Telemarketing or telesales. What’s the difference?
We are often asked what is the difference between telesales and telemarketing. While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are some very important distinctions between the two.
They are the same in that both are activities via the telephone to increase sales, but telemarketing has a much wider remit.
What is B2B Telesales?
The purpose of B2B Telesales is simple – convert leads into sales. Telesales professionals receive already qualified sales leads and are tasked with closing those sales.
What is B2B Telemarketing?
B2B Telemarketing can also be used to close sales, but it in addition it serves to increase brand awareness and to discover new leads and opportunities via conversations with potential customers. Those conversations could cover:
- Lead generation, qualification and segmentation
- Appointment setting for sales teams
- Market research
- Customer feedback
- Turning leads into opportunities
Which One Should I Choose?
A B2B Telesales cold calling campaign without thoughtfully carried out lead generation will often suffer from low conversion rates. A great B2B lead generation campaign without Telesales follow-up will yield poor sales results and a negative return on investment. Therefore a well-planned campaign should combine both. Even better would be an integrated campaign involving traditional marketing and PR, online marketing, telemarketing and telesales. While potentially expensive, this kind of integrated approach has the best probability of reaching highest number of qualified leads and producing the highest conversion of calls to sales, meaning a far better ROI.
