How to Set Up a Successful Appointment Generation Campaign
For many businesses, appointment generation (or appointment setting) campaigns are a valuable customer acquisition strategy. In today’s business environment, how do you set up a successful appointment generation campaign to drive growth? Whether in-house or outsourced, purposeful planning, consistent evaluation, and following some best practices can help you see more success.
Appointment Generation Campaign Best Practices
A successful appointment generation campaign begins before first contact is made, and continues after the campaign finishes when leads are handed off to the sales team. Follow these best practices to get your campaign on the right path to converting more customers.
Define Your Target Audience
As with any marketing effort, you will see greater success if you first take the time to define your audience. Who will benefit the most from your product/service? Who will your message resonate with? And in a more general sense, what industries and verticals do you want to go after?
Understand the Benefit of an Appointment
Everyone is busy, so you need to clearly understand why, from your contact’s perspective, setting an appointment and taking time out from their day will benefit them. How will a meeting be more valuable than information they can find on your site or in your literature? If you know this from the start, you can articulate it when talking with a lead.
Determine the Type of Appointments Desired
Having clear objectives about the type of appointments you want as a result of your campaign will set you up for more success. Are you happy with “foot in the door” meetings or do you only want qualified lead opportunities? And what are the characteristics of a qualified lead?
Clear Understanding of Goals
The best appointment generation campaigns make sure that the goals and expectations of the sales team are clearly communicated to everyone involved.
Be Persistent
Persistence is an important characteristic in business, and an appointment generation campaign is no different. Don’t give up if a prospect is hard to get ahold of, for example. Studies show that on average, it takes 18 calls to actually connect with a buyer.
Lay Out Next Steps
Before you begin the campaign, clearly lay out the next steps after an appointment has been set. Who is responsible for sending out the meeting invite or rescheduling? What is the hand-off process to the sales team? This process needs to be in place so the lead knows what to expect next when the appointment is made.
Optimize Your Resources
The front line of an effective appointment generation campaign is dedicated and well-trained staff. Unfortunately, in many organizations the most seasoned salespeople are too busy to prospect for new business, leaving appointment setting campaigns to less-experienced staff. Many businesses have solved this dilemma by outsourcing appointment setting.
Outsourcing Appointment Generation Campaigns
Outsourcing appointment setting services can help companies expand their client base, increase market share, and accelerate business growth. Here are more reasons why outsourcing your appointment setting can be beneficial to your business:
- Speeds up the sales cycle: Outsourcing frees your salespeople from having to spend time on generating meetings, freeing them up to close sales and support clients.
- Generates a list of qualified prospects: A call center will gather, analyze, and evaluate data to find the right target audience and produce a targeted, qualified list.
- Utilizes the right skill set: Not all salespeople like, or are good at, cold calling. Outsourcing can help you achieve better results with professionals who are trained in the techniques involved in securing appointments.
- Cost-effective: A dedicated third-party team generating a consistent stream of qualified appointments is often more cost-effective than using internal staff.
- Scalable to your business needs: A call center is able to scale its services to match the demands of your business. For example, you can start small and increase your campaign, or turn it on and off according to budget restraints.
Want to get your appointment generation campaign off the ground but aren’t sure how to start? ROI Solutions provides award-winning services, including appointment setting, for over a decade to businesses just like yours. Contact ROI Solutions today to see what they can do for you.
