Telemarketing is a direct marketing method, which is concerned with selling products and services to prospective customers via the telephone. The person engaged in such an activity is called a salesperson. There are times when there is no need for such a salesperson to perform, as sales pitches can be recorded and played via automatic dialing.

The two major categories of telemarketing are Business-to-business and Business-to-consumer. The former is concerned with transacting goods and services between businesses, whereas the latter focuses on serving products and services to the end consumer.

Subcategories of telemarketing include lead generation, which refers to the gathering of information, sales, which are primarily concerned with selling products and/or services and doing so by means of persuasion, inbound, which refers to reacting receptively to incoming requests for information and orders, and outbound, also known as proactive marketing. With inbound, it is mainly the outside salespersons, but also advertising and publicity that generally create demand. With outbound, the preexisting or prospective customers are contacted directly via the telephone, either by salespeople or through recorded messages.

Telemarketing can originate from a callcenter, from a company office or from home. If it involves a recorded message, telemarketing uses voice broadcasting and is also known as ?automated telemarketing?. Another form of voice broadcasting, frequently used in sending out political messages, is ?robocalling?.

A callcenter is a centralized office which serves the purpose of transmitting and receiving requests via the telephone. Companies usually administer callcenters in order to provide consumers with product support or provide answers to their information inquiries. A callcenter also serves a place where outgoing calls for clientele, debt collection and telemarketing are made. Callcenters are used by most major businesses with the purpose of interacting with their customers or that of servicing internal functions. Examples of such businesses include customer support for computer software and hardware, utility companies, and so forth.

A callcenter is generally operated with work stations and through an extensive open workspace. Work stations usually include a computer for each callcenter agent, supervisor stations and telephone sets connected to a telecom switch. Basically, a callcenter is concerned with call management, which aims at reducing costs and improving the operations of a certain company, while providing uniform and standardized service for its consumers. This is the reason why callcenters are ideal for large companies when their customer support needs are extensive. Calls are usually handles in an efficient manner due to the multi-tier support system that the callcenter staff are organized in.

As mentioned before, the types of calls in a callcenter can be divided into inbound and outbound. Inbound calls are made by customers who wish to obtain information, ask for help, report a malfunction, etc. Outbound calls are more closely related to telemarketing, as they are placed by agents to potential customers with the intention of providing services or selling products.

However, telemarketing is not entirely about selling something prospective customers. It is also used to solicit donations, and, in this case, its most frequent users are alumni associations, charitable organizations or political parties. Telemarketing can also serve as a means of conducting public opinion polls.