TTMC converts warm and inactive leads into solid pipeline of high-quality appointments and cleansed, enhanced data for RCNi

Founded in 1987 and formerly known as RCN Publishing, RCNi is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the world's largest union and professional body for nursing staff. With over thirty years at the forefront of nurse education, it is a trusted provider of expert nursing information.

RCNi’s vision is to be a lifelong learning partner for nurses and inform and inspire them at every step of their career. It produces journals that provide health professionals with the latest developments impacting nursing, notably changes in policy, practice and research. It also offers a range of digital products including RCNi Learning, an interactive, online resource designed to help qualified and student nurses enhance their skills, meet CPD requirements, give the best possible patient care and progress their careers.

Campaign objective and project background

RCNi had a large database of leads at different stages of the customer journey, both warm and inactive, with varying levels of quality and completeness. RCNi wanted to test how adding telemarketing into the process could increase conversion of warm leads and re-activate those that had gone cold. They needed an agency with outbound lead generation and lead qualification expertise to call through the data, bring strong prospects to the surface and convert them to sales qualified appointments for their internal sales team. They identified The Telemarketing Company (TTMC) as a good fit based on the agency’s outbound lead generation expertise and wealth of public sector and healthcare experience.

Project execution

The key objective was for TTMC to deliver sales-ready leads for RCNi Learning, scheduling online meetings for the client’s sales team to demo the platform to senior decision makers within each organisation. The client provided TTMC with a comprehensive overview of the resource. Benefits covered included:

• An interactive, easy-to-use app, which enables nurses to learn ‘on the go’

• Keeping staff skills and knowledge current to maintain registration with the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council).

• Helping deliver the best possible care, helping improve patient safety and experiences.

• Helping retain and recruit nursing staff.

• Identifying skill gaps within the nursing team.

A secondary goal was to raise awareness of RCNi’s broader offering, so the briefing covered the full suite of professional development resources and journals.

The target audience was NHS Trusts/Hospitals and private healthcare hospitals in the UK with between 500 and 10,000 staff. Key decision maker contacts would vary from organisation to organisation but were primarily Heads of Clinical Education, Learning and Development, Directors of Nursing and Clinical Heads. Decision making units would often include multiple contacts so calls needed to pinpoint exactly which individuals were involved in purchase decisions or held budget authority.

The data management strategy was important as data came via multiple sources and leads were at different stages of their lifecycle. Segments were identified and set up as individual focus lists within TTMC’s calling platform. The calling schedule was then structured to strategically target different pots – for example, warmer data called first to convert existing interest and segmented by source to streamline the approach.

Calling as RCNi was helpful in getting prospects’ attention and in establishing trust as brand recognition was high and the organisation held in high regard across the industry. Having made a good connection at the start of the call, TTMC focused on tailoring the proposition during each live call based on the profile of each prospect, bringing the relevant resources and associated benefits to the fore.

The qualification process identified contacts with the right profile and gathered intelligence such as if the contact was a budget holder, how many staff they were responsible for, whether they would purchase for their division or whole organisation, and in what time period. This enabled TTMC to identify high value prospects and at the same time capture useful insight to increase conversion and inform future RCNi decision making. Appointments were then secured, using Teamup to simultaneously create an event in both the prospect’s and RCNi’s team calendar, with lead notes and call recordings shared to provide details of the prospect’s needs in advance of demos.

A systematic approach and flexibility in tailoring a compelling proposition on each call meant TTMC quickly started to warm leads, generate interest and build a qualified pipeline. Call recordings were shared proactively with the client to seek feedback and continuously improve the call approach over time, with small tweaks to messaging and product positioning.

Results

TTMC was able to convert a mixed database of cold and warm leads into a pipeline of solid opportunities for RCNi’s internal sales team. 42 web demos were generated with qualified decision makers interested in RCNi Learning and the initial six-week pilot extended. Conversations captured valuable insight that was available to allow RCNi’s SDRs to tailor product demos, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

The client has really appreciated how telemarketing has transformed incomplete and cold data into demo appointments and a cleansed enhanced database, increasing the return on their original marketing investment. They have been impressed with TTMC’s ability to represent their brand, apply robust qualification to quickly find right fit leads and articulate a compelling, tailored proposition. There are already a number of high-quality opportunities in the pipeline and the client will be able to gauge full ROI once all demos are completed.