Does Telemarketing translate to sales?

“Hello sir, I’m speaking from ABC. I want to tell you about this scheme made especially for you...” – an average person receives at least one such call per day. Also, on an average, the chances - that the person will listen no further and disconnect the call with “Sorry, I’m not interested.” - are pretty high. Telemarketing over the years has persevered as one of the most persistent and hated marketing methodologies. Consumers love to hate it and yet marketers love to stick to it.
For the marketer, the advantages of telemarketing are that it is direct, interpersonal, delivers immediate results, has quantifiable outcomes and most importantly is very cost effective. No wonder then that for the marketer, telemarketing as a method to boost sales has withstood the test of time. Only recently, the impact of telemarketing was seen in the hugely successful telemarketing campaign of Barack Obama.
Then why do consumers hate telemarketing? Is the concept in itself flawed? No. Telemarketing evolved as a mutually beneficial and convenient form of product/services advertising and sales. However, with too many firms engaging in “unsolicited” telemarketing, in spite of telemarketing’s inherent convenience to the consumer, it has proven detrimental for the concept as a whole - a classic case of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’.
Yet, it is not beneficial for a firm to increase sales by pulling out of telemarketing. It has been statistically proven that irrespective of the number of firms, telemarketing as a practice boosts sales. It is a Nash Equilibrium, wherein, even if a firms pulls out, it only ends up reducing its sales and boosting that of its rivals. The firm’s economic pay-off is further lowered by the fact that the consumer perception is negative about telemarketing and not for individual firms.
Thus, we firmly conclude in favor of the use of telemarketing to boost sales.
Anish Sinha & Hitesh Mathur

Tata Docomo and repositioning of competitors

Tata Docomo emphasizes on "Doing the new". It has a very clear positioning strategy. It wants to be perceived as the brand which believes in constant innovation. In fact, with its per second billing technology, it revolutionized the mobile operators market and garnered huge market share. When the others followed, Tata Docomo featured a new advertisement with the message, "What we do, the others follow"...perfect! Spot on with its positioning. Also, they tried to reposition their competitors as followers - the laggards.

However, they missed out on an opportunity to attack their larger competitors. Yes, their larger competitors followed; they responded to lower calling rates - 50p/sec,per second billing, etc. This is what Tata Docomo could've exploited to a much larger extent than just "Do the new, others will follow". They could've repositioned their competition as fleecing the consumers. How about an ad which conveyed the message,"If we can charge our consumers lower, we don't keep high call rates. We don't wait for someone to show the consumers the reality."

This could have delivered a major shock to the reputation of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea. Airtel would be perceived as "Express yourself (at a higher cost)", Vodafone as "Happy to help (if you pay us more)" and Idea as "What an Idea Sirji!(Charge the customers more.)". The large competitors would have taken ages to build up their brand image again and Tata Docomo could have exploited this opportunity to gain incremental market share.

Sell value-additions and not your product

What does the marketer sell? Should she sell the product - How well can the product perform its task? At times, yes, but mostly NO.

Spoilt for choice, the consumer of today assumes that the product being sold performs its basic function and does it well. What exactly does a consumer want from a product is a tough question; but if you're a marketer and you're trying to sell your product/service only on how well it works, you better watch out!

Lets try and understand this using a simple example - suppose you want to sell a watch. You cannot expect to convince a customer to buy your watch by telling her how accurate the watch is. The customer has already assumed a lot - if it's a watch, it has got to be accurate. No wonder we don't find any TV commercials proudly proclaiming how accurate their watches are!

Take the case of mobile phones - how often do you expect to make a sale if you tell your consumer that your cell phone has the best voice quality or that it sends accurate SMSs? (Will the launch of 3G with better voice quality change this? I doubt.)We can go on adding products here and the list will be unending. Try selling a refrigerator which "cools well" or a washing machine which "Gives you clean clothes" or a pair of shoes that "protect your feet from getting wet/dirty" - I'm sorry but the chances that anyone will buy your product are pretty bleak.

So, how does one market? What does one sell if not the product? A shrewed marketer sells only what the customer wants. You don't sell a watch, you sell style or you sell elegance or you sell perfection (remember Roger Federer and Rolex). You don't sell mobile phones - you sell portable cameras or music or well...style again. It was simple - and so obvious, wasn't it? Ahem...why don't you try selling a refrigerator for me (and please, a fridge can never be a family member).

However, this is not a universal phenomenon. There are products and more typically services where the consumer values the basic requirements more than the value-added-functionality. Take the case of a car - "Our car drives well and is reliable"....hmmmmmm interesting proposition, I might consider.

The idea of not selling the product but something else is known to anyone who has read her marketing basics but in a different regard - positioning. Also, benefits segmentation is another close approximation to the idea. However, they are theoretical concepts which don't clearly convey how to sell a product.

So how do you do to sell your product? Simple. Don't sell your product - sell value additions.

P.S: I had written this blog before being introduced to the concept of the three levels of a product - core, expected and augmented. So, if the post does not sound very new and intriguing to you, please accept my apologies.