Do Not Call

As a business that is a recipient of telemarketing and also uses it as part of our marketing mix, the roll out of this needs to be measured.

We derive a reasonable portion of our business from directly connecting with other businesses and making them aware of our services and pricing, as I am sure a significant portion of other businesses do also.

From a recipient perspective, we welcome about 20% of the calls we receive because we find out about either, more competitive existing market offers, or new and innovative solutions.  The rest of the calls we receive we could certainly do without.

Businesses stand to close themselves off from the 20% of those calls that could improve their business.  It will make it increasingly difficult for a large number of small businesses to compete with their larger competitors in the already over crowded and low impact advertising arena.

A solution may be for businesses to register to not receive calls about products or services that are not complimentary to their business.  That will then filter out the 80% of calls received and they will only receive calls from businesses that can provide possible value with their services or products.

If it is a blanket ban and a large number of businesses sign up, then advertising in the long tail, and an appropriate vehicle to facilitate that, will become crucially important in the coming 18 months.