Should You Mail First or Call First?

A common questionasked by our client base is "should I send out an email and follow up using telemarketing

, or should Icallmy prospects "cold" and use email for follow up?". Most telemarketing campaignshave a degreeof integration with other channels - Integration delivers multiplied efficiency, with a"whole greater than the sum of the parts"outcome when executed correctly, so it is akey question.

It might at first glance that the answer is obvious. It seems intuitively correct that you'd always email (or send direct mail)first and then follow up by telemarketing.This allows you to generatean initial response from the mailer at low cost and then develop further response using the more expensive of the two channels. It also seems like a great "icebreaker" to follow up on something that has already been sent to the prospect. Moreover, with the various systems available to trackreaders of your marketing emails and even the particular areas of interest that they spent time looking at, there's scope to tightlytarget the messaging.

However, there is often a strong argument for reversing the sequence- calling first and emailing second. The best examplesare provided by the seemingly well designed integrated campaigns thatwe see fail every year because of data. Put simply, if you don't have a high quality database, with contact names andindividual email addresses forthe right decisionmakers for your offering, mailing or emailing first is a waste of time and money. We'veseen clients send out very high value mailersor sample CD's to completelyunsuitable databases.It quickly becomes clear as you start the telemarketing follow up that 95% of the mailershaven't been seen, meaning you are starting the call "cold" anyway. This is not only a waste of money, it can actually damage calling performance if you start each call with "did you see the email I sent you" and the prospect canimmediately and honestly answer "no, I didn't".

It's relativelyquick and cheap tocall either at switchboard or department level and to ask for the contact details for the person responsible for managing the problem that your product or service solves. It will deliver a very high quality database and sometimes it's the only way toobtain a useable list. If you have a website content management system for enterprises,mailing "the marketing manager" and hoping for the best is not going to work in the vast majority of cases, Finding out who is actually responsible for managing the content by asking will be vastly more productive. Email can then be sent to the correct contact who can be followed up effectively by phone.

Integrated marketing is wonderful when it works well, but if it's not thought through properly, there is a risk that you willsimply multiply the inefficiencies caused by a few bad initial decisions.....

Should You Mail First or Call First?

By: Niall Habba

POST COMMENT

Custom Embroidered Police Patches Can Be Just an E-Mail Away Mailing List: What Do You Need to Know? Mailing List: How Are You Going to Improve its ROI? Direct Mailing: What do You Need to Know? Email List Building - 5 Straightforward Techniques To Set Up a Money-making Email List The Concept of Paid Emails Building A Massive Email List Kajabi - Simple E mail and Purchasing Cart Integration Andy Hussong's JV Attraction Shows You How To Get 1 Million Email Subscribers For Free Build your own made E-Mail list Direct Mail Campaign: What Do You Have to Prepare? Here's How To Lookup Who Owns An Email Address With A Reverse Email Address Search Opportunity Seekers Mailing Lists, Improve Your Response 10x!