How long should my telemarketing campaign run for?

If you’re considering running a telemarketing campaign for the first time or introducing a new product or service specific campaign to an existing telemarketing strategy, one of the first questions is ‘How long should it run for?’.

Too short and you don’t give it enough traction to get results.  Without enough time to call through your data list, you’re not able to ‘warm’ it up enough to start getting results.  And it’s unlikely you’ll be able to make informed projections on long term results if your test period hasn’t given you enough insight for those predictions to be accurate.

Any new marketing activity should generally be subject to a period of testing before investing in the longer term.  You can then plan in for further budget spend based on your results so far.  So what’s a good amount of time to trial your telemarketing?

There’s no hard and fast answer obviously.  There are several variables to consider:

Data count

You will have profiled your audience and sourced the data required.  Based on your data criteria, i.e company type, job title, company size, geographical location etc you will get a data count, so you’ll know exactly how many contacts you have to reach out to.

Contact rate per hour

You’ll then need to consider the type of decision maker you need to make contact with.  If you’re a commercial cleaning company looking for contact renewal dates, it might be an office manager or P.A you need to get hold of.  Typically these decision makers are easier to reach than a managing director or CEO.  You’ll need to tap in to analysis from previous campaigns to identify your expected target contact rate per hour for a particular decision maker.  This will then enable you to decide how many hours you’ll need to call for to reach enough people.

Nature of pitch

Some campaigns are more technical and complex than others.  If you’re doing a straightforward information capture campaign, the call may be short and to the point, with just a couple of questions you need the answers to.  Other conversations could be very lengthy because the subject is complex and discussion is likely to be open ended.

Call objective

What outcome are you actually looking for from a call?  If your campaign requires straightforward information capture, or fairly simple lead qualification then you may find you’ll get what you need from your first call.  If it’s a face to face meeting with a senior decision maker that you are seeking, you’re likely to have to make multiple calls over a longer period of time.  Even if you reach your target decision maker on your first call, they could well need nurturing over several call backs over a period of weeks, sometimes even months, so you will need to allow time for these follow ups to avoid missing longer term opportunities.

In summary, there is no right or wrong answer, it’s all dependant on the objective of your campaign and the resources you have available.  If you have key performance indicators already from previous campaigns, you’re in a good position to set achievable targets and plan as accurately as possible.  If telemarketing is a completely new strategy, you’ll need to research as much as you can and allow enough time for lots of testing and measuring to make sure you get it right.