Teleprospecting Programs and the Value Hidden Within
Budgeting can be a stressful endeavor no matter what your role is. Marketing budgets seem to be a particularly good example of this.
In my experience there are a number of factors that go into setting and allocating money for marketing programs over the course of a quarter/year. (I am by no means an expert on this subject).
With that on the table one thing that I hear a number of my clients say as they prepare and submit budgeting requests is "I am in the process of putting together my budget for the year and I am taking a look at what programs had a strong ROI and what programs led directly to revenue for the organization".
When an integrated marketing plan is in place there are obliviously a number of channels that are explored for promoting brand awareness, enhancing customer experience, generating and qualifying leads for sales to follow-up on etc. This is everything from targeted whitepapers, webinars, tradeshows, teleprospecting programs, etc.
From my perspective, teleprospecting, when run correctly, can provide extremely valuable insight for both your organization and your budgeting allocation process.
Teleprospecting is generally viewed as a great vehicle to move marketing qualified leads (MQL's) that have been generated to Sales Qualified Leads (SQL's) for sales to engage with. I completely agree with this viewpoint. But I do want to draw attention to another very important element that sometimes can be lost when evaluating teleprospecting ROI - Market Intelligence.
When you are running a teleprospecting program not only should you be getting fully qualified sales opportunities to deliver to sales, but you should be receiving a series of reports that will provide insight into your target market, the competitive landscape that exists, the objections that are being raised in reaction to your value proposition, and the list could go on. Your primary objective with this investment is to convert MQL's to SQL's, but with all the outbound activity and touch points that teleprospecting has with your market, the return can grow exponentially as you digest and analyze the data that is being captured and reported on.
This data should be fed back to you on a weekly basis to help hone/enhance your conversions of MQL to SQL. It is also crucial that it is leveraged to help in the development of your integrated marketing plans and help you allocate budget where you will receive the biggest bang for your buck.