Does telemarketing work to increase sales for a web host?

Would you have recommendations on good telemarketing firms?

Thanks!

Dan

Oh no it doesn't work.
I dislike telemarketting calls.

Originally posted by dmghosts
Does telemarketing work to increase sales for a web host?

Would you have recommendations on good telemarketing firms?

Thanks!

Dan

No. Why? telemarketer calls are very annoying. you don't like them. your customers won't like them. plus, they make you look desperate to who your calling. Out of 1000 calls, you may get 10 clients. Not worth it in my opinion. It sets a bad tone for your company. The best way to spread your company's name, is word of mouth, and customers comming back. I know, as an accountant, that my customers are loyal to me because I treat them right. I dont purchase advertising, or anything. I get my customers by word of mouth, and by my service.

Thank you for your comments. Are you speaking in terms of B2C type of telemarketing calls? I could see where you're coming from about B2C setups.

But would B2B hosting telemarketing calls actually work? Like offer reseller options?

Thanks,
Dan

while i've never been fond of telemarketers, (who is?) A LONG LONG time ago i did work for one. It does work, still works, and likely always will work.

Sure, maybe you'll only get 1 of 100 people you call. But that is actually really good. When I worked for one, the conversion was better than that, but I'm sure it depends on the product and the target market.

Seek out some firms that will work off commission. You calling 100 people a day (if you could do that many) will be a waste of your time that could be spent doing things more important.

However, a firm might have 50-100 or more people calling. IF each can do 100 calls, get 1 person to buy a plan, I think it might be worth it for all. You'll have to have a decent commission though.

Personal plans that might sell better likely won't be profitable enough for you, and not allow a large enough commission. Larger, more profitable packages will not sell well.

Maybe a tier system, a very cheap, very gimped personal plan.

100 megs
1 gig xfer
1 email
no cgi
no php
etc

Add cgi/php for an extra $2 per month
add 10 emails for an extra $1 per month
Blog or photo album hosting (pre-installed) for $1-$2 per month
add 4 gigs of xfer for $1-2
etc
etc

If you could get the average sale up to $10-12 per month, offer a commish of 2 months per sale and it might work. A good telemarketer with a decent plan might be able to sell more around 1 per hour on a predictive dialer system.

No, don't use telemarketing.

Telemarketing is generally annoying and usually you will not even get more than 5/1000 customers. The other 995 people will despise your company and be very annoyed.

Nice Post Shin.

It all depends on who you target.

Telemarketing does work, there is a reason many of the big business have/had done it for so many years. It puts leads/prospects in front of you daily.

In my research, and talking with several others that have done this, it seems as if your conversion % can range around the 1-5% area.

You have to remember to be courteous, professional, and don't badger them. If they ask for you not to call again, don't.

Target local small businesses in your area, it will also help if you offer more of a complete package for them... a way to get their business online and running

Thanks Taylor, thanks everyone. I appreciate your points. We're looking into telemarketing (B2B) to offer reseller packages. To save costs, we looked for outsourced outbound sales centers. Their offer is $10 to $12 per hour. Quota is to sell at least 1 reseller account at $250 to $500.

The question is not if one personally likes or dislikes telemarketing.... The question is it cost effective.... (it is a business question). Depending your price point and CPS --- I would think telemarketing can be very effective.

Telemarketing is great --- you know exactly what your Cost Per Sale is (CPS) --- If your cost is less than your desired CPS you can increase the campaign ---- if it is more you can modify it in a couple of days to see if some changes work ---- Once a good telemarketing campaign works for you it is extreamly predictable.

As a web host company you can market anywhere --- If you are in Springfield IL and don't want to hurt your image ---- call somewhere else in the US ----

First place you want to be if you are local is the local yellow pages right? But maybe as a startup company you missed the local cut-off and the new book does not come around for 9 months? Now what do you do?

All marketing tools are viable and work for certain buyers ---- never count on one media.

haha yea I just got telemarketed 10 minutes ago, its so hard to say no haha they talk and talk without stopping finally I was like I'm too busy, haha then they asked when I'm free, I'm like I dunno when I feel like it and hung up,

Its a okay way to get customers but the customers you do get, you may not totally want, I mean would you goto a business that harasses you at home? haha

Originally posted by dmghosts
Does telemarketing work to increase sales for a web host?

Would you have recommendations on good telemarketing firms?

Thanks!

