With the number of businesses continuing to do telemarketing – sales calls, appointment setting, to both households and businesses, some are tiring of the endless calls.

Are your donors being hounded by pushy sales calls? Chances are they are. Are you panning or doing any telephone appeals? What reaction are you getting to your requests for money?

It’s important to measure your calling campaigns, just adding up the pledges isn’t enough. You need to know how many people you called, personal info (age, occupation etc), also you want to know who hasn’t given and why.

Knowing why they haven’t given is important, was it the wrong time, did they have a change in personal circumstances? All of this can help you plan for future campaigns.

There’s things we can do to help telemarketing campaigns – including using social media to aid campaigns.

Charities could look at moving away from straight appeal telephone campaigns to telephone campaigns to “thank you” campaigns. These are calls that are made to thank donors for their support, it also is a good way (and time) to cleanse the database.

I’ll repeat what Laura Worcester says in Phone-a-thons: Extinct or Re-Purposed?  with this quote “So, before you decide to do away with your calling programs, consider your goals and demographics.  Calling can still be a very effective tool.  It may just be playing a different role (stewardship) in the donor cycle.  And, be sure to carefully target the right demographic for the calls. There’s a lot of good will that can be achieved by having an energetic representative from your organization reaching out and just saying, “Thanks”.  Give it a try—you might be surprised at what you might gain.”

Don’t put the phone down, pick it – use it right and you’ll benefit.