Laying the groundwork of an effective campaign after you have chosen your new telemarketing partner

1. Laying the groundwork of an effective campaign after you have chosen your new telemarketing partner Choosing the right telemarketing partner is quite a taxing task albeit the most important one. This company will bear the burden of your expectation of achieving your marketing goals quickly and efficiently. This relationship will always start with a briefing session which would be attended by the key marketing people of your company and the key account managers of the telemarketing company. You are expected to communicate all the goals of your marketing objective and define the parameters of success. The telemarketing company is expected to set the ground rules of the campaign and the pre- requisites at their end, which they should be able to access during this interaction meeting itself after having understood your marketing objectives. This effectively means that you should deploy all your key marketing people for the briefing meeting. This gives you the best chance of communicating all the expectations effectively since everyone would pitch in with their ideas creating a reservoir of expectations. You would then be able to discuss the next steps which revolve around alignment of strategy based on all the idea inputs and setting the expectations. This helps you eliminate any conflicting thoughts within your own organization and bring everyone on the same page. It also avoids a situation where your telemarketing partner is thrown a curve ball at a later stage in the campaign if a clash of vision is discovered at a later stage at your end. Remember that not all companies have the same style of working and hence the briefing meeting would help your marketing team adapt to their methods. The most important step after the initial sizing up of each other is to get down to the brass tacks. This involves a more detailed discussion on all the aspects discussed above. Your new telemarketing partner has to be given a full low down on the product or service they shall need to market. The unique selling points need to be emphasized along with a summative assessment of the industry that you operate in. You also need to define the key pieces of information that need to be imparted to each prospect over every call. This is priceless since it would help the telemarketing team to perk up the interests of many prospects. It is also important to give them a heads up on your competition so that they can be ready with responses incase a conversation with a prospect leads to some form of comparison. This is a very essential aspect since the whole objective of the campaign revolves around the marketing of your product and service which cannot be done if the telemarketing team does not fully grasp its essence. The targets of the campaign also need to be discussed thread bare. The criteria’s of a good prospect need to be explained along with a clear brief on what would constitute a conversion. This ensures that the campaign reaches out to the correct demographics and ensures minimal uninterested calls. You would also need to define the information that needs to be gathered from the prospect over each call. This is important because it would leave you with a wealth of information that would have immense use even long after the campaign is over. As discussed above, although it is important to have as many key marketing people as possible, involved in the briefing discussions you need to eventually provide the telemarketing company a single point of contact for all communication during the campaign. This ensures that the information that gets passed on is funneled and precise. The last thing you want to do is let many different people in your company

2. talk to the telemarketing company as it would end up in creating a situation where a lot of conflicting insights are being given. This is a sure recipe for disaster and has the potential to derail the campaign. The success or failure of a campaign is effectively charted in the reports that you would eventually receive. The format of this report should be well thought and tailor made to suit the needs at your end. The reporting templates need to be reviewed at your end to ensure that it consist of all the fields that you are looking to capture. Ensure that the reports can give your marketing department a clear insight into the return on investment with minimal effort and without having to do too much number crunching. This groundwork would ensure that you have put your best foot forward and laid the ideal foundation for the campaigns success.