B2B Telemarketing: The Complete UK Guide

B2B telemarketing is the use of telephone conversations to identify, contact, qualify and develop potential business customers. It is commonly used to generate sales leads, book appointments, identify decision-makers, qualify opportunities and build a B2B sales pipeline.

In the UK, specialist outsourced B2B telemarketing typically costs around £300-£350 per telemarketer per day, while outsourced campaigns can range from approximately £2,500 to £10,000 per month, depending on the amount of resource, expertise, data and campaign management required.

Telemarketing differs from many digital lead generation channels because it creates direct two-way conversations with prospective customers. This allows businesses to establish whether there is a genuine requirement, understand objections, gather market intelligence and determine an appropriate next step.

In this guide:

What is B2B telemarketing?

B2B telemarketing is direct telephone communication between a business and prospective business customers for marketing or sales-development purposes.

Its purpose is usually to identify and develop a commercial opportunity rather than necessarily completing a sale during the initial telephone call.

A B2B telemarketing campaign can be used to:

• Identify the relevant decision-maker
• Introduce a company, product or service
• Establish whether a prospect has a current or future requirement
• Qualify potential opportunities
• Book sales meetings
• Arrange product demonstrations
• Generate enquiries
• Reactivate dormant customers
• Follow up marketing campaigns
• Research a market
• Update prospect information
• Nurture prospects over a longer sales cycle

This means telemarketing should not simply be measured by the number of telephone calls made. The quality of the conversations, the information collected and the commercial opportunities created are generally more important.

What is the difference between telemarketing and telesales?

Telemarketing is primarily concerned with creating and developing sales opportunities, whereas telesales is generally more focused on making a sale directly by telephone.

For example, a B2B telemarketer may call a Finance Director, establish that the company is reviewing its accounting software in six months and arrange a demonstration with an Account Executive. A telesales representative may instead attempt to complete the transaction during the telephone call.

There is considerable overlap between the two terms, but B2B telemarketing is frequently used for complex products and services where the sales process involves multiple conversations or meetings.

What is an SDR?

An SDR, or Sales Development Representative, is a sales professional whose primary role is to identify, contact and qualify potential customers before passing suitable opportunities to a salesperson or Account Executive.

An SDR may use:

• Telephone calls
• Email
• LinkedIn
• Social selling
• CRM systems
• Sales intelligence tools
• Prospect research

The roles of an SDR and a B2B telemarketer therefore overlap considerably.

Businesses that do not require a full-time SDR can also use a fractional SDR, where an experienced sales-development professional works for the company for part of the week or month. Beanstalk explains this model in more detail in its guide to fractional SDRs.

How does a B2B telemarketing campaign work?

A professional B2B telemarketing campaign normally contains several distinct stages.

1. Define the campaign objective

The business first needs to decide what the campaign is intended to achieve. Common objectives include generating qualified sales appointments, identifying sales opportunities, booking demonstrations, generating quotations, promoting a new product or service, entering a new market, reconnecting with dormant customers and researching future demand. The campaign objective determines how prospects should be targeted and how success should be measured.

2. Define the Ideal Customer Profile

The Ideal Customer Profile, or ICP, describes the type of organisation most likely to become a valuable customer. Typical targeting criteria include industry, company size, turnover, number of employees, geographic location, technology used, job title, business activity, existing supplier, growth stage and specific operational requirements. Precise targeting generally makes a telemarketing campaign more efficient because the telemarketer spends more time speaking to businesses with a realistic potential requirement.

3. Build or source prospect data

The next stage is creating a database of organisations and contacts that match the target market. Useful information may include company name, telephone number, website, location, industry, company size, decision-maker, job title, email address, LinkedIn profile and previous contact history. Poor-quality data can substantially reduce campaign productivity.

4. Develop the campaign messaging

Effective B2B telemarketing does not normally rely on reading a rigid script word-for-word. Instead, a campaign should establish the reason for the call, the business problem being addressed, the company’s value proposition, qualifying questions, common objections, relevant evidence or case studies and the desired next step. The telemarketer then needs sufficient knowledge to have a credible business conversation.

