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.

However, there are a number of problems that start to arise if your technique is to start calling number from a phone book. In this article we'll look at some of the main reasons why you shouldn't be using the yellow pages for your telemarketing campaign.

It's not efficient

Employing someone to crawl through the phone book and call every number they come across is a very old fashioned way of running a telemarketing campaign. Why not make the most of modern technology and advancements in telemarketing? Calling from the yellow pages is a very hit-and-miss way of finding who your target market is.

Sourcing your data from a reliable provider is a lot more efficient and takes less time. If you know the demographics of your target market then you can search by these. It could be the number of employees, turnover, industry etc. Finding the data only takes seconds then all you have to do is call the numbers.

If you know the SIC code of the industry you're targeting you can do a really quick search for all businesses that match your search. For example, if your target market is accountants you can search for all business either nationwide or within a certain distance of your business.

Data might be TPS registered

If you're calling all the numbers in the yellow pages, chances are a lot of them will be on the TPS register. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in a telemarketing campaign because you do risk a £5,000 fine. Can your business really afford paying £5k for a simple mistake than can be easily avoided?

Your campaign might not succeed

Ultimately you need to be running a successful campaign that has good conversion rates. If you're targeting your ideal target market then conversion rates will be higher. On the other hand, if you're calling up random businesses, there's no targeting.

Having a successful campaign will reach your businesses goals quicker. If you want to increase sales to increase turnover, a successful campaign will allow your business to make more money. If you want to recruit more staff to expand your business, a successful campaign will allow you to do that.

If you need help sourcing data for a telemarketing campaign, or would like to find out more about outsourcing your telesales, drop us a line or visit our main website, Virtual Sales Limited.