How much does a Telemarketing Campaign Cost?

How much does a telemarketing campaign cost? I’m often asked that question. How long is a piece of string? The reality is that it depends. But that’s not what most clients want to hear. They want clarity. They want certainty. However, to determine accurately what a lead generation exercise involving telemarketing might cost, any agency needs to understand certain aspects of your requirement.

It isn’t as simple as one size fits all.

Of course, you can compare apples with apples if you simply look at an hourly rate. Or, you might evaluate comparative costs per lead. But, that is too simplistic. It’s like expecting the same cost if you buy 100 x 55-inch televisions as opposed to one 17-inch monitor. Amongst other things, scale influences cost.

So, what are the factors that apply if you want to know how much a telemarketing campaign costs? We’ve listed some of the considerations below. Before speaking to an outsourced agency, it’s worth giving some thought to these as it will help them give you a more robust and realistic proposal based on your requirements and the viability of achieving those for your business.

1. 1. What are your objectives? – If your requirements are 100 leads that’s wildly different to where you need 10 leads.How quickly do you need results? – If you need 100 leads by end of play Friday, that’s a lot different to spreading the activity out over several months where you have time to build a pipeline
   2. How quickly do you need results? – If you need 100 leads by end of play Friday, that’s a lot different to spreading the activity out over several months where you have time to build a pipeline. How qualified do they need to be? – If you want hot to trot leads, how many of those are there at any given time for your product or service? Really hot leads are much harder to unearth than speculative conversations for possible future business.
   3. How qualified do they need to be? – If you want hot to trot leads, how many of those are there at any given time for your product or service? Really hot leads are much harder to unearth than speculative conversations for possible future business.How compelling is your proposition? – If you’ve got something everyone wants, it’ll take less time than something that every competitor offers and where every competitor is chasing the same buyers
   4. How compelling is your proposition? – If you’ve got something everyone wants, it’ll take less time than something that every competitor offers and where every competitor is chasing the same buyers. How high up the tree do we need to go? – If you want leads with the MD of the FTSE 100 companies that is hugely more difficult than targeting the office manager at the local doctors surgery.
   5. How high up the tree do we need to go? – If you want leads with the MD of the FTSE 100 companies that is hugely more difficult than targeting the office manager at the local doctor’s surgery. How long a campaign are you planning? – If you only want a short campaign to generate a few leads, like most businesses that will cost more proportionately than a steady campaign over 12 months
   6. How long a campaign are you planning? – If you only want a short campaign to generate a few leads, like most businesses that will cost more proportionately than a steady campaign over 12 months How much activity do you want to put in? This is related to several of our other points. If you want to gain some significant traction, you need significant activity. And, that costs proportionally less than a small amount of calling in a short space of time.
   7. How much activity do you want to put in? – This is related to several of our other points. If you want to gain some significant traction, you need significant activity. And, that costs proportionally less than a small amount of calling in a short space of time.

So, in answer to the question how much does a telemarketing campaign cost, the answer is that it really does depend on your objectives. It depends on your requirements for return on investment. And, it depends on the inputs above that shape how easy or difficult the exercise will, ultimately, be. Of course, you can benchmark hourly or day rate but it makes sense to take all of the factors for success into account in addition to looking at a pure cost.

GSA helps businesses become more effective in their marketing and business development. We run outbound telemarketing campaigns into the UK, Europe and further afield. Also, with our experience, we provide telemarketing training to help sales teams improve their results.