Industry News & Insight

Although a career in telco marketing sometimes feels like a life-sentence, don’t worry! (actually, it is a life sentence, but that’s another story and it’s not where we’re going with this blog). That said, however, one of the crimes against marketing humanity that’s all too often committed by marketers bears examination under the microscope. It’s this: the failure to understand that lead generation involves not isolated campaigns but, rather, leveraging multiple links in a continuing chain.

Here’s why. Telco marketers leverage a lot of sources to generate leads. These range from the cheap-to-execute (for instance, blind e-mail campaigns targeted at large databases) to the expensive (for example, webinars with recognised media partners). And that’s it. There’s a campaign. It works or it doesn’t. End of story. Particularly with activities in the latter category, like webinars, this means an enormous investment of both budget and time stands or falls on registration for the event and a couple of follow-up e-mails.

Which is madness. Seriously. It’s nuts.

By way of rough example why, a webinar with a media partner is likely to cost in the region of $10,000, sometimes more and sometimes less. That’s a fairly significant marketing investment. Roughly speaking what results is that the average vendor might expect to attract 125 registrants (note: this is a very general number culled from years of experience) of whom 40-50 might then show up to listen to the live event and a similar number will listen to the on-demand recording made available later. All 125, including the complete “no shows” will get a follow-up mailing or two post-event and their names will be passed on to sales (and entered into the marketing database) at which point marketing and sales will move on, save for usual argument over whether or not actual, qualified leads have been delivered.

Did I say earlier “this is madness”? Or nuts?

It may be somewhat ironic that the more that’s invested into a marketing effort, the more it follows that further investment will be required if a payoff is to be achieved. If you’ve spent $10,000 to identify 125 prospects, where’s the sense in failing to qualify their interest further?

In our many years of experience, a personalised and clearly articulated telemarketing campaign has few rivals when it comes to capitalising on the webinar investment and turning names (which in the greater scheme of things are relatively useless) into actual, qualified leads. Yes, taking this approach will add costs to your campaign, but the corollary benefit is that cost per qualified lead (which is what marketers really want) will go down.

This activity falls under the most important but often most overlooked component in the marketing chain of all: nurturing. Marketers broadly tend to do a good marketing. Their programmes generate leads. And sales does a good job selling, presuming they close some of those leads. The breakdown all too often lies in nurturing the raw material of sales (unqualified leads) into becoming the raw material of viable deals. A webinar registration isn’t a lead; it’s an expression of interest. Telemarketing is what turns it into an actual, qualified sales opportunity.

You’ve probably experienced this or, at least, have heard about it happening.

Think on this scenario. You are attending an event and the organiser reaches out to you to advise that they can arrange meetings. Really good quality meetings with people who want to meet you. After all, they organise the Event, so they know who is attending and they have influence. Right?

Wrong! On so many levels!

Event organisers are exceedingly good at what they do. Organising events!
Lead generation companies and telemarketing agencies are very good at what they do. Generating leads and calling people.

See the trend?

When you add in a sector specialism such as Telco to the mix, years of experience exclusively working in this industry and a database of contacts that reflects this then you have something special.

eCS, a niche company within a niche market

Previously delegates would agree to an Event organiser’s request to meet with a Vendor for several reasons. It could be they will receive a free pass to attend the event, an upgrade to their pass, access to white papers or some special dispensation that they see as a benefit to the role they perform. Any number of reasons.

However, if a vendor appoints a specialist and experienced agency, such as eCS, to book meetings at the physical or virtual event, the approach is completely different and more targeted. The campaign is based on the suitability of the job profile for the topics to be discussed and targets those who will have some real interest in that topic. There is no ulterior motive, there is a clear need from that contact to find out more about the product or service being promoted to them, and they make their decisions based on the relevant key messaging.

The agency, in this case, eCS, is not seen as a 3rd party. They are an extension of your marketing department or inside sales, an extension of your company. eCS see our self in this way and will perform a role as well for your company as if it were our own.

Now, in the world we find ourselves in, physical events are not happening, there are no Events for the organisers to arrange but, they still want to arrange those meetings for you. Virtually, of course.

