Which to choose: Telemarketing or email marketing?
The trend of lead generations had transformed markedly with the evolution of technology over the past years. The principal behind lead generation remains unchanged, it is tomake ways to boost your product or service awareness among consumers. It can be done via multiple ways and the current best practices are constantly in flux.
Leads can be generated online via email but still a lot of companies are still executing telemarketing as their first point of contact. The remaining questions are what are the differences between telemarketing and email marketing, and more importantly which one is better?
Things to be considered before using telemarketing
There are a lot of companies that are still currently using telemarketing as part of their marketing strategy to boost the business sales. It was done by promoting the company’s products or services through phone calls to existing customers or even to random strangers. But time has changed and customer’s mindset has evolved, here’s a few reasons why telemarketing could be a bad idea.
There is no prior consent obtained from the call receiver. In other words, the company does not have the rights to just simply call the random people. It is considered an invasive form of communication, especially when there is no prior contact or relationship between the caller and call receiver. Hence, it is unlikely to generate consumer’s interest in the promoted product or services and it turns out wasting the company’s resources and effort.
Majority of the prospect might not hear or know your product before, telemarketers will need to spend extra time for further explanations, thus decreasing in productivity.
It could easily violate the rules of The Privacy And Electronics Communications Regulations (PECR) resulting in lawsuits and unnecessary legal issues.
You can end up in voicemail
Calling prospects at random times might end up interrupting their busy schedule and lose interest quickly. It could leave your company’s a bad reputation among the consumers.
The root of the above issues is mainly due to no actual consent or permission was taken from the consumers before calling. Consumers are well aware of their rights and it is crucial to apply permission based marketing strategy instead. Hence is email marketing strategy better?
Why choose email marketing strategy?
It will take time and effort to get a prospect’s email address. It can be obtained through promotional events, membership registration, roadshows and many more. Once you have them, it is a way better option as an initial reach out for prospects due to:
It is proven statistically that email marketing is likely to generate positive responses from prospects compared to telemarketing.
As long as your emails are on point and are sent to real potential customers, it is likely to engage with them in the initial conversation.
It is easier to convey your message; it is clear and customisable with emails.You also can make your emails shine with designing the subject headers, types of font used and content.
You get to follow up with prospects quickly if there are no responses. Unlike spam calls, it is likely to get responses on a second outreach point.
These are the few brief benefits of using email marketing strategy. Still could not make up your mind? Ask yourself this: Would you rather receive out of the blue calls or well created emails promoting items that are relevant to you?
You can also go for the combined strategy, which is to execute both the email marketing strategy and telemarketing simultaneously. It can result in a much higher business conversion rate compared to a single tactic. But remember, phone only to customers with high potential and make sure to keep the conversation direct, short and sweet!