Telemarketing is one of the most effective methods of push marketing. It's an positive way of selling which gets high response rates. However, to make the campaign successful you need to gain the interest of your caller within the first 8 seconds. It's only when they're interested that they'll actually listen to what you have to offer them.

So you need to have a well rehearsed and strong elevator pitch. This pitch needs to capture the recipient's imagination within 8 seconds, otherwise the phone will simply be put down and you've missed out on a sale. If you go on for more than 8 seconds the recipient will get bored and possibly stop listening.

When running your telemarketing campaign it needs to be as effective as possible. A lot of the technique comes down to how the recipient perceives you on the phone. You want to come across naturally, friendly and polite. There's nothing worse than sounding like a robot reading from a script!

The problem is when you read from a script, your brain starts to process your speech slightly differently. This is immediately picked up by anyone that's listening and you start to sound a bit robotic; slightly mechanical. If the recipient doesn't like the sound of the phone call, they'll just put the phone down and you've lost a potential sale.

When running your own business it's tempting to try and manage everything on your own. That way you know everything's being done properly and you feel confident that everything's problem free and running smoothly. However, outsourcing parts of your business can leave you with more time to expand the business.

Any business needs sales coming through the door. It's the life blood of the business and without the sales; the business would simply cease trading. So it's important to maintain a regular flow of clients to keep the business afloat. But you may be ruining your sales funnel by managing the whole marketing process single handed.

A telemarketing campaign needs to have one clear goal. That goal could be to increase sales, increase customer database, conduct market research, find more staff or any other reason. When one of these goals is achieved it's logged as a conversion, a successful result. With these clear goals and conversions you can begin your telemarketing campaign.

Now you have a clear goal you also need to start sourcing the data; the list of names and numbers you're going to call. If you're on a budget you might be tempted to pick up the yellow pages and start calling from page one. Even in some larger corporations it's still mandatory for new starters in a campaign to start calling from page one of the phone book.

When running a telemarketing campaign the most important part is the data. The businesses and people you're calling are the ones that will ultimately result in sales. It's the reason you're running the campaign in the first place; to produce results. Sales, leads, market research or whatever your goal for the campaign might be.

To ensure your telemarketing campaign is a success you need to source the right data. If the numbers you call are out of date, incorrect or not your target market then you're wasting time. The right data will affect your conversion rates and can make the campaign completely successful.

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