Why telemarketing for financial services firms works when targeting businesses, landlords, and developers

Sometimes, a prompt to take action is all a commercial borrower needs. And nothing prompts them better than being contacted by one of our experienced reps when we’re telemarketing for financial services clients.

Business owners are constantly having to juggle multiple balls on daily basis.

Finding the time needed to make an application for business finance is often very difficult.

There is also inherent inertia in many business owners’ minds as they believe that they will have to collate a significant number of documents to apply for funding.

You would genuinely be surprised about how receptive business owners are to receiving cold calls from lenders or brokers.

So, how would our financial marketing team promote the commercial financial products and commercial mortgages you sell by phone?

Who we’ll contact for you

To give your telemarketing campaign every chance of success, we ask you to tell us first what your commercial goals are when we’re calling out for you.

This is because we only want to deliver you the volume and type of work you want.

To do that, we make sure that the decision makers we’re calling on your behalf are the decision makers most likely to want and need the financial products you wish to promote.

Once we’re clear on what you want from your campaign, the next decision is getting the decision maker contact information we need to carry it out for you.

Cold calling – looking for brand new business

If you wish to target decision makers within companies with whom you have no current relationship, we can source the data we need for the campaign from one of our list owner or broker partners.

From our B2B telemarketing database, you can select the decision makers we’ll call for you by:

• their areas of purchasing responsibility
• the line of business they work for or own
• the geographical area in which they’re located, and
• the size of their business (measured by either number of employees or turnover).

Within 24 hours, your account manager will get back to you with a count of the number of decision makers we have matching your requirements.

You may wish to refine your count downwards afterwards to make sure that we’re only contacting the decision makers of the very highest value to you.

The more refined and precise your target list, the lower the cost of the campaign and the greater the potential return on your investment.

Warm calling – contacting decision makers who are already familiar with you

We’re very experienced in contacting clients’ existing customer and prospect databases.

If you want us to call the decision makers on these databases, we’re happy to sign any NDA you require.

Once we have your database, we’ll cleanse it to make sure that both the decision maker information and contact details are still correct.

The more accurate the database we’re calling from for you, the higher the chance that we’ll be able to meet and exceed the commercial goals you have for your telemarketing campaign.

Who’ll be working on your campaign

In addition to your account manager, there are four other people involved in delivering your telemarketing campaign:

Your telemarketer – we’ll select the in-house telemarketer with the most experience in financial services promotion for your campaign.

We strongly encourage you to speak with your telemarketer prior to your campaign going live so that you can get to know them and so that you can answer any questions they have.

The script writer – our script writer will build the structure and the script to be used on the calls on your campaign.

They will create:

• an effective opening for your telemarketer to use,
• a complete approach to handling clients’ potential questions and objections, and
• a closing strategy most likely to deliver the outcome you want from each call.

Your telemarketing manager – your telemarketing manager trains your telemarketer on:

• your company and the financial products we’re introducing,
• why a decision maker would want those products, and
• how to best use and deliver the script we’ve created for your campaign.

They then actively monitor your telemarketer’s performance when the campaign is live including monitoring the quality of their calls and making sure they achieve the general and campaign-specific KPIs and targets set for them.

Campaign reporter – the campaign reporter makes sure that the technology which allows you to view your telemarketing campaign live on the internet when it’s in progress is accessible to you as well as stable.

Booking hours for your campaign

We charge for our telemarketing service by the hour subject to a minimum booking of 40 hours.

Find out more

To speak with one of our telemarketing managers, please call us on 0330 010 3495 or you can email us by clicking here.

We also offer email marketing for financial services firms – ask us about it when you call.

What you need to know about cold telemarketing for financial services firms

To give yourself the best chance of success in a telemarketing campaign, you need to be certain in advance about who you want to call and what it is you want to sell to them.

Choice is the enemy of sales – positive results will be much lower on any campaign where the prospect is pitched with multiple financial products.

They may not know what each financial product is and, even if they do, they may be uncertain on which one would be suitable for them out of the choice they’re offered.

You need to be certain of the types of companies you wish to approach

It would be pointless approaching a food retailer with an invoice factoring product – a food retailer’s customers pay them in advance.

When we’re organising your campaign for you, we’ll need to know why the particular companies you select from our database are more likely to want the financial product you choose for us to present on your behalf.

What is it about that sector which makes this financial product suitable?

Which problems will it solve or which opportunities will it unlock?

Urgency is also an important factor in any call.

Outbound direct marketing campaigns give lenders and brokers the opportunity to persuade a borrower to work to their timescale and not necessarily to the timescale in the customer’s mind, no matter how well or poorly defined that timeline is.

Urgency may be introduced by letting a borrower know that there is a limited amount of funding available on a particular financial product you’re offering.

If there is speculation about the Bank of England base rate and the financial product you offer has a fixed rate, you may ask us to introduce urgency into the call by informing the prospective borrower that they may end up paying more for their facility if they don’t proceed with an application quickly.

Telemarketing for financial services companies – the types of financial products we can promote over the phone for you

Running telemarketing campaigns promoting business loans

If you wish to market standard business loans like a working capital loan or an expansion loan, which companies should you choose to call?