Dan


About two years ago, someone from SBC Yahoo! called our house telling us about there new SBC Yahoo! DSL service plan (new at the time). This sales lady was extremely pursuadive and guess who my ISP is after two years now? Yeah, SBC Yahoo DSL! So personally it just depends on the representative, and if the listener is well... willing to listen, because most have been harrassed for years and do not listen to any offers. So in a way it can, yet it's a high chance the listener will hangup.

This is just from my experience.

With more and more people signing up with do-not-call lists telemarketing might be less successful. I personally would stay away from it. I see it as verbal SPAM. And SPAM is bad (it might be successful to a certain point but it gives you a bad reputation).

No for B2C, yes for B2b.

For business calls, the conversion ratios are suprisingly very good. I used to get 1 in 20 offer me a lead, and 1 in 3 complete the sale.

Everyone hates telemarketing...but all of the major phone companies do it. Why? Because it works.

--Tina

When a telemarketer calls my house, I tell them I'm busy and to give me there home phone number and I'll call them back. ;) Also, did you know, telemarketers can now call your cell phones?! Thats bs. I got rid of my home phone to stop those calls, now there calling my cell phone.

:angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

Originally posted by arxor
When a telemarketer calls my house, I tell them I'm busy and to give me there home phone number and I'll call them back. ;) Also, did you know, telemarketers can now call your cell phones?! Thats bs. I got rid of my home phone to stop those calls, now there calling my cell phone.

:angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:


I'm not sure that's a fact.

Originally posted by arxor
When a telemarketer calls my house, I tell them I'm busy and to give me there home phone number and I'll call them back. ;) Also, did you know, telemarketers can now call your cell phones?! Thats bs. I got rid of my home phone to stop those calls, now there calling my cell phone.

:angry: :angry: :angry: :angry: :angry:

they can't if they know it's a cell phone.

So it's more likely that since it's your only phone, when asked for your home number, you're giving your cell.

If it's listed as a home number they can call it. Make sure to specify that it is a cell phone when you give it out.

Oh no. I know it is. I was told my by lawyer it was perfectly legal in the state I live in. I asked him, because I was getting tired of it.

well i haven't worked for a particular nameless phone company for a while now so i'm sure laws could have changed...

but since calling the number costs you money/minutes, they can not call you.

We are not talking about calling people at home, I thought you were talking about calling business offices - this is normal practice, no?

I was thinking about calling local business owners (At their business number, NOT home number) and basically making a survey, and is they seem like they might want a website, tell them that a local company offers excellent service, and the pricing of their feature packed plans is unbeatable.

I was thinking about asking things along these lines:

Hello! How are you today Mr/Mrs. _____
Good!
Do you mind if I ask you a few simple questions? I'm conducting a survey which will be published in the local newspaper.
Great, First off.
Do you own a business?
If yes, do you advertise on Tv, Radio, or the newspaper?
Would you be interested in putting your business on the Internet any time in the future?
Have you been looking into the Internet as a viable means of advertising and information publishing?
What is the ballpark amount your business has budgeted for advertising?

That's it! Thank you so much for your time.
One last thing, would you like to be sent an informational package about website hosting companies in your area?
(If yes, ask for the address they want to receive the information at.)
Thanks again for your time, have a nice day.

tada! you've possibly created a substantial interest in the Internet! It's extremely likely that they'll ask for the information, not only because it's about local companies, and small business owners usually like to support other small businesses in their area; but they're interest will be piqued! Maybe they have never thought about getting a website, because they either don't think they need one, or they have always thought that a web presence was only useful for multi national conglomerates, or maybe they've just never thought about it!

I intend to do this later in the year.

As for the packet, it's extremely important that there be info on more then one business (If there are more, if not, no worries, exclusive coverage!) otherwise they might think that they were being played.. or something. Also, I'd recommend you make things look like a 3rd party report/information agency published the package (Or send separate packages for your companies, and have the other companies send their own.

Greetings:

"I'm conducting a survey which will be published in the local newspaper."

If you can guarantee it will be published, great opener; otherwise a lie that would be found out.

Thank you.

I would certainly get the approval of the paper before i said something like that :P No better what to solidify what people think about you then starting out a conversation with a blatent untruth :P

If done correctly telemarketing works very well. I have done phone sales for about 12 years of my sales career. While employed at Verio we did phone sales and it was very effective. We would average over 200 sign ups/day. One problem that most people have about any type of sales is they assume that everyone else feels the same way about something as they do. For example, "I hate phone sales, so everyone else must hate them too". Wrong! The majority of the people we called were courteous and polite. So were we. And we called B2B, not people at home.

I've done a lot of it and I've had great success with it. If done right it can be a cost effective way to generate new customers. Just do your homework and good luck.

