Keep blogging and tweeting, but pick up the phone too!
My good pal and veteran telemarketing guru, David F. McCullough over at Transamerica Microsearch, replied to one of our retweets recently about a very good tweet by Dave Thomas (@businessdotcom), Am I Doing All I Can with B2B Telemarketing?
David was happy to hear someone using “telemarketing” on a Social Media website because he was thinking he was facing early retirement by all the proliferation of digital marketing in the past few years.
David’s been in the phone marketing business way before any of us ever heard of “the internets”. He’s seen the telemarketing industry change many times over in the past 4-5 decades. He’s been in the thick of it. The one thing that has remained constant, however, is people. People still have to talk to each other.
A few months ago I wrote a post about balancing traditional and digital marketing. It contains some excellent insight by the folks over at eMarketer and some good advice too.
No doubt, digital marketing has transformed the way people communicate with each other, but relying solely on technology or digital sales and marketing tactics is not smart. Conversely, not embracing digital tactics doesn’t help with sales either. You have to balance both, including the phone.
Yes, telemarketing has a bad rap for being the grandfather of spam, but like anything, things change. Using the phone for sales and marketing, especially when used in conjunction with integrated inbound digital tactics, is very powerful.
“When all is said and done, B2B telemarketing proves to be a cost-effective way to enhance your business opportunities and increase your sales opportunities.”
– Dave Thomas, Business.com
Facebook, Twitter, and email make it conveniently easy to hide behind technology. But hoping that “likes” and “followers” will net fantastic sales results is not realistic. Sales and marketing are people oriented business initiatives, and people still want to talk to people.
How do you balance your digital and traditional marketing mix? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter (@SterlingKlor).
