What Is Telemarketing?

Telemarketing means that someone places telephone calls to people in the hopes of selling goods or services to them. This article explores several aspects of the practice of telemarketing.

Calling from a call center

Sometimes ads in the local paper calling for applicants to make "cold calls" over the phone. They can do this from a call center in a group setting or from their own home. It all depends on the requester's needs and situation. If calling from a call center, callers sit together with other callers in a large room that the requester rents for this particular round of calls. The callers work usually in shifts lasting several hours and make calls straight from local directories or from certain parameters set by the requester. For example, if callers attempt to sell newspaper subscriptions for a local newspaper, they do not need to call people residing outside of their geographical area. Sometimes when people receive a call from a call center, they can hear much background noise and the sounds of callers trying to make sales or appointments.

Calling from home

When callers telephone from home, they usually want to make appointments for representatives to visit homes and make further sales that way. For example, caller might make cold calls for an insurance salesman to visit prospective clients. Instead of spending his time making calls, the insurance salesman might prefer to spend the money to hire someone else to do this for him, allowing him more time to work on existing policies

Telemarketing involves people calling to sell goods or services, either from call centers or from their homes. They make appointments, sell coupon books or other goods.