5. Contact prospects

The telemarketer works through the prospect database, attempting to reach appropriate decision-makers. Possible outcomes include no answer, voicemail, gatekeeper conversation, incorrect contact, decision-maker unavailable, callback requested, no current requirement, future opportunity, qualified lead or meeting booked. Because of this, telemarketing should be viewed as a process rather than a single telephone call.

6. Qualify opportunities

One of the major advantages of telemarketing is the ability to ask questions. Qualification can cover whether the prospect has a genuine requirement, what they currently use, whether they are considering changing supplier, what problems they are experiencing, who is involved in the purchasing decision, the likely timescale, budget and what needs to happen next.

7. Follow up prospects

B2B purchasing decisions frequently take place over an extended period. A prospect who has no immediate requirement may still become valuable several months later. CRM records should show what was discussed, the prospect’s circumstances, objections, buying timescale, decision-makers, agreed actions and follow-up date.

8. Report and optimise

Campaign performance should be reviewed regularly. The telemarketing team can then change target sectors, job titles, value propositions, opening messages, qualifying questions, follow-up strategies and data selection. One benefit of telephone prospecting is that feedback from potential customers is received quickly and can be used to refine the campaign.

How much does B2B telemarketing cost in the UK?

Specialist B2B telemarketing agencies in the UK typically charge around £300-£350 per telemarketer per day, while higher-volume call-centre services may cost approximately £150-£250 per agent per day. Outsourced B2B campaigns can range from approximately £2,500 to £10,000 per month depending on the level of resource required.

These figures should be treated as indicative rather than fixed industry prices.

More detail is available in Beanstalk’s guide to UK telemarketing costs.

What determines the cost of telemarketing?

Amount of telemarketing resource: A company requiring one or two days of activity each week will normally spend considerably less than a company using a full-time SDR.

Experience of the telemarketer: Reaching senior executives and discussing complex products generally requires greater sales experience than making high-volume transactional calls.

Campaign management: Some providers supply only calling resource. A fully managed service may additionally include campaign strategy, data, CRM, email campaigns, reporting, call analysis, account management, sales coaching and optimisation.

Prospect data: Accurate targeting data has a cost but can improve campaign efficiency.

Complexity of the proposition: A straightforward product may require less preparation than a technical or consultative service aimed at senior decision-makers.

Volume versus quality: A high-volume call centre may generate more telephone dials for the same budget. A specialist B2B agency may make fewer calls but devote more time to research, qualification and decision-maker conversations.

Is telemarketing expensive?

Whether telemarketing is expensive depends primarily on the value of the customers being acquired. For a company where an average new customer is worth £500, spending £3,000 generating that customer may clearly be uneconomic. If an average customer generates £50,000 or £100,000 of lifetime revenue, spending several thousand pounds generating a qualified opportunity may be commercially attractive.

The relevant calculation is therefore usually customer acquisition cost compared with customer lifetime value, rather than the absolute monthly cost of telemarketing.

What are the benefits of B2B telemarketing?

The main benefits of B2B telemarketing are direct communication, rapid feedback, lead qualification and the ability to proactively target specific businesses.

• Direct conversations with potential customers: Telemarketing allows a company to speak directly with the organisations it wants as customers. Unlike advertising, the business does not need to wait for a prospect to visit its website or respond to a campaign.
• Precise targeting: A campaign can focus on specific companies, industries, locations, company sizes, technologies, seniority levels and job functions.
• Immediate feedback: A telephone conversation allows a prospect to explain why they are interested – or why they are not. That information can be useful for sales, product development and wider marketing strategy.
• Qualification: A telemarketer can establish current supplier, requirement, timescale, decision process, potential obstacles and next steps.
• Relationship building: Complex B2B purchasing decisions often involve trust. Human conversations can establish credibility and relationships earlier in the sales process.
• Market intelligence: Even calls that do not immediately produce leads may reveal competitor information, purchasing cycles, pricing objections, decision-making structures, market trends and reasons companies change supplier.
• Predictable activity: Digital inbound lead generation can fluctuate. Outbound telemarketing provides a company with control over how many prospects it proactively approaches.
• Support for other marketing activity: Telemarketing can be combined with email marketing, LinkedIn, events, content marketing, direct mail, account-based marketing and digital advertising.