Originally posted by AH-Tina
Everyone hates telemarketing...but all of the major phone companies do it. Why? Because it works.
Exactly. it's just a numbers game, and while the numbers keep adding up, they'll keep doing it.

Originally posted by dapon
. . . And we called B2B, not people at home.
Just curious, seems you called businesses, how do you get past the secretaries (etc) and speak to the decision makers?

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Just curious, seems you called businesses, how do you get past the secretaries (etc) and speak to the decision makers? We use telemarketing for some software we sell to local market B2B

We normally call first time with something like "Hi, this is John from John Ltd, we are just updating our records. Please can you tell me the name of the person responsible for software purchasing ?"

Then we call back a few days later and ask to speak to that person direct :D

It is a numbers game, we generate 1 appointment per 30 calls and 1 sale from 4 appointments on average.

Originally posted by Deefer
We use telemarketing for some software we sell to local market B2B

We normally call first time with something like "Hi, this is John from John Ltd, we are just updating our records. Please can you tell me the name of the person responsible for software purchasing ?"

Then we call back a few days later and ask to speak to that person direct :D

It is a numbers game, we generate 1 appointment per 30 calls and 1 sale from 4 appointments on average.

Thanks everyone. Thanks Deefer. This is a good tip. There are also telemarketing companies offering lists of businesses that are accepting telemarketing sales calls. But that never works as much as you talking to the decision-maker right away.

We've found 2 companies offering telemarketing services at $6 per hour without commission.

Might work afterall when done right :)

Best,
Dan

They are very annoying, so I doubt it

Markjut,
Do you even read the threads you post your little one liners in?

how many people would I need to recruite to run a good telephone campaign?

They call at the wrong time, I don't like telemarketers.

Targeted telemarketing, yes. Individual leads specified and tailored to meet your individual needs. Yes.
Random phone calls to Bob - no.

My background is in telecommunications...mainly call center hardware programming and administration, and I have previously worked for a very large call center (both inbound customer service and outbound telemarketing) outsourcing vendor. I worked on the inbound side, and we used to joke that our counterparts on the outbound side were evil. None of us wanted to be involved with the telemarketing side of it, whether it was programming/admin or not. The fact is, however, that telemarketing works. Those in this thread who are saying, "no, telemarketing is bad and it will give your company a bad reputation", I would imagine, don't have any experience with telemarketing except for being on the receiving end of the phone calls they have received for a credit card or life insurance. Personally, I hang up on telemarketers, and when I used to work for my employer, I may have hung up on some of our own people, but that does not mean that telemarketing does not work. Also, with everyone still doing it to a certain extent, I doubt you will get a bad reputation. If you were to look up MCI (one of our previous customers) or AT&T (another) or Nextel (another) or MSN (another), or Fleet (another) you would not find posts on message boards that say, "these people use telemarketing - it's evil - don't do business with them". Despite people's hatred for being called during dinner, Americans take it a part of life. They also know that they can get on a Do Not Call list (something that I thought was great because it would weed out those who would hang up on telemarketers thereby saving telemarketers money on calls that should not have been made to uninterested people anyway) and stop it from happening. I'm sure that there is a Web host (and definitely and ISP) who is using telemarketing. They will not be admitting it on this message board, but they exist. Check other message boards and see if you can find people complaining.

Long story short, it might be a little expensive to telemarket B2C customers, but B2B would be a little more justified in terms of overall conversion. Either way, I doubt your reputation is at stake, unless you contract with a company that has the rudest employees on the planet. Only then, I think, would people feel they had something out of the ordinary to complain about and take the time to post on message boards.

I know telemarketing works for some companies and some people. I think the issue here is implementation. A good idea can fail because of lousy executions. I personally havn't found a good formula for telemarketing so maybe I just suck or something. I would like to get some good tips on it though.

We're working out a deal with outsourcing telemarketing in India. Does anybody here know if indian telemarketers are good?

Thanks.

Originally posted by dmghosts
We're working out a deal with outsourcing telemarketing in India. Does anybody here know if indian telemarketers are good?

Thanks.

Make sure their English is great and that they don't sound too much like they are no in the US (if that's where you are). Keep in mind that you are already annoying someone with a telemarketing call. The person calling should be able to communicate with the person on the other end of the phone, and should make them want to refrain from hanging up the phone.

Does anyone know where to get the no call list?

if you telemarket to business, you are exampt from no call list. I read somewhere that 100 million phone number have been added to the do not call list already.

Originally posted by NetworkStartup
Does anyone know where to get the no call list?

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