In the tech sector I do not believe telemarketing works unless you are certain your prospects within a particular market segment are in a high pain state or if you are marketing to your installed base. The problem is many IT professionals are curious about technology and will agree to a conversation whether or not they are in a state of active pain. You may be scratching your head and wondering what the issue is if IT prospects are willing to take a phone meeting and the offering resonates somewhat. Many in telemarketing would think they were successful at this point.
However, success in most tech companies equals paying customers. You don’t want to engage with just any prospect. You want to engage with prospects who have acute or active pain ready to become paying customers. It is active pain that motivates an individual to perform an online search for solutions, visit web sites, evaluate products, and make a purchase. Active pain prospects are searching online to typically find and buy a solution in the near term. Therefore, my advice is spend your money on Web 2.0 tactics to attract active pain prospects and skip "shotgun" telemarketing campaigns.
Our next blog will describe a Web 2.0 Guerilla Marketing tactic involving paid online search advertising.
