The trend is increasing for the number of do-not-call registrants each year.  The popularity of the list may be discouraging to the telemarketing industry, but it’s not as bad as it might look.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 76% of US adults say that they  signed up for the do-not-call list in 2005, a significant increase from 57% in January 2004, and 32% in September 2003.

Businesses are successfully telemarketing while still staying within the legal guidelines of the Do-Not-Call list.  For instance, customers may be called who you have done business with in the last 18 months.

And anyone who contacts your business for information can be called within 6 months.  Keeping records of these contacts is the key.  Your telemarketing phone equipment is still valid.

A majority of the telemarketing services for this industry were based on cold calls.  With the increase of names on the Do Not Call list, most of the telemarketing activities had to be changed over to telemarketing services that are based on existing business relationships.

This meant that in order to make a telemarketing call, the telemarketing services provider had to be able to prove the customer has purchased a product from the telemarketing client in the past 18 months.

Outsourced telemarketing services had to comply or be subject to punishment for violations.

A recent DMA  (Direct Marketing Association) study showed that insurance telemarketing has reached nearly $80 billion in revenue during 2006. This ever growing revenue means that telemarketing, and insurance telemarketing specifically, can still be very successful tools.

With the advent of the do not call list, it seemed that  insurance telemarketing might no longer be profitable. However, with smart marketing, insurance telemarketing has become more focused on a consolidated effort resulting in maintaining high profits with continued successful telemarketing.

By carefully adhereing to the rules of the DO NOT CALL list, prospects can still be telemarketed if they have had any kind of business relationship with the company in the last 18 months.  Also, anyone who has placed a call to the company for information in the past 90 days may also be called.

Pluris Inc. of Greenwood Village, Colorado, (a provider of fully integrated, multi-channel marketing solutions) announced yesterday that Bresnan Communications, (a broadband telecommunications company that serves more than 300,000 customers throughout the Western United States) has increased customer acquisition rates by an impressive 17 percent by deploying Pluris’ Integrated Marketing Solution™ (IMS).

Pluris offers, specifically the analysis, segmentation, targeting, and reporting capabilities of IMS. Companies like Bresnan “can create an integrated consumer platform to identify and target the most appropriate prospects and customers,” said Michael Caccavale, CEO of Pluris.

“This level of insight and application results in more effective acquisition, and creates a foundation for making the most of every marketing activity.”

“In short, IMS empowers organizations to optimize every marketing dollar spent.”

Impressive.

• Telemarketing businesses can save between 30 and 40 percent on their telephony bills through broadband connectivity versus a traditional PSTN service.

• Simplified management and administration because VoIP is software based and easier to deploy and integrate new services.

•Voice and data networks are converged onto a single IP network, which significantly reduces infrastructure costs that are associated with a traditional PBX-based network.

•VoIP can improve a business’ communications by providing flexibility and preventing proprietary lock-ins by deploying voice as a desktop application.

•Improved employee production: A company can offers several applications that improve the efficiency of employees (including drag and drop conferencing and on-demand recording).

•IP telephony enables remote employees to connect with the company’s phone system from anywhere, and makes them available for calls as if they are in the office.

An outsourced telemarketing service has to be updated constantly with the new technology in order to provide the best service and compete nationally and internationally.

Keeping your business strong is always the goal, but especially now.  How can you keep regular customers buying, and gain new customers as well?

Telemarketing may be your answer.  With the highest response rate of any marketing vehicle, it can be an even greater help in slow economic times.

The reason it can help you in an economic slowdown, is the same reason it helps you during a strong economy: target marketing.

Target marketing uses specific demographics to pinpoint consumers who have certain profiles that buy your product.  During slower economic times, there are still high percentages of consumers who have good incomes.

With target telemarketing, your business can hone in on those consumers who are still able to make purchases, beyond putting food on the table.  With telemarketing lists from good list brokers, you can be provided with names and phone numbers that target these prospects.

Telemarketing ranks so high among marketing tools because it works, even in a bad economy.

Using it properly is the key.  Each new sale creates a new customer.  And that new customer is the source for many more sales.  And telemarketing can help make it so.

Sure, we are talking about repeat business.  But there is even more than that to help you get more sales.  Such as:

• Referrals - entice your customer with a bonus to give you names of friends and neighbors who also may need your service.
• Cross selling - your customer may need other products you also have
• Upselling - your customer may decide to make a larger purchase if you just present ALL you can do for them

Your existing and new customer list is worth a fortune to your business.  They already know you.  And you can call them without being restricted by the NO CALL LIST, because you are already doing business with them.

Don’t overlook using telemarketing to continue to increase your sales.

Here are the information technologies that are available:

• Transaction Processing 
• Accounting Services 
• Call Centers
• Remote Network
• Management Service Bureau
• Entrepreneur Systems
• End-to-end Processing Services with linkage to the parent company

Offshore telemarketing Information Technology has come a long way.  I think it makes Offshore Telemarkeing highly competitive and up-to-date.  

That’s why offshore competition continues to thrive, and grow… 

According to the DMA Response survey, telemarketing still ranks highest with a 5.78% response rate.  Trailing behind are:

• dimensional mail (2.3%)

• catalogs (2.18%). 

• Direct Mail lags even further back (1.88%) 

• coupons (1.12%) are tied with e-mail. 

So, the percentages are still with telemarketing as an excellent marketing tool for your business. 

I think that’s because it is still the only media that allows immediate interactive communication between the seller and the buyer.  Being able to talk person-to-person still gets the best results.

Recently Avon Corporation signed a big contract with an offshore call center to take over Avon’s big customer service centers.  Thousands of call per day are now streaming offshore from Avon representatives and customers.

Avon hopes to lower its expenses since much of its business is conducted over the phone to its customer service departments.  Manpower has been a huge expense for them.

With a 50% to 75% lower cost for telemarketing and call center services, what was already a popular and growing industry is now booming. 

As US companies need to reign in expenses to balance the downtrend in the financial market, lowering costs is part of the equation.

Avon plans to continue this program and save significantly.