You answer the phone, there's a brief pause on the line, then a friendly voice says your name, and asks how you are before launching into a sales pitch. You've just been called by a telemarketer, someone who has been hired to sell a product or service. As a small business owner, you might have thought about hiring a telemarketing service, or hiring telemarketers to make those calls on your behalf.
Telemarketing can be a quick and effective way to increase sales.
Telemarketing has been around for many years but is becoming increasingly sophisticated thanks to technology and research. Buyers of telemarketing services can have callers target a specific audience based on a demographic profile, potential customers known to have used similar products or services, or those who live in a specific geographic area. Telemarketing services offer a variety of technology that assist in making the operation efficient and effective. Other technology allows telemarketing representatives to handle both inbound and outbound calls. And telemarketing services also have the capability of giving their clients detailed information about such things as the number of contacts per hour, the cost of the service per sale, cost per hour, revenue per hour and list penetration.