Review by Damian Brockway – Managing Director of Pulse with 25 years sales and marketing experience including more than a decade of senior management experience with some major blue chip organisations.

What is the difference between telesales and telemarketing?

In the modern day marketing world jargon is becoming all too familiar – there is nothing more so called experts like than to try and blind people with clever words or phrases.

In my many years as a sales and marketing director I have heard so many different explanations of telesales and telemarketing it is frightening.

My opinion is quite straight forward – there is very little difference in techniques used or skills required, but that telesales refers more to the use of a phone to actually try and sell a product or service – whereas telemarketing can incorporate other types of pro-active telephone work including data mining, market research, list building and customer service surveys.

Telemarketing Technique

For me telemarketing is not rocket science – there are very simple rules to follow:

Preparation – telemarketing without thinking about who we are calling, when and how will lead to poor results.

Who are we telemarketing to?

Householders (often referred to business to consumer) Businesses (referred to as business to business)

Within each business are we trying to contact the MD, FD, Marketing Director, Office Manager, secretary etc?

Telemarketing these different points of contact really does require different skill sets and approaches to the whole process.

What are the best times to telemarket these people? For example telephoning very wealthy business owners during midweek mornings is perhaps a silly thing to do if you are trying to talk to them at home about non work related matters.

What should we say when opening the telemarketing call?

Telemarketing introductions should be very short and concise – they need to very quickly explain who you are, why you are calling and then begin a meaningful dialogue.