What are the disadvantages of telemarketing?

• It requires skilled people: Good B2B telemarketing is difficult. The caller needs to communicate confidently, understand the proposition, ask intelligent questions, listen, handle objections, maintain accurate records and remain motivated despite rejection.
• Decision-makers can be difficult to reach: Senior executives are busy, and reaching them can require repeated attempts.
• Results are not guaranteed: No legitimate marketing channel can guarantee that a particular campaign will produce a specific number of customers. Performance depends on the proposition, price, target market, competition, data, telemarketer, sales process and market conditions.
• Poor telemarketing can damage a brand: High-pressure or poorly targeted cold calling can create a negative impression. B2B telemarketing should therefore focus on relevant business conversations rather than simply maximising dial volumes.

We discuss these variables in more detail in Will Telemarketing Generate Leads for My Business?.

Which businesses are best suited to telemarketing?

Telemarketing tends to be most commercially attractive for B2B companies with identifiable target customers and a sufficiently high customer value to justify proactive sales activity.

• Individual customers have significant value
• The target market can be clearly identified
• A telephone conversation is useful for explaining the proposition
• Buyers need to be qualified
• The sales cycle involves multiple stages
• The product or service solves a recognisable business problem
• Potential customers may not already be actively searching for a supplier

Examples include SaaS and technology, professional services, financial services, training and apprenticeships, manufacturing, facilities management, commercial property services, outsourced business services, IT and managed services, specialist industrial products, recruitment and consultancy.

Telemarketing can be less attractive for low-value products where the potential gross profit from a new customer cannot justify the cost of human sales activity.

Measuring telemarketing performance and results

How many calls does a telemarketer make?

There is no single correct number of telephone calls for a B2B telemarketer to make. The appropriate level depends upon target audience, seniority of contacts, call duration, amount of research, number of follow-ups, CRM administration and the complexity of the campaign.

In complex B2B sales, the number of meaningful decision-maker conversations is often a more useful metric than raw dial volume.

How should telemarketing performance be measured?

The most important metric ultimately depends on the campaign objective. A campaign should not be judged purely on the number of appointments generated if those appointments rarely progress into genuine sales opportunities.

How long does telemarketing take to generate results?

Telemarketing can generate opportunities quickly, but a reliable assessment of campaign performance normally requires more than a few days of activity. Early activity provides information that can be used to improve targeting, data, messaging, objection handling and qualification criteria.

The time required to generate revenue is also affected by the client’s own sales cycle. A telemarketing campaign promoting a straightforward service may result in sales relatively quickly. A campaign targeting enterprise organisations with procurement processes lasting six or twelve months may generate valuable pipeline long before the associated revenue is received.

For this reason, businesses should distinguish between activity -> conversations -> opportunities -> meetings -> proposals -> sales -> revenue.

What is a good telemarketing conversion rate?

There is no universal telemarketing conversion rate that applies across all industries.

Conversion rates vary according to how a lead is defined, target market, quality of the data, complexity of the proposition, strength of the offer, price, brand recognition, decision-maker seniority and maturity of the market.

A company defining a lead as “someone willing to receive information” will naturally report a much higher conversion rate than a company defining a lead as “a decision-maker with a confirmed requirement and agreed sales meeting”. Businesses comparing telemarketing providers should therefore establish exactly what constitutes a lead before comparing headline conversion figures.

Should telemarketing be outsourced or managed in-house?

Both models can work. The appropriate choice depends on the amount of resource required, internal expertise and the company’s long-term sales strategy.

