The goal of an outbound calling campaign isn’t always to generate a lead immediately. For B2B and medtech companies, outbound calling can serve many purposes at once, from qualifying an inquiry and updating contact information, to building relationships and setting an appointment.
An outbound calling campaign can also be used as a “sales lab.”
When speaking with a medtech or B2B prospect over the phone, you can get a wealth of insights on a variety of subjects related to your industry, company, product or marketing efforts—even your competition. You can then apply these insights to developing new strategies. A sales lab is particularly valuable for rapidly growing businesses where there’s little time or budget for a separate market research effort.
Other benefits of a sales lab campaign include:
- Rapidly gathering actionable market intelligence
- Getting firsthand feedback with far more context than a digital survey
- Prioritizing prospects and market segments most likely to buy
- Reducing the risk associated with new product introductions or market expansions
- Keeping your in-house team focused on core activities
With all the challenges and changes prompted by COVID-19, it’s smart to take a second look right now at how you’re approaching your market. A sales lab campaign gives you the knowledge and confidence you need for on-point and authentic marketing and sales efforts.
Here are some things that calling a prospect or customer in a sales lab environment will enable you to do:
Validate product ideas
Calling a prospect or customer will enable you to validate new ideas by taking a market research approach. Your inside sales rep (or outsourced call center team) gives a high-level overview of a potential solution (or several solutions). Then, your target audience weighs in on how likely they are to buy, what they are likely to pay for such a solution and their preferred delivery method.
This solid market feedback enables you to head in the right direction with final development and product launch. This is especially important for companies that are driven by innovation, such as software and tech firms. Another plus is that you already know which companies are most likely to buy, and based on their responses, you can flag these individuals in your database for follow-up calls when you release your new offering.
Test market segments
While you may have a target audience in mind as you develop a product or service, that target audience is rarely solidified in the early stages of research and development. Your audience needs and characteristics can also evolve as market demands change or your product or service adapts to keep up with industry shifts.
In many cases, your product or service will appeal to different market segments for different reasons. Executing a calling campaign and speaking directly to decision-makers, influencers and actual users within your various market segments will uncover current information that lets marketing, sales and product management judge the right message and sales approach.
By testing your ideas and listening to your audience in a small sample population, you can hone your strategy quickly and cost-effectively before rolling it out across your entire universe of potential customers.
Compare value propositions
Just as your product or service can resonate with different target audiences, it can also provide value in different ways. How you quickly and succinctly communicate that benefit is your value proposition.
Effective value propositions appeal specifically and uniquely to each market segment. For example, the value proposition of an outsourced call campaign for your marketing department will speak to timely and accurate information gathering. In contrast, a message for the same service, but targeting sales leaders, might focus on lead generation and caller professionalism. An appeal to the purchasing team will speak to result measurement and cost efficiencies.
The key to success is developing relevant and compelling messages that speak to your audience’s individual needs. A sales lab call campaign lets you compare and adjust your messaging by speaking with various roles, titles, departments and company types. Based on input gathered, you can finetune your pitch going forward.
Learn from decision-makers
When it comes to insights from your most important audiences, digital surveys and online tools tell only part of the story. A one-to-one conversation with your medtech or B2B audiences reveals far more valuable information. There’s nothing more powerful than collecting and sharing this “in their own words” feedback with executives, marketing, sales, product management and other stakeholders. Using a sales lab campaign arms you with the data and details you need to improve your efforts going forward. If you leverage a professional call center, you’ll even receive digital recordings of calls to share with your team.
The information you can obtain through an outbound calling campaign is endless. Volkart May callers know how to ask the right questions, probe for details and gather actionable intelligence that helps you hone your marketing and sales efforts. Schedule a time to discuss your sales lab project today.
