Does Telemarketing for Lead Acquisition Get You Good Data about International IT Decision Makers?

Getting accurate data at the beginning of your lead process is crucial, especially about the lead’s interests in your solution area. You stake your reputation with the sales team when you deliver prospects. They judge you based on whether the leads have legitimate interest in your tech area. Beyond the sales team, if you start lead nurturing with poor information about the prospects’ interests, your nurturing efforts will be less effective (e.g. if leads aren’t really interested in the topic of the white paper, then even well-constructed follow up emails will do poorly).

Can you determine true buying intent through cold call/telemarketing lead acquisition?

So what type of “intent” data do you get from cold call/telemarketing lead acquisition campaigns with Enterprise IT Decision Makers (ITDMs)?  As part of a survey of nearly 2000 International ITDMs, we asked how they deal with unsolicited calls. It was clear that the data would be misleading to marketers.

Buyers reluctant to provide accurate details around buying research for unsolicited calls

Buyers will accept content from a cold call even if they do not intend to make a purchase soon

Buyers will say anything to get telemarketer off the phone

With the percentage of buyers who provide accurate details extremely low across EMEA and APAC, what can you take away from the data?

• Because telemarketing for lead acquisition interrupts the way IT Decision Makers work, they do not provide a clear signal of their true interests.
• Using a first touch lead from an outsourced telemarketer can distort and depress the results of your sales team and your marketing automation efforts (relative to true online sources) and can generally make your efforts look less targeted.

We are interested in hearing what your experiences with telemarketing lead acquisition are. Feel free to leave a comment or connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.