linked to their sales targets, other marketing strategies and their understanding of what a great sales opportunity looks like.

So as we all blow out the candles on another cake (which is becoming quite a fire hazard as we get older), I look forward to another year of working with some great sales and marketing teams.  Maybe next year will see an upgrade from the Argos desk…!

Chris Walthew

Managing Director, Prospect Research a b2b telemarketing company

Clear and measurable objectives need to be established as a starting pointing, what represents success and how this can be judged against spend:

• How many appointments are you looking to generate?
• Over what period (i.e. per month)?
• What constitutes a good appointment?
• What information does your telemarketing team need to gather?

It is then necessary to identity the most appropriate method for tracking your spend. Are you looking to run a test period for a fixed fee? Or would you prefer a fixed daily rate?

Once these measurement criteria are in place, measuring ROI becomes fairly straightforward. You may wish to look at the number of appointments generated per day, or per number of phone calls.

Measuring the ROI on your B2B telemarketing provides strong, substantial data and creates a feedback loop for your overall strategy – creating a strong foundation for future activity.

My name is Isabella, and today I’ve taken the day off from my GCSE year at school to see and experience the world of work. The Godolphin School have been running a programme that gives 14 to 15 year olds a chance to experience what work is like. In my age group, this year is incredibly important for our futures; we’re half way through the most important exams of our lives so far and later this year we’ll all have to be looking at what colleges offer the A-levels we want to take. The problem is, many of us have no idea what we want from life- what job we want, some of us don’t know if we want to go to university or not. So having a day observing what kind of things happen at work, really gives me a chance to think about what sort of thing I want to go into.

The programme my school runs is called ‘Take my daughter to work day’. Obviously, the idea is that one parent takes their daughter (I go to a girl’s school) to their workplace for a day. However, my dad works In Africa at the moment, soon to be working in Denmark, and my mum working in small jobs wherever he goes. So today I’ve gone up to Cambridge to go to work with some relatives who own a telemarketing company called ‘Prospect Research’. Today I hope to gain as much experience as I can about what a job involves. I’ll be interviewing a few people and asking them how they got to the job, like what degrees they took for example, and hopefully this will give me an insight on what path I want to take.

I have just been able to sit in on a meeting between two of the main people in the company. They were talking about targets over the next six months, and how much marketing they should do to achieve their goal. 50% of Prospects Research’s company is working with colleges and universities offering courses and staff training for companies. For example, if a university was doing a course for dentistry, they would ring up different practices seeing if they would want to send staff on the course. In the meeting, they were talking about using the social networking site ‘linked in’ to connect to clients-to send messages and surveys to collect information. They also use bulk email which can tell them who opened the email and clicked on the links so they can prioritize who to ring up and offer their services.

Next I interviewed one of the Account Directors called Jan about her experience in work and how she got to her current job. It was really interesting to see what jobs she had been at, and how she moved from job to job and why. It really taught me that experience counts for a lot in work. Learning by watching others, and learning important skills through experience is just as important as anything else when you want to progress. It was interesting to see how much her experience had helped her, and how she picked up lots of skills by shadowing people and learning from what they did.

Find out more about business development with Prospect Research by visiting www.prospectresearch.co.uk

This 10-step guide to outsourcing your telemarketing is designed to be a checklist to ensure that your telemarketing, if you choose to outsource, is as effective as possible. The best telemarketing is often done by companies that fully understand your market, your product/service and your sales objectives, so this guide outlines various issues that you should talk through with the telemarketing company you choose to use. This will ensure that all areas of your campaign are properly planned.

http://www.prospectresearch.co.uk/10-step-guide-to-outsourcing-telemarketing

Three areas need to be considered:

• Checking against CTPS – this seemingly obvious error can be the difference between a successful campaign and one which damages your business’ reputation and potentially results in a fine of up to £5,000

• Reliability of data – good, reputable data providers make it their business to ensure their lists are accurate and up-to-date, which saves your company time and money in making costly errors and chasing non-existent leads

• Suitability of data – a professional telemarketing organisation knows how to take a list and tailor it to your individual success criteria. Creating a list that is right first time can reduce your sales lead time dramatically.

Work with your UK telemarketing company to find the right data for your business. A good UK telemarketing company will be able to steer you to the right provider for you.

Good data cleansing will ensure this information is valid and up-to-date, and also presents an opportunity to obtain any secondary level data you need. 

Start by establishing what you need from your lead data; keep it relevant and user-friendly. Think about the information you absolutely must have in order to get in touch with the right people, for example:

·         Full name

·         Job Title

·         Telephone number

·         Address (for follow-up mailing)

·         Email address

·         Website (for research)

Data cleansing can be a lengthy, time-consuming process, however vital if your marketing activity is to remain successful. Working with strong, complete and accurate data improves your campaign’s chances of success. 

Contract renewal dates, competitor intelligence and current market ‘pull’ for your service can all be captured, giving you a greater understanding of your customers, or potential customers.

Fully managed outsourced appointment setting uses a team with a strong understanding of your business to do the time-consuming bit – making the calls, chipping away to speak to the right person, and booking sales appointments into your team’s diaries.

Before you embark on telemarketing appointment setting it is important to clarify your objectives:

• What makes a good appointment?
• What information does your sales team need to be fully prepared before their meetings?
• What needs to happen before a sales meeting to create a better chance of success?

You and your team set the standard, and as long as you’re clear about what you are looking for, the result is a diary of appointments of the caliber and profile your business needs.

Ultimately your B2B telemarketing strategy is about getting in front of the right people. Keep your sales team doing what they do best – leave the rest up to an experienced appointment setting team who are committed to finding you the right sales leads to the right people.

Research the market thoroughly

Find out about any previous campaigns the company has worked on and whether they are already familiar with your market. Ask for recommendations from other businesses that have successfully used telemarketing companies.

Choose the right team

A good UK telemarketing company employs senior, well-trained staff. Make sure you meet with them face-to-face, if they make a good impression on you, chances are they will do the same to your clients.

Good match with your business?

Look for their understanding of your objectives. The best companies will ask many questions and want to learn as much as possible about your business so that they can confidently communicate your message as well as any member of your team.

Their approach to telemarketing

Do they use a call structure, to ensure that the right questions are asked, and the right areas are covered to properly qualify a lead? Do you share a common understanding of the role of lead generation and what constitutes a qualified lead? And finally, what are their recording mechanisms for leads and appointments?

Lead generation is the introduction service of the business world. It gives you a list of business prospects that know who you are, what you do and how you can benefit their business. In turn, you can be confident that the people you are meeting represent a strong business opportunity for your company.

A carefully profiled approach ensures every contact you receive is classified as a suitable match for your business – which makes your sales pipeline much more cost-effective and shortens the overall process significantly.

There are real benefits in other areas too – especially within B2B marketing. Lead generation can actively strengthen your telemarketing by cleansing your data, ensuring the contacts in your list are more closely profiled and resulting in the right message getting to the right person at the right time.

So how does market research address this?

Customers- Who are they? What are their business drivers? What issues affect their industry? What legislation/regulations are they governed by? What are their purchasing cycles?

Existing Customers- what are you doing well? Where could you improve your service? Look at your potential customers – where have they experienced excellent value? Who delivered it? What would it take to make them switch suppliers?

Brand– what is your recall? What do people know about your company, or think they know? What is your market position?

Competition- what do they do well? What do they do badly? How does their offering compare to yours? What opportunities are out there?

Through telephone calls, online surveys, customer satisfaction questionnaires and focus groups, market research can effectively create the basis for your company’s entire strategic direction.

Read about how Prospect Research helps companies understand their target market better, and increase their sales.