Telemarketing. Cold calls. Outbound prospecting. Outbound marketing. There are several other names given to telemarketing list marketing. You might hate them. You may block them through the FTC. But high-growth companies are still using telemarketing to generate sales and keep thousands of employees on their payroll.
Telemarketing is very much alive.
In 2017, 55% of companies that had achieved 40+% growth in the previous three years said they had actively used telemarketing to drive the high growth (DiscovOrg, 2017).
But, likely, you never gave the telemarketing companies your contact details. So how did you get in their telemarketing list?
Here’s are possible ways.
1. You still use a landline phone
Most telemarketing lists are made from landline numbers.
You’ll hardly receive a telemarketing call through your cellphone number.
As technology advances, there might be a clever way to reach out to prospects through their cellphones, but so far, landlines make up the bread and butter source for the calls.
2. When you subscribe to get discount offers
If you are out looking for a great deal to pounce on, you are likely to provide your contact details to the company or reps that will be responsible for informing you when the deal is in play.
Sometimes a deal may be short-lived, so you may decide to receive a call instead of slow mail. That way, you can learn when the offer is live to grab it immediately.
The more information you share, the more personalized your offer will be.
Careful, though.
It might also mean your phone number getting in the hands of callback ninjas—some who may be annoying but others that might actually offer a splendid call experience.
3. Increased digital engagement
In today’s highly connected lifestyle, you’ve likely shared your phone number with third parties, and that can lead to telemarketing calls.
From Snapchat to Telegram to WhatsApp groups to submitting your contact details for 2-step verification purposes, your number could be all over the place.
And a prolific telemarketer may have seen it somewhere and thought to give you a try.
4. Artificial intelligence has become much clever
Advancements in AI and Big Data technologies mean chatbots and other online tools can enter your phone number in a call list.
Perhaps you registered the number to get callbacks, submit feedback, follow up on an issue, or share an interesting find with your friends.
Or your friends may have exposed your number to telemarketing companies without bad intentions.
5. By acting in ways that encourage further calls
Here’s the thing about telemarketing calls:
Acting rude and being unresponsive to callers actually achieves the opposite.
Telemarketing firms have customized systems that can mark an unresponsive prospect as a “no answer” case. That kind of entry means the system automatically reschedules your number for a call soon.
The next call may come through as soon as within the next 12 hours.
6. Telemarketing is now a part of a holistic approach to marketing
The digital world is a wide-reaching haven for marketing.
A powerful advantage online marketing has over traditional cold calling is you can interact with brands in a bunch of ways, especially on social media and blogs.
Digital marketing tools now can connect multiple online marketing channels and connect the dots.
That means liking a brand’s post on Facebook, watching its product’s DIY video on YouTube, and browsing its brand’s store can be connected to suggest you are interested in knowing more or outright buying a product from that brand.
And they’ll call to follow up, which is a part of modern lead nurturing.
There are more ways you get on a telemarketing list in this age.
However, you do get there, the good thing is more calls are less cold now than they used to be.
They are well-integrated into holistic digital marketing, data intelligence, and customer experience programs meant to first create rapport and be non-invasive. Cold calls have turned into lead-focused conversations.
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