Combining e-mail marketing and telemarketing

There have not been many studies about combining the two direct marketing methods. Short mentions appear in several books and articles, but a broad study concentrating only on the combination of the two methods have not been published. However, Barry Silverstein (2000) talks about combining direct mail with telemarketing in the book Business-To-Business Inter-

TELEMARKETING ADVANTAGES CHALLENGES Company:
reduce costs
increase sales
easy
good possibility to target Company:
Robinson list
finding the right

people
not answering
negative respons Customer:
good service
no need for intitiative
possible discounts Customer:
aggressive
disturbing
no possibility to abnegat
continious

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net Marketing. He highlights the possibilities on sales growth when it is used effectively on both active customers, that have responded to mailing and non-active customers that have not replied. On both times the marketer can prompt the response. (Silverstein 2000, 127-128.)

One study was found to be closest to this research problem. In article published in Ebsco, Nemes (2008) shortly discusses about the integration of e-mail and telemarketing. In an ex- ample presented a company operating in the manufacturing business evaluated their telemar- keting campaign. They realized that not maximum profits were reached, because not all the customers were aware of their activities. They decided to add a sophisticated e-mail marketing campaign to introduce their products to customers before performing their normal telemar- keting activities. The results were amazing, because the number of interested customers grew over 50%. Then telemarketing calls could be targeted on only attracted customers and the company saved money and time at the same time. (Nemes, 2008.)

3.4.1 Research framework

The previous chapters reread that e-mail marketing is a cost effective direct marketing tool with which it is possible to target to your customers but still use it as a mass marketing tool if wanted. E-mail marketing is also seen as customer friendly way to communicate with your customers, whereas telemarketing is usually considered to be more disturbing. However, re- ducing costs is one of the main highlights also for telemarketing and it can be used for a pri- vate dialogue with the customer.

Like in the previous paragraph and throughout the whole literature review of this bachelor thesis there has been separate discussion about advantages and disadvantages of e-mail mar- keting and telemarketing. This decision has been made based on the available literature and previous research as there are not many existing studies on combining the two direct market- ing methods. It is good to investigate their separate benefits and drawbacks in order to under- stand the main concept behind them. However, the main purpose and value of this research is to look and investigate the combination of e-mail marketing and telemarketing and provide new information for studies in business-to-business direct marketing.

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Figure 7. The Research Framework (Created by the author 2010).

The framework of the research, which is presented above, was formulated based on the fol- lowing categorization. First separate advantages of e-mail marketing and telemarketing are listed in the top white squares on both sides of the figure. Controversially, disadvantages of the two direct marketing techniques are listed in the below gray square boxes. As both parties’ opinions have been discussed throughout this literature review it was obvious to separate them as well. To summarize, you can find from the research framework figure the main points of advantages and disadvantages for companies (sellers) and customers (other busi-

COMPANY: Robinson list, finding the right people, not answering, negative responses CUSTOMER: aggressive disturbing no possibility to abnegat continious COMPANY: reduce costs increase sales easy good possibility to target

CUSTOMER:

good service no need for intitiative possible discounts

COMPANY: reduce costs increase sales reachability

targeting, still too many people

CUSTOMER: good service discounts

no need for initiative read when want

COMPANY:

regulations

mails are not opened how to make e-mails interesting CUSTOMER: disturbing viruses viral marketing no possibilty to end PROS PROS Customer Company perspective perspective CONS CONS Customer Company perspective perspective

E-MAIL MARKETING TELEMARKETING

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nesses, buyers) in e-mail marketing and telemarketing. Advantages are listed in white and dis- advantages in grey squares.

However, as the main reason for conducting this research is to find pros and cons when combing e-mail marketing with telemarketing the central circle is the most valuable for the research. From the literature review we can agree that combining e-mail marketing with tele- marketing can be an effective tool in direct marketing if used right. Customers can relate to the offered campaigns via e-mail or telephone only if the company is familiar to them. By adding information about the company and the products to the first contacting e-mail will make it easier to close sales through later telemarketing activities. Unfortunately, it was also mentioned that this has not been a common study area in business to business direct market- ing. This is why this circle is also a research gap for this thesis and will be answered after con- ducting the research.

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4 Research Method and Implementation

This part of the bachelor thesis will describe details about the conduction of the research. Qualitative, the chosen research method will be first clarified and explained. Later on the in- terview questions will be introduced and categorized based on the literature review frame- work. All these steps were planned and later executed in order to answer the research ques- tion and fill in the research gap in the best possible way: what are the pros and cons when combining e-mail marketing with telemarketing in business-to-business direct marketing?