The "Yes You Can Call List"

In your previous Marketing Strategy email we talked about how you can use the telephone as a marketing tool. I also mentioned that that many businesses don't like using this tool or because of the DO NOT CALL LIST, they think they can no longer use it. And in many applications that is correct.

But there is one application that every business should 'legally' be using the phone for in order to grow their business, which is to build customer loyalty.

Yes, you can and should use outgoing telephone calls to build customer loyalty. I think any business would be smart to use scheduled follow-up phone calls to verify customer or client satisfaction. It's often axiomatic that a business man lacking in money has excess time.

For the small business person with more time than money on his hands telemarketing makes a tremendous amount of sense. You can of course also hire people to do telemarketing. Many businesses employ people confined to wheelchairs, women who prefer not to work outside the home and people who only want to work part-time to do telemarketing and sometimes have them do it from home.

Payment can be based on a per hour rate or tied to results, such as ten dollars for each appointment set or fifteen percent of any sales made.

One word of caution, one of the currently popular con game operations victimizing small businesses is the telephone soliciting service. Typically and obviously a skilled, persuasive sales person will call and convince you to use his company to make telemarketing calls to set appointments or obtain customers for you. The tip off to the scam is the required advanced payment of several hundred dollars. In some cases these are pure rip-off operations. If approached and intrigued by such a service proceed with great caution.


One lead service though that is very reputable and that can work very well for some business is the Welcome Wagon service. Welcome Wagon represents local businesses on an exclusive basis, that is only one butcher shop, one beauty salon, etc. And for a per household fee the Welcome Wagon representative personally delivers literature and a free gift from your business to the new residents moving into your area.

You then receive a list of the people visited for your follow-up purposes. Since newcomers have not yet formed loyalties or shopping habits it's often the first business that gets them that keeps them. The key to getting your money's worth as a Welcome Wagon sponsor is to follow-up with your own telemarketing and direct mail efforts. If you need a lot of bang for your buck and are budget restricted, telemarketing maybe the answer to your problems!

In your next Success Marketing Strategy, I'm going to run through a little checklist of consistent, successful strategies that apply to any business.


Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,
Dan Kennedy

www.dankennedy.com