B2B Telemarketing for Financial Services - The Keys to Success

Conducting business to business telemarketing campaigns into your own client base is difficult enough. Cold calling into "white space", companies that you have no history with, is a far greater challenge. It is also critical to winning new customers, and therefore is key to growing your financial services business.

The following five suggestions are based on a wide range of financial telemarketing campaigns that Ridge Marketing has implemented, and have been used successfully in many of our business-to-business financial telemarketing projects that target "white space".

1. Don’t use a Script:

Contrary to standard thinking, a formal, structured script can actually limit success in B2B telemarketing for financial services. Instead, use an informal flexible "Call Guide" that guides the caller through a conversational approach that enables "Consultative Selling" rather than monotonous script reading.

2. Focus on the benefits for the customer:

Don’t just talk about your company and your financial products. Prospects aren’t interested in this initially; they just want to know how you can provide additional benefits or reduce their costs. Keep in mind that they initially just want to know "What’s in it for Me?"

3. Limit your Opening Pitch to 7 seconds:

Senior Decision Makers simply won’t listen to an opener any longer than this. If you don’t have their attention within seven seconds, they are already bored and putting the phone down.

4. Don’t ask Senior People if they enjoyed the Match!

Everyone is busy these days, especially executives and Directors. The old ways of "having a chat" to establish rapport won’t work with people at senior level. They want you to cut to the chase, and quickly help them understand if you can provide a benefit to them. They are not interested in you being their new best friend. If you can’t quickly convince them that you can improve their business then they want you off the phone….fast! Unless you already have a relationship with this person, don’t waste your seven seconds on trying to be their pal.

5. Sales is a Process, not an Event:

In B2B financial services telemarketing, the sale happens as part of a process. It is not a single event. If you push too hard, too fast with your telemarketing call you will turn off the Prospect. Use the first call to set up a next step in the sales process, and don’t try to close a sale on the first call or you will lose the Prospects respect.

6. Turn Data into Intelligence

Poor marketing means having to start from scratch with your data each time you implement a telemarketing campaign. There is nothing more frustrating for a Prospect than receiving a call from a company they have spoken to within the last year, only to be asked the same questions all over again. Invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage your sales and prospect data. There are many out there that are quite inexpensive and will provide a good return on investment for you. Just make sure to train your staff and insist that they record intelligence in the CRM and use it on the next call with Prospects.

7. Integrated Marketing Generates Synergies

The best marketers combine direct mail with telemarketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, seminars, web site marketing, advertising, response management, etc to optimise their return on investment from marketing spend. This need not be as expensive or time consuming as you think. There are many companies out there that can help you implement and manage this at a relatively low cost. Consider combining direct mail, telemarketing and email marketing as a starting point.

8. It’s about Relationships:

Too many companies implement "one-off" telemarketing campaigns, without any follow through for the rest of the year. If a market segment is worth calling once, then it is worth developing a relationship with. This means calling into any contacts that expressed interest once every three months. Don’t just jump from one list to another for every campaign. Commit to a segment through relationship marketing and develop a relationship with the contacts to build trust and brand recognition. Remember: sales is a process, not an event!