Advantages of an in-house telemarketing team

• Complete managerial control
• Close integration with sales
• Detailed product knowledge
• Full-time focus on one company
• Potential long-term development of internal sales talent

Disadvantages of an in-house team

• Recruitment
• Salaries
• National Insurance
• Pensions
• Holidays
• Sickness
• Training
• Sales management
• CRM
• Data
• Technology
• Staff turnover

The headline salary of a telemarketer or SDR therefore does not represent the full cost of establishing an internal function.

Advantages of outsourced telemarketing

• Faster implementation
• Experienced salespeople
• Flexible resource
• Campaign management
• Established technology
• Prospect data
• Performance reporting
• Reduced recruitment risk

A detailed comparison is available in Beanstalk’s guide to building an in-house team versus outsourced telemarketing.

We also explain the wider reasons companies outsource prospecting in Why UK Businesses Use Outsourced Sales Prospecting Services.

What is fractional telemarketing?

Fractional telemarketing means using an experienced telemarketer or SDR for only part of their available working time rather than employing or outsourcing a full-time person.

For example, a business may require a telemarketer for two days per week, ten days per month or twenty half-day sessions per month. This can be useful when the target market is relatively small or where the business only requires a limited flow of new opportunities.

What is outsourced telemarketing?

Outsourced telemarketing is an arrangement in which an external specialist conducts telephone prospecting and lead generation on behalf of another company.

A fully managed outsourced service may include:

1. Campaign planning
2. Target-market definition
3. Prospect data
4. Telemarketer selection
5. Campaign briefing
6. Telephone prospecting
7. Email follow-up
8. CRM management
9. Lead qualification
10. Appointment booking
11. Campaign reporting
12. Ongoing optimisation

Is B2B cold calling legal in the UK?

Yes. Live B2B marketing calls are permitted in the UK, subject to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and applicable data-protection requirements.

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office, organisations generally must not make unsolicited live marketing calls to numbers registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), numbers registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS), or businesses or individuals who have previously told the organisation they do not want marketing calls, unless an applicable consent exception allows the call.

Businesses making live marketing calls must also identify themselves and display their telephone number or an alternative contact number. There are additional restrictions for certain categories of marketing, including pensions and claims-management services.

Official guidance: ICO – Business-to-business marketing and ICO – Telephone marketing.

How does telemarketing compare with other channels?

Does cold calling still work?

Cold calling can still be effective in B2B markets because it enables a company to proactively start conversations with prospective customers rather than waiting for them to make an enquiry. Modern B2B telemarketing works best when it is targeted, researched and integrated with other sales and marketing channels.

Is telemarketing better than email marketing?

Neither channel is inherently better. They perform different functions. Email is scalable. Telephone conversations are interactive. For this reason, B2B campaigns frequently combine telephone and email rather than choosing one instead of the other.

Is telemarketing inbound or outbound marketing?

Telemarketing is most commonly associated with outbound marketing, because the company proactively initiates contact with prospective customers. However, telephone sales teams can also support inbound marketing by contacting website enquiries, content downloads, event registrations, webinar attendees, abandoned enquiries and previous customers.

Telemarketing versus digital lead generation

Digital lead generation and telemarketing should not necessarily be regarded as competing alternatives. Digital marketing is particularly effective at generating awareness, attracting active buyers, distributing content, reaching large audiences and capturing inbound demand. Telemarketing is particularly effective at proactively approaching selected companies, identifying decision-makers, qualifying prospects, understanding requirements and generating direct conversations.

How do you calculate the ROI from telemarketing?

ROI = (Gross profit attributable to telemarketing – telemarketing cost) / telemarketing cost x 100

For example, if a campaign costs £15,000 and generates £40,000 of gross profit attributable to the new business, it has generated £25,000 more gross profit than its cost. B2B organisations should also consider customer lifetime value, because measuring only the first invoice can significantly understate the value of a campaign.

What makes a successful telemarketing campaign?