Where does their experience come from, how can they guarantee that the meeting quality will be there, how can they ensure that there is some merit in arranging a meeting with that particular person. They have no history when it comes to meeting arrangement.

A company with a track record of success

eCS fall into the category of being a specialist in our field. We have the Industry specific experience, knowledge and a database that allow us to book meetings for our clients that are quality meetings and have substance to them. The location – an Event hall, a meeting room a boardroom, your front room!! It makes no difference in the process for us but by choosing eCS it could make a huge difference to you.

Use a company that will make the difference.

Webinars by their very definition are a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the web using video conferencing software.

With the increase in employees working from home, the explosion in the use of video conferencing software and the requirement for Vendors to still engage with their target market, should this be something you are looking to do?

Simply put, yes!

There are, however, a few guidelines that we would like to point out.
Ensure the topic is relevant to the now. Don’t schedule a webinar and call it “How to exploit the fact that people are staying at home more.” No kudos will be gained, head straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Think of the time allotted for said webinar. Statistically it has been proven that 30-45 minutes is the optimum length of a webinar. Longer than that and the temptation to jump off for a quick cup of tea, or to catch up on another call, or simply to leave because they are bored, takes over with the participant.

Make it interactive with a live Q+A and/or a poll. Simple enough concepts from a creative and technical perspective, but essential for engaging your participants in the first place and keeping them engaged right to the end. One simple trick is to pose a question and advise that the answer will be discussed at the end. See? Keeps people engaged.

Make sure those that are presenting are engaging people themselves. The subject matter could be the most interesting in the world, but if it is fed line by line, sentence by sentence, by someone with the charisma of a snail then people will switch off. We aren’t looking for the next best thing in TV presenting, but a person who is articulate, interested in the topic (and this interest is clearly demonstrated) and who has a bit of personality is definitely someone that people will watch and listen to. Not the aforementioned snail!

Make sure the audience you get is the audience you need. Sounds simple and something you’ll probably think doesn’t need to be mentioned but it does, it really does. Click here to find out about audience generation

Record the Webinar and make it available to people who register but don’t attend. People often get side-tracked but could still be a prospective customer.

Have a policy where participants are on mute, as background noise often brings many webinars down.

Try to have someone as a Compere and someone taking questions by comment during the webinar and then asking, on behalf of the participants, to make it appropriate and keep participants connected.

Many of the webinar providers online will have a database of previous registrants/participants. These will be sent mailings daily, weekly, monthly, advising them of the new webinars being hosted. The webinar might even have some relevance to their role, it might be highly appropriate to the role they carry out, it might be the most appropriate webinar to their job and looks from first glance to have been created with them in mind but.. do they work at a company that you want to target, is their role in the industry that you have the specialist knowledge of, do they work for a competitor?

Some of the databases from the webinar providers will be mailed indiscriminately, with no criteria set and with the hope that the numbers promised for registrants will be the numbers achieved.

Telemarketing can solve this issue.
Telemarketing? Want to know more?

The agency you decide on, will have the same goal of achieving the required number of registrants but, and this is a huge but, they will be doing this based on the criteria you have set. – which companies, which roles, seniority in a company, etc.

That means the webinar that you have invested time and money on creating, the subject matter, or solution you will be discussing, which you have invested time and money on developing, is being presented to a group of individuals who have been personally invited to attend. They would not have registered and more importantly taken part if there were not some measure of interest there. If you also let them know that people of similar roles, in similar organisations are attending, then they will feel it’s more appropriate. Think on that.

Also, don’t be fooled into thinking that digital marketing will bring responses. It plays a part in marketing overall, but emails generally are lucky to get a 1 in 20 opening rates, never mind any kind of response. Only telephone calls directly to contacts guarantees any kind of positive response. It also prevents ‘opt-outs’ to meet GDPR regulations.
Digital marketing and calling?

Lastly, choose well. At eCS, we have worked in this space for nearly 20 years and our contacts, expertise and guarantee of success sets us apart.