Why is telemarketing expensive?

Telemarketing has long been known to be an effective marketing tool.

If you engage a telemarketing company, you can have a very targeted marketing campaign focusing on clients in a specific geographical area, a specific industry sector, or any other variable you can think of.

The problem is, telemarketing is not cheap.

Why is this, why is it that telemarketing is expensive?

Simple, there are a few reasons if you care to read on just a little further:

• Telemarketing takes time

Even if you have a list of (say 3,000) prospects, it will take time to contact each one, find the right person to talk to, pin them down in-between meetings  or being out of the office and then do a phone demonstration (or chat to them) and get a yes or no.

Sometimes it can take 7-8 attempts to reach a prospect (which for most people that are not used to telemarketing means frustration and time) which may just result in a 'no'.  Even more frustration as that is a lot of time - wasted.

• Finding the right person to do the telemarketing

If you are a telemarketing company, and you have a member of staff, you will have needed to find them.  Finding someone that will sit at a computer, making call after call after call to get results (for a customer) is not easy.  Most people (normal people) would get board and throw the towel in.  Many people do telemarketing as a stop gap or single parents as a bit of part time work.

Finding the right person to do telemarketing is not easy- so after a telemarketing company has spent time interviewing, trialling, firing - they then get someone good. 

They need to pay them, incentivise them and keep them motivated all the time.

If you consider the staff salary, plus bonuses, plus the cost of the telemarketing company - this is why they charge what they charge.

As with any form of marketing - if you want results, you do need to spend the money first.  You need to consider tasking the company, getting them to contact the prospects, chase them and collect results.

Results for telemarketing?

Bearing in mind the sales pipeline:

• Prospecting
• Initial contact
• Follow up
• Discussion
• Close

Results will take a minimum of 3 months to show (based on 1-2 days telemarketing per week) as you need to allow the telemarketing company to work their way through the sales pipeline above.

Many people expect that telemarketing company will work on a commission only basis however working on the concept above (finding staff, having the staff crunch the data) telemarketing companies need to charge.

Telemarketing prices do vary from telemarketing agency to telemarketing agency so it is always advised to look around and compare prices.

There are lots and lots of telemarketing companies in the UK (well over 600 actually) so there are lots to choose from.

Do you want a telemarketing company that knows you r industry?
Do you want a small bespoke telemarketing company?
Do you want a large call center?
Do you want inbound or outbound telemarketing?
Do you want a senior level telemarketer?

These are all questions that you need to have in mind before getting quotes and finding the right telemarketing company - that is not too expensive.