One of the most critical factors in the success of a telemarketing campaign is the quality of the list your working from.

Generally there are 4 types of lists that can be used;

1. Use your own data list
2. Use a purchased list
3. Use of an in-house telemarketing company list, or
4. Use directory pages

Which is the Best List Option?
When deciding what type of list to use it is recommended that the source list have up to date information including contact details of the decision maker. This will of course exclude directory pages. And in most cases it will also exclude in-house lists supplied by a telemarketing company as they can be years old.

The best choices are either your own list or a list that is purchased. There is no such thing as good quality ‘Free” prospect list data!

It is a mistake to believe that you will be saving money using an in house list or using directories to call from as one of the biggest hurdles when calling is getting through to the person that makes the decision.

A lot of time can be wasted on the phone with (in the case of business to business) gatekeepers who take a time screening your call in order to stop you getting through. The same can happen with householder calls if the wrong person picks up the phone and you fail to get through that’s it, you’ve blown the call.

In contrast having a list that has contact details allows the telemarketer to create familiarity in the voice tone allowing a much higher percentage of calls to get through.

If someone called you and asked who would be the person that looks after purchasing widgets then you immediately identify the call as a telemarketing call and your reaction becomes defensive straight away.

If on the other hand a telemarketer calls and asks for a person by their first name it creates an entirely different outcome.

Although in house lists may also have contact details for decision makers they are almost always out of date.

Even if it isn’t out of date then most likely those same prospects will have been called recently for another campaign and as a result maybe less responsive when it comes to your campaign.

So with In house lists and directories, the time taken dancing around trying to find out who is the correct decision maker can end up costing much more then the cost of purchasing a current, fresh prospect list.

Of course if you have your own list then that’s even better.

There is one other consideration however. With a list that has contact names within it, you are more likely to get past any receptionist (gatekeeper) however you are also more likely not to speak to that contact on the first, second or even the third call resulting in a very high unreachable count. This becomes more evident wither higher ranking job titles.

So it is important to weigh up the pros and cons of either chancing it with the receptionists or chancing by targeting a specific person and not being able to reach them at all.

It is also important to ensure your prospect data is compliant and not out of date otherwise you may be in breech and held responsible by failing to ensure your contracted party complied with any national blocked phone number registry.

So what do we recommend

There is no such thing as quality data that does not cost you any extra or is included in some overall pricing. Therefore we recommend purchasing a tailored customer prospect list from a reputable list provider.