Multichannel Marketing

My recent post on Cultural Blunders In Telesales inspired a few people to email me directly about this. Before I give further thoughts on this subject, I want to tell you where I stand.

Personal Opinion

Yes, as a person at home most of the time, with a phone number in the public phone book, I do experience all the down sides of Telesales.

My personal complaint is not to do with the bad timing and inappropriate sales pitches, which all of them are in my case. When my children have all left home I will probably get an unlisted number. This is my personal choice.

Cultural Blunders In Outsourced Business To Consumer Telesales

My personal complaint is the current trend I am experiencing with cultural differences leading to rudeness because of cultural miscommunication. There are days and weeks when it seems like all the companies actively practicing Telesales here in France have outsourced this interruption marketing practice to foreign countries unfamiliar with the basic culture here.

You can read more about this in my previous article on cultural blunders to find out why I think companies should think twice before buying this service, simply because of the cultural blunders it creates in Business to Consumer markets.

I will leave the discussion about all domestic market telesales and Business to Consumer interruption marketing practices to the experts. It just does not interest me.

An interruption marketing tactic alone will probably fail if you are in an Export Marketing phase. If your international business is only in export marketing you will probably not have enough cultural understanding of your foreign markets. Read the Get International Client Business Guide 1 – Beginners Discover Your International Business.

You need to adapt telesales and integrate this interruption marketing tactic into a multichannel marketing strategy for it to be worthwhile in international sales.

TeleSales In A MultiChannel Marketing Strategy

What interests me is the international aspect of tele-sales.

In my business directory Get International Clients I help small businesses as they expand into foreign markets. Small businesses often ask about the use of telesales. This is why I want to address the question of international telesales.

First I have to say, I think small businesses need to spend much more time on the phone. Not to do telesales. Phone conversations are great for international market research. Most businesses rely very heavily on online research. There is so much more to gain if you do your international research through phone calls. So I actively push small businesses to pick up the phone.

If a small business has carried out most of its international market research through phone calls, then I think this business has a good chance of getting results using telesales. You pick up cross-cultural skills through practice. These cross-cultural skills will help you with your international telesales.

But, and this is a big but, most companies are still using outdated telesales practices.

I highly recommend Akin Arikan’s book Multichannel Marketing. Akin Arikan describes the problem of today’s telesales practices very clearly. Most consumer markets today make their buying decisions differently than 10 years ago. This is true throughout the world.

Consumer-Driven Marketing

Product-driven marketing needs to evolve in order to get sales results in a market demanding consumer-driven marketing.

Akin Arikan tells a story of the day he moved into a new house. The telesales marketers had done a good job at identifying his new telephone number and flooded his telephone line with calls as soon as it was hooked up. Imagine the situation. You are just moving in, trying to sort out boxes and where things should go. Your new is ringing constantly. You have to keep trying to find the phone in all the boxes. Interruption marketing rapidly becomes unwanted.

What did the Arikan family do? Just like anyone today. They sorted out their important boxes first. And as soon as they got their computer up and running they did comparison shopping online. Then went to the stores down the road to buy what they needed. Of course, they did not feel obliged to buy from the same company online where they found the most useful information. They simply went to the most convenient place for them.

Evolution In The World Of TeleSales

Here are 3 thoughts on how to improve telesales marketing:

• The telesales scripts need to change to fit into today’s consumer habits. The telephone marketers would probably have gained more if they linked their telesales pitch to their online marketing.
• Online marketing also needs to change to get consumers to buy from them. Imagine if the website that provided the most useful information also provided directions to the local store with a housewarming special for new people in the area.
• Successful telesales marketing needs effective multichannel marketing today.

The bad news: Small businesses that rely heavily on international web marketing need to create good multichannel marketing if they want international success.

The good news: It is easier to get it right when starting from scratch.

Of course you can include telesales as part of your multichannel mix. Do your own telesales in-house. Even if this method is not culturally well adapted to your specific foreign market, you will gain valuable insights into your international markets. Telesales is a great international market research tool if you take the time to use it.

More On Multichannel Marketing

• Multichannel Marketing Helps You Make A Better Offer
• Multichannel Marketing For International Audiences
• Multichannel Marketing Is Key To Your International Business Success
• Telesales, MultiChannel Marketing And International Business
• What Is MultiChannel Marketing

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Telesales, MultiChannel Marketing And International Business