1. Using professional lead generation telemarketing services to improve B2B lead Not all companies encounter new and exciting business opportunities by sitting back and waiting for customers to wander through the door. Many businesses invest time and money into purchasing data and maintaining a CRM system by sending out mail shots every few weeks, but how effective is this in the long run if nothing else is done with it? Sending out a few emails every now and again is not conducive to generating new business. Data decays at an alarming rate for numerous reasons including employee’s retiring, changing roles within a business or moving companies, therefore up to 30% of data can become redundant within the space of a year. A CRM or email platform cannot tell a business if the appropriate people are reading its emails or who is in the market at that point in time – or when they will be in the market if they are not at the moment. Similarly, these automated systems will not register when someone leaves a company or changes positions within the business. A computer system cannot verify that data is accurate an up to date; a computer system can only do what it is programmed to do. So how can a business improve B2B lead generation? Telemarketing is the key. An experienced telemarketer can call every prospect in a database and find out anything a business needs to know. Does the target company still have a need for a particular product or service? Are they thinking about changing provider? Are they tied into a contract? If so, how long for? Are they happy with their existing provider? Who is the most appropriate person within the company to speak to about changing supplier because, chances are, if the data has been purchased form a broker it is probably either out of date or contains the wrong contact for the wrong department. Using telemarketing lead generation services not only maximises and capitalises on an investment in data and a CRM system, it also allows for ongoing database development and relationship building with prospects. Even with the best target list, how can a business realistically expect to get in front of a prospect by sending emails and waiting for business to flood in? Email marketing actually has an appalling response rate compared to telemarketing. The industry average, in terms of email marketing, is a 20% open rate with a 3% click through rate although in reality the response rate is usually much lower than this. Considering that the majority of businesses register their generic email address as the main point of contact, what are the chances of a decision maker actually reading the email and following the call to action? Low, very low. With a little help from telemarketing, however, the decision maker hit rate can improve tenfold and will open up many more business opportunities. Telemarketing allows a business the chance to enter into a dialogue with another business and establish if there is a genuine opportunity to do business together.