By Ian Heslop – Account Director, The Verdi Group, Inc.
B2B telemarketing is almost always an effective way to generate leads. In more than two decades of involvement in telemarketing programs—as an agent, as a team manager, as a program manager, on the agency side as a production manager, and currently as an account director at The Verdi Group—I have rarely seen a telemarketing program that did not produce qualified B2B leads.
But the programs that really pay off in terms of ROI (for very different businesses)—programs that are continually funded and refunded because of their success—have a number of things in common that contribute to their results.
Successful programs always start with a program brief.
The brief states the goals, the quantitative objectives, and the conditions for success; includes a specific definition of a lead; and articulates how the program will be measured. The brief sets expectations and identifies potential obstacles.
The brief may be quite extensive or take up only a few paragraphs on a single page, but it will identify: