Even in the high-tech mecca of Silicon Valley, nothing beats the personal touch of a human voice on the phone. That’s why San Jose, CA-based computer software marketer Business Objects relies on outbound telemarketing to prequalify 5,000 to 8,000 business-to-business leads each quarter.
Business Objects outsources sales leads to Techmar Communications Inc., which manages outbound teleservices campaigns from its local call center in San Jose. The company prequalifies leads Business Objects generates by phone, mail, fax and the Internet.
“Typically Business Objects runs five to 15 marketing campaigns simultaneously,” says Josh Cruickshank, account director at Techmar. “We maintain a centralized marketing database for Business Objects and feed information to it.”
Techmar also makes cold calls on behalf of Business Objects to research information about prospects and runs outbound phone campaigns to follow up on direct mail and e-mail invitations to corporate seminars. Calls are also made to all registrants a few days prior to a seminar to increase attendance.
Outbound prospecting calls are made to secretaries and higher-level executives like chief information officers and company presidents to gather marketing intelligence about potential corporate customers. The primary responsibility of Techmar’s reps is to identify decision-makers for follow up by field sales reps and in-house teleservices agents at Business Objects.
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