Similar to how it is wise to have a diversified financial portfolio; it is also wise to have a diversified teleservices portfolio. Ideally a diversified teleservices portfolio focuses on different segments of your target markets using different types of activities to achieve your goals.
Depending on your individual business plan, your target markets may include things like:
- Specific Industries – State & Local Government, K-12 Education, Higher Education, Federal, Manufacturing, Financial, Telecommunications, Healthcare, etc,
- Company Sizes – Small & Mid-Sized Businesses, Enterprise, etc,
- Decision Making Levels – C-Level, Directors, Management, etc,
- Certain Titles – Information Technology, Facilities Managers, Office Managers, Radiology Directors, etc,
Your marketing plan should include various types of teleservices designed to reach and communicate with your target markets. These activities may have an end goal of creating registration and attendance to an event, driving qualified sales ready leads or appointments, as well as nurturing long-term leads and constructing detailed account profiles.
Furthermore, each of these activities has a different level of strategy and planning and varying levels of specialized messaging, and skill requirements. Those activities that are more tactical in approach tend to be lower cost, and drive not only the specific objective but also awareness and education. These activities can be done on a larger scale. While other more strategic teleprospecting activities such as qualified appointment setting, lead nurturing and account profiling require more planning, training and specialized targeting, and have a higher cost associated. However, to use the financial portfolio metaphor again, the higher risk (or cost) activities have the greater earning potential.
The key take away is to invest your marketing dollars using a combination of lower cost, higher volume and relatively higher cost, lower volume strategies to ensure you are reaching the full breadth of your market and driving actions specific to your overall business plan.