Appointment setting has actually existed for nearly two decades. Over the last five to seven years, however, it has undergone a dramatic transformation. When appointment setting began, it focused primarily on the business-to-business environment, where an inside or outside sales rep would cold call into an account to set up a face-to-face appointment. Even today, it is common to observe salespeople knocking on the doors of small businesses, trying to drop off their business cards—whether they are selling copiers or cleaning services or maintenance and repair services. The goal of securing a face-to-face meeting is still quite common today. However, traditional methods of appointment setting require a huge investment of sales resources, and from that perspective these methods are simply not productive anymore. The fact is, traditional appointment setting wastes a lot of money and time today. However, when conceived as the last step of a structured digital prospecting process, appointment setting can be totally reconfigured and drive significant ROI, and it also can substantially increase customer satisfaction.The future of appointment setting depends heavily on integration with inbound marketing. In other words, successful appointment setting in today’s marketplace requires a proper balance between inbound and outbound marketing tactics. Appointment setting traditionally has been considered on outbound marketing tactic, but recently it is more common for it to be incorporated as the last step of inbound marketing.For this article, I’d like to focus on seven critical principles for making an appointment setting campaign successful:* Appointment setting must begin with an inbound marketing approach. Traditionally, inbound marketing refers to the integrated use of search, social media and a website to drive the awareness of prospective buyers and generate interest among those buyers in reaching out to a specific vendor, asking them to initiate contact. This where an integrated appointment setting strategy can drive real results.* The website is your 24×7 salesperson. Traditionally the website has functioned as a summary of what a company does at a high level, with explanations of products and solutions, a section with information about the company’s office presence and contact information, a description of the leadership team and so on. However, over the past five years or so the company website has morphed into what I would call a “digital salesperson” who can sell on a 24/7 cycle. Most companies that are now focused on content marketing to drive lead generation are using their website as a digital salesperson. What does that mean? Today’s website is structured to engage buyers at various stages of research that they are undertaking to determine whether or not the vendor can meet their needs. For instance, in a classic scenario the buyer goes through a series of phases on the path to purchase: awareness, interest, trial or demo, engagement with the vendor and procurement—followed by renewal or repurchase. In the earliest phase where the buyer is developing awareness and interest in a vendor’s solution, the conversation needs to be very different than in other stages. Traditional appointment setting has done a poor job of addressing the multiple stages the buyer may be progressing through. An effective website, on the other hand, can address those stages with different types of content.* Search is king and queen. After the website, the next most important function for appointment setting is search.