We often recommend to lenders and brokers that they identify the types of companies from the loans they have already placed which seem to apply for funding more than others.

Why are they applying for that funding?

Are they engineering firms with lumpy cashflows whose invoices are often greatly overdue and there seems to be little to no prospect of their clients paying them within the timeframe they desire?

Working capital, cash flow finance, or invoice factoring would be suitable.

On these types of campaign, we would encourage you to share the experiences of some of your other borrowers with us so that we can relay those stories to those firms.

Borrowers react better to lenders or brokers who they feel understand the situation they’re in and they’re more open to offers being made by those lenders or brokers.

Many companies face intermittent struggles as a result of late payment of invoices when attempting to meet their VAT and corporation tax liabilities.

However, when their clients do eventually pay, their cash flow recovers and they’re able to fully repay the loan.

Can you offer short-term funding to businesses?

Can you identify from trends in borrowing patterns which types of business are most likely to struggle with VAT, corporation tax, or PAYE payments?

What are the fastest growing types of business in the UK at the moment?

In the 2010s, the number of recruitment firms increased dramatically.

Most of them have survived and many of them have used funding to help them grow.

Which types of companies can you assist with providing the funding they require to scale?

If you offer short-term secured funding like bridging loans, help us identify the types of prospect we should target and we’ll contact them on your behalf.

Successful telemarketing campaigns for invoice finance and discounting

Invoice factoring is a highly useful but often misunderstood form of commercial finance.

Competition in the sector has always been intense.

That intensity has increased as newer companies enter the market with radically different funding propositions for clients.

Which types of company does your firm specialise in providing invoice finance to?

Do you have an invoice factoring or discounting product which would suit particular industries like construction or recruitment and which is better than others on the market?

Let us know why they are better, which companies we should contact, and give us a positive story we can share with the decision-makers within these companies.

We can run more targeted campaigns for lenders and brokers wanting to promote:

• receivables factoring,
• purchase order finance,
• receivables finance,
• receivables discounting, and/or
• accounts receivables finance.

Telemarketing for business cash advances

Business cash advance loans have become a popular choice for smaller businesses seeking funding since the product was first launched in the UK in 2007.

Identify to us the types of companies most likely to process some or all of their payments via debit or credit card and we can call them on your behalf.

We have worked on many different campaigns for business cash advance providers often targeting the convenience and hospitality sectors.

Telemarketing for equipment leasing companies

Equipment leasing is a valuable sales tool for many companies as are:

• hire purchase,
• maintenance inclusive agreements,
• master leases,
• operating leases,
• sale & leaseback agreements, and
• seasonal leases.

If you specialise in funding certain types of equipment, let us know what they are.

With you, we’ll then select from our database the companies likely to be selling that equipment to end users.

We can then run a telemarketing campaign to those firms to:

• explain how offering equipment leases benefits the customer and makes the sale more likely if they currently don’t use it or
• persuade the main decision maker within a company to try your service over the service they’re currently using.

Telemarketing for development funding

Developers are subject to both unique cash flow pressures and to having to work within very tight deadlines.

You can help them:

• on projects which are in danger of missing their current exit date by refinancing any current facility they have and
• by providing funding for other projects they have planned in the coming months.

We have experience in promoting:

• light development finance,
• senior development finance,
• stretched senior development finance,
• super stretch development finance,
• commercial development finance,
• build to let development finance,
• mezzanine development finance, and
• development exit finance products.

By calling a large enough number of developers, you should pick up immediate refinancing proposals from a handful where their schedule has slipped.

In addition, we’ll be able to create a borrowing pipeline for your sales team with information on the expected borrowing requirements from the companies we contact for the next year or two.

Telemarketing to residential and commercial landlords

We have access to extensive calling lists for residential and commercial landlords and developers.

As with our campaigns to development funders, we can identify immediate and future requirements for:

• auction finance,
• residential bridging loans,
• commercial bridging loans,
• buy-to-let mortgages,
• refinance bridging loans,
• refurbishment finance, and
• second charge bridging loans.

Telemarketing for financial services FAQ

How much do your telemarketing managers and telesales reps know about commercial finance products?

More Than Words works on monthly retainer with multiple lenders and brokers in the commercial finance sector.

We work not only on providing clients with telemarketing campaigns – we also provide high-quality, SEO-optimised articles, websites, email marketing campaigns, and more.

Marketing and promoting commercial finance products and commercial mortgages is one of the company’s specialisms.

Aren’t people offended when you call them about money?

No – we understand that this is a common worry among directors of lenders and brokers considering booking a telemarketing campaign.

We approach each call with the belief that we are trying to help a potential borrower:

• expand their business,
• invest in new machinery,
• navigate a period of tight cash flow and more.

The lack of deep knowledge among business owners on commercial financial products and commercial mortgages is surprising.

There is a lack of awareness on both the range of products and the large number of lenders and brokers competing for business.

Compared with telemarketing campaigns we run for clients in other sectors, some of our longest calls we make to prospective customers are on campaigns we run for commercial finance providers because the people we speak to are interested to find out more.

