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By Rich Hamilton, Director of Implementation and Team Improvement Leader

 

Chances are if you are reading this you are currently running an outbound telemarketing campaign as part of your selling strategy.  Whether or not the telemarketing campaign is successful, you have decided you want to look into adding email as a form of communication.  Is it worth the time it will take the agents to send out the emails?  What will the ROI be?  What types of emails should be sent?  How will the agents send the emails?

 

In my experience, adding email communication to outbound telemarketing programs or campaigns can be very successful, if done properly.  Email can legitimize the phone conversation, help provide necessary information in order to move toward a sale, or continue to solidify the relationship with the potential or existing customer.  Here are a few Items to think about when implementing an email strategy:

 

Having outbound telemarketing agents send emails manually can be very time consuming and increase the number of errors.  As a manager, seeing after call work (ACW) being spent creating emails would drive me nuts. Every precious second and minute used to create and send emails means making less phone calls, making less contacts, and in turn leading  to less sales.   And don’t forget that since those emails are written manually, mistakes could be made which could damage any chance of a sale with that potential or existing customer.

 

Now when I say manually creating emails, I am not just referring to emails that an outbound telemarketing agent has to create on their own.  Whether the agent has to type the email from scratch, or copy the content from  documents such as WORD and then make adjustments so that the email appears personalized, these would be considered manual emails.

 

The best way for telemarketing agents to send out email is through an automated email application.  Instead of typing out an email or even copy and pasting information, the agent should be able to quickly and easily push a button to generate and send out the email.  With a button push, virtually no extra time is spent for the agent.

 

Any time you can automate a manual process you are going to save time and have less mistakes, which will lead to more sales!

 

By using some kind of email application, you can control not only the content of the email but also the look and feel of the email.  For each outbound telemarketing campaign, identify 3-5 emails that could be sent out to potential customers and create very professional looking emails.  These templates should be able to pull fields from the dialer so that emails are personalized.   Using specific templates for all outbound telemarketing agents across the same campaign will ensure consistency for all emails sent out including subject lines and signature blocks.

 

Using email as part of your outbound telemarketing strategy should enhance the existing phone calls being made, not replace them.  The “meat and potatoes” is the telemarketing phone calls.   The emails should only support that effort.  Here are a few types of emails that could be used, depending on the campaign type:

 

                Conversation Follow-ups – After speaking with the call, you offer to provide additional information about specific products spoken about during the conversation.  These emails could have links to a webpage with additional information or instructions for the person.

 

                No Answer Follow-ups – In particular situations, if the person does not answer, an email could be sent out with specific action to take or reminder.

 

                Thank you Follow-ups – In some situations, an email thanking the person for taking the call may be appropriate, along with additional upsell opportunities or more information.

 

                Reminders – In some campaigns, meetings may be set up for demonstration purpose.  An email could be sent out to remind the person of the upcoming appointment/meeting.

 

                Invoice/Receipts – A professional looking receipt or invoice that can go out automatically upon purchase.

 

With the increasing regulations to telemarketing phone calls such as the TSR and TCPA, the ability to enhance each phone call with an email can be very powerful.  According to the Pew Research Center, they found a few years ago that 92% of online adults use email, with 61% using it on an average day.  Just adding email to the mix will not work.  Proper planning and implementation are needed to ensure that the emails that are sent are professional, personalized, effective and don’t take the agent longer than clicking a button.  With these tips you will see sales increase as you more effectively engage your customers through email.