When faced with an extensive list of Barbour ABI contacts, it can be difficult to know exactly what to do next. As an individual or even a small-sized marketing team, it’s going to be very difficult to reach out to every contact personally with your tried and tested sales pitch.
That’s why Barbour ABI subscribers are reaching out to an external email or telemarketing business to make the most of their vast list of contacts.
“But what about GDPR and not bothering contacts?” we hear you scream.
Well, don’t panic. Businesses that have agreed to have their projects on Barbour ABI have agreed to the latest GDPR legislation, even agreeing to let third parties reach out to them.
So, if your mind’s at ease, in this blog, we discuss the benefits of using both email marketing and telemarketing for your Barbour ABI contacts.
With over 306 billion emails sent and received every single day and almost 4 billion daily email users, using email marketing as a means to reach out is common, although there are pros and cons of doing so. One of the main benefits of email marketing is that ‘intent’ is much more easily tracked. Something as simple as opening an email is enough for email marketers and clients to gauge a recipient’s intent.
Imagine you’re selling cladding and trying to find out from your list of Barbour ABI contacts who are interested. You put ‘Do You Need Cladding?’ in your subject line and send it out to over 1,000 filtered contacts. Of those 1,000, 75 open the email, you now know that 75 leads are likely interested in your solution.
Sending out mass email is also a much more efficient means of marketing, especially when compared with telemarketing. With the click of a button, email marketing allows you to instantly reach out to potentially hundreds of thousands of prospects, with data immediately allowing you to see who’s opened it, who’s unsubscribed, and even whose email doesn’t work correctly. Just think how long it would take to reach out to the same number of contacts via the phone!
Although emails can be personalised, they’re not exactly ‘personal’, especially when compared to a one-to-one conversation that could last a few minutes, creating a strong connection with a contact. What’s more, for all the emails in the world, there’s one thing marketing emails can’t control. Those pesky spam filters or junk folders, failing to get in front of the eyes you’re trying to catch the attention of.
Emailing is a great solution to try and conquer thousands of potential prospects, although it’s far from perfect. That’s why it’s also important to consider telemarketing too, although this method also has its advantages and disadvantages.
Think about giving your sales team the go-ahead to work through your Barbour ABI database and call every potential prospect you’ve managed to filter for a moment. They’re the best in the business and once they’ve got in front of the correct contacts, their natural charm and charisma help conversions.
With a diverse approach instead of reading from a script, each phone call is going to be more personal, much more so than a mass of emails. This means that your leads from telemarketing are quickly going to be seen as being of higher quality, after all, they’ve been qualified by your sales team, but at what cost?
The reality is that the Barbour ABI database is vast, especially when you are trying to find multiple leads for your construction business, meaning that phoning through every possible contact will be time-consuming, especially if you try and have an in-depth conversation with everyone. If you spend 10-minutes in each conversation and have another 1,000 contacts, you don’t need us to do the sums.
A more personalised experience on the phone also doesn’t combat the threat of ending up in a voicemail inbox. When this happens, it can be difficult how to rate the lead. Are they going to call back? Was it the wrong number? Are they interested? Unlike emails, telemarketing can be difficult to immediately assess the quality of the lead.
As you can see, there are equal amounts of pros and cons in telemarketing, too. The reality is, the best way to market to your Barbour ABI database is by using a combination of both emails and telephones.
The reality is, there is no single method that is best for contacting your extensive Barbour ABI database, and the best approach is using a combination of both email and telemarketing.
At Project Prospecta, we focus on email marketing. Although we do also encourage telemarketing as a means of reaching out to confirmed hot prospects. Emails will vet the contacts, and your data will show to what extent they have engaged. This can dictate the phone call approach. The question we always encourage clients to ask is ‘are you looking for more information or a specific solution?’. This then helps you decide on the next approach.
One key thing to consider at this point was how quickly you reach out to your prospects. HubSpot reports that you are 100 times more likely to make successful contact with a prospect if you reach out within the first 5 minutes. So, the quicker you are, the greater the chance of converting.
With a huge database to try and filter contacts from, there’s no denying that email marketing and telemarketing are the 2 best approaches. In reality, there’s no use sticking exclusively to a single approach.
Like everything, there needs to be some compromise. Email marketers will quickly help narrow down the lead prospects and then encourage phone calls to convert, whereas telemarketers will be able to personally connect with the contacts initially before ending out emails full of information and technical specifications.
If you’re interested in finding out how to effectively filter your Barbour ABI contacts with the use of email marketing – and then guidance on how to effectively connect via phone – get in touch with Project Prospecta.