How do you pass a lead on to me when your rep books one?

As soon as we have established an imminent interest to find out more on the part of a potential borrower and their interest has been confirmed in a qualifying call, we send you straight away:

• the name and company name of the client together with their contact information,
• their immediate lending requirements as they’ve told us, and
• all of the other details we’ve recorded on the call.

Where there is no immediate interest shown on the call but the prospective borrowers has shared their plans for the coming 24 months with us when we spoke to them, we record this on your calling sheets.

They will be highlighted in a different colour on the spreadsheet to let you know that we think that it is important that you read the notes we’ve made.

What conversion rate should I expect?

No response is guaranteed however, in the normal course of calling, we average a new lead where there is imminent interest every 2-3 hours.

Please note that the More Than Words’ telemarketing service for finance companies is not charged on a pay-per-lead basis – we charge per hour of calling.

How can I track my campaign?

We’ll send you log in details to an online spreadsheet which will contain live records of your campaign.

You’ll be able to see:

• which numbers we’ve called,
• who we’ve spoken to (and who we’ve not been able to speak to), and
• the notes your telemarketer has made on each call.

On most calls, we attempt to find out:

• who is involved in the decision-making process within a company when seeking finance,
• any outstanding finance facilities they have,
• any imminent need they have for finance, and
• their plans for obtaining funding in the next 24 months.

How do I speak with someone about telemarketing for financial services companies packages?

Ordering a telemarketing campaign for your finance company starts with a conversation between you and our telesales manager.

Please let them know as much about your company and the products you offe.

Then, we’ll plan a campaign which we believe has the highest likelihood of success by choosing the most appropriate types of business to get in touch with.

Please call us on 0330 010 3495 or you can email us at telemarketing-for-financial-services@morethanwordsuk.co.uk.

Warm telemarketing for financial services

Many of our commercial finance lenders and brokers pick up significant repeat work from staying in touch with their existing client base.

Bridging loan and development finance providers

Whether small or large, many construction, renovation, and refurbishment projects don’t keep to the original timetable agreed to by the borrower when they took out a bridging loan or development finance package.

As a result, the borrower is at a greater risk of default.

By keeping track of the progress on each of your clients’ projects, you can determine the likelihood that a project is going to miss its target completion date.

If it is, then this is an opportunity for you to assist your customer by arranging refinancing for their current facility which is approaching its due date.

Likewise, if you have clients with substantial property portfolios or assets of significant worth, letting them know that they’re able to access further funding by securing it on some or all of the equity in their portfolio may give rise to further revenue opportunities for your company.

For all clients, the lending market may have improved since you arranged their current facility.

You may be able to save your client a significant sum in interest by arranging a new bridging loan or development finance package at a lower rate.

Telemarketing to existing borrowers

When businesses embark on an expansion, it is an universal truth for most companies that growth costs more than they thought and it takes longer than they planned for.

Some clients may require additional financing to complete their expansion and, as long as their cash flow supports the repayment of extra funding, there is an opportunity for your company to earn a fee for your assistance.

Likewise, businesses which borrow short-term to meet either unexpected expenditure or the payment of VAT or corporation tax may require refinancing if the cash they had been expecting to receive had not yet materialised.

Telemarketing to borrowers whose facilities are fully settled

For clients whose facilities have been paid off in full, there may be a new need for financing but, in the client’s mind, it is not urgent enough yet to pursue.

A new project may be:

• the next round of expansion,
• the purchase of commercial premises, or
• investment in new plant, machinery, or equipment.

You may be able to win extra work from your existing clients by contacting them, letting them know that you can help them, and starting the application procedure on their behalf.

Telemarketing for financial services companies – the business case

The market for commercial finance products and services is likely to become more intense in coming years because:

• more lenders and brokers will launch and
• lenders and brokers will extend their range of products to take advantage of up-sell and on-sell opportunities to both new and existing clients

Many borrowers choose to stay with their lender or broker particularly if they feel their lender or broker has served them well over time.

On any type of marketing campaign, they will be the most difficult to persuade to come across to your firm.

However, if they perceive that you offer better rates and faster service, they’ll be much more inclined to try you.

It’s much easier to persuade someone with a conversation than it is by email.

This is why telemarketing for financial services companies has grown in popularity and effectiveness.

In general, there are very high levels of service in the industry among lenders and brokers.

However, no company is perfect and perceived dips in quality of service from your competitors opens the door to our telemarketers persuading borrowers to try your service instead.

And while you can’t guarantee that everyone we put on your borrowing pipeline will use you, you’ll know who they are, how much they need, and when you need to contact them.

Find out more about telemarketing for financial services

We’re open during office hours between Monday and Friday.

Please call us, email us, or fill out the contact form and let us know about your company, the range of commercial financial products you offer, and the types of companies you want to target with a telemarketing for financial services campaign.

We’re available on 0330 010 3495 or you can email our commercial financial marketing team by clicking here.

We’re based in North Shields town centre if you want to come and visit us. There’s lots of free parking outside and we’re only three minutes’ walk away from North Shields Metro station.