Mention telemarketing to many small business owners and managers and you are likely to see uncertainty, doubt and confusion. Many of them confuse telemarketing with telesales. The latter is tainted by the cold-calling, pressure tactics used by some companies to sell everything from timeshare holidays to kitchens and garden furniture.

The only similarity between telemarketing and telesales is that they both use the telephone as a communication medium.

Here are 6 reasons why you should be using telemarketing in your small business marketing mix

Appointment setting - the overriding role of marketing is to gain opportunities for your sales people. The best opportunities stem from face to face meetings. Telemarketing is proven to deliver high quality appointments with specifically targeted, pre-qualified decision makers. In preparing your appointments a good telemarketer will have had numerous contacts with your prospects' decision makers. They will have built up a rapport and set expectations so that your appointments are geared for maximum results before you get to meet the client

Lead generation - telemarketing for lead generation is a less in-depth process than appointment setting. The objective is normally to contact a prospect, gauge potential level of interest and to provide you with a profiled database of leads. You may follow up the contacts yourself or you may choose to commission a telemarketer to set appointments with the best prospects.

Database building and cleansing - most companies acquire extensive lists of contacts and prospects. Telemarketing is an excellent way of reviewing, updating and building your contact database.

Follow up - if I had to pick one key to successful small business marketing it would have to be a comprehensive, robust follow-up process. In the normal course of business just about every one of your staff will make contacts and maybe receive enquiries about your company. In a marketing sense, every such contact is manna from heaven. Following up every contact has been shown to improve sales in company after company. Telemarketers can provide a truly professional service in contact follow-up further multiplying the benefits of following up.

Customer Information - most small business owners that think of telemarketing tend to think of it as a tool for accessing new customers. However, just about any marketing book you read will tell you it is between 6 and 12 times easier/cheaper/more profitable to sell to existing customers than it is to gain a new one. Telemarketing to your existing customer base is an excellent way to inform them of all your products and services.

Customer reactivation - do you know why old customers have stopped buying from you? You should. Often it is simply because they have not had any contact with you for some extended period. Sometimes it is because they didn't know that you supplied the particular service they needed. So they look elsewhere. And eventually stop buying from you altogether.

Telemarketing is a superb way to make contact with customers as soon as they stop being customers. Sometimes that is all that is required to bring them back into the fold. At the very least you owe it to yourself to know why your customers are leaving. It is the first stage of making sure they don't leave you at all.

Six ways you can use telemarketing to boost your business. And don't let anyone persuade you it is expensive. Telemarketing is the ultimate modern cottage industry. All you need is some training, the right attitude and a telephone. You can instantly set up as a telemarketer. And if you are any good you can quickly use telemarketing to sell your own services.

Not surprisingly then, there are thousands of small telemarketing businesses - many of them absolutely excellent. There are, of course, others that are not so good. With that much competition you can get some outstanding telemarketing services for a very reasonable price.

Your challenge is to find the ones that are right for you.