1. A clear Ideal Customer Profile
2. Accurate prospect data
3. A commercially attractive proposition
4. Skilled telemarketers
5. Credible campaign messaging
6. Relevant qualifying questions
7. Persistent but appropriate follow-up
8. Accurate CRM records
9. Regular campaign analysis
10. Strong follow-up from the client’s sales team

Telemarketing can create an opportunity, but converting that opportunity into revenue also depends upon what happens after the lead has been generated.

What questions should you ask a telemarketing agency?

• Who will actually make the calls?
• How experienced are the telemarketers?
• How is prospect data sourced?
• Who owns the data?
• How are TPS and CTPS checks handled?
• Can we hear call recordings?
• What CRM system is used?
• How frequently will we receive reports?
• What constitutes a qualified lead?
• How are telemarketers trained?
• Who manages the campaign?
• What happens if the initial messaging does not work?
• How will prospects be followed up?
• Can activity be increased or reduced?
• What is included in the quoted price?
• What is the minimum contract period?

Businesses should be cautious about comparing providers solely on cost per call or cost per lead because differences in targeting, qualification and lead definitions can make apparently similar figures difficult to compare.

B2B Telemarketing: Quick Answers

What is telemarketing?

Telemarketing is the use of telephone conversations for marketing and sales-development purposes. B2B telemarketing usually focuses on identifying decision-makers, qualifying potential customers, generating leads and arranging sales meetings.

How much does telemarketing cost in the UK?

Specialist B2B telemarketing agencies typically charge around £300-£350 per telemarketer per day. Fully outsourced campaigns can range from around £2,500 to £10,000 per month, depending on campaign size and resource.

What does a telemarketer do?

A B2B telemarketer contacts prospective businesses, reaches decision-makers, asks qualifying questions, identifies requirements, records information and progresses suitable prospects towards a sales conversation or meeting.

Does B2B telemarketing work?

Telemarketing can work well where businesses have clearly identifiable target customers, meaningful customer lifetime values and a proposition that benefits from direct conversation. Results depend on the proposition, targeting, data, telemarketer and sales process.

Is cold calling legal in the UK?

Yes. B2B cold calling is legal in the UK subject to PECR and data-protection rules. Organisations generally need to screen live marketing calls against TPS and CTPS registrations and respect previous objections to marketing calls.

What is the difference between telemarketing and cold calling?

Cold calling describes contacting somebody with whom the caller has no established relationship. Telemarketing is broader and can include cold calls, warm prospect follow-up, customer reactivation, appointment setting, lead qualification and market research.

What is the difference between an SDR and a telemarketer?

The roles substantially overlap. SDRs frequently combine telephone prospecting with email, LinkedIn and sales technology. Telemarketers may focus more heavily on telephone conversations, although modern B2B telemarketing commonly uses the same supporting channels.

Is outsourcing telemarketing cheaper than employing someone?

It can be, particularly where a business does not require a full-time employee. A valid comparison should include recruitment, salary, employer costs, holidays, training, management, technology, CRM and data rather than comparing an agency fee with salary alone.

How long should a telemarketing campaign run?

There is no universal minimum. B2B campaigns benefit from sufficient time to test targeting and messaging, develop follow-up opportunities and account for the underlying sales cycle.

What industries use telemarketing?

B2B telemarketing is widely used in technology, SaaS, professional services, financial services, training, manufacturing, facilities management, IT, recruitment, consultancy and other sectors where customers have significant value and can be specifically identified.

About Beanstalk Marketing

Beanstalk Marketing Services Ltd is a UK B2B telemarketing and lead generation agency established in 2009.

We provide outsourced B2B telemarketing, lead generation and SDR services to businesses ranging from SMEs and technology companies to larger corporate organisations.

Our campaigns can combine:

• Targeted B2B prospect data
• Telephone prospecting
• Email marketing
• Appointment setting
• Outsourced SDR resource
• CRM management
• Campaign reporting
• Account management

Find out more about our B2B telemarketing services, or speak to our team about the right approach for your business.