Business Tips Guides

Business people who are thinking about using voice broadcasting as a lead generation technique often fail to carefully consider whether they should broadcast to live answered phones, answer machines, or both. This is probably because they’ve read something describing one technique, or a friend has told them about their experience.

Even experienced voice broadcasters will often have tried only one type of delivery, simply because that is the method they’ve always used, they know it works, so they feel “why bother trying something different?”

The thoughtful broadcaster will be more curious, though, realizing that for a particular market, or a particular message, one delivery method will probably be a less costly lead generation solution than the other. It is impossible to accurately predict an outcome for every market and message, but this article will describe the fundamental differences that a broadcaster will experience between live and answer machine delivered messages.

The biggest attraction for broadcasters employing “live only” broadcasts is the immediacy of the experience. They are able to “strike while the iron is hot” by speaking immediately to all the respondents who press “1″ in response to their message. The “live only” broadcaster enjoys the fact that when they turn their broadcast campaign on, their phones begin ringing.

This attraction is also tied in with the biggest drawback to the “live only” broadcast - the fact that it is so easy for the respondent to reach over to their phone and press “1″. The problem is, it’s also easy for an uninterested party who just wants to complain and ask to not be called again. So along with the immediate gratification of receiving calls, and the knowledge that the broadcaster is “leaving no stone unturned”, comes the unfortunate fact that a good proportion of the live transfers have absolutely no value as leads.

Alternatively, other broadcasters may use the “answer machine only” message delivery technique. Their message will not have an invitation to press “1″, of course, but will encourage prospects to call a phone number, or perhaps visit a website, or both. The biggest difference a broadcaster will notice between the two methods is that with the “answer machine only” method, their phones don’t start or stop ringing along with the broadcast running or stopped, and their phones don’t ring nearly as much.

The volume of response to an “answer machine only” campaign will be much lower than for a “live only” broadcast. This is simply because it takes much more effort on the respondent’s part to hear a message, if interested, record or remember the phone number or website, and then to actually pick up the phone and call. This is seen as a large drawback by most “live only” broadcasters, who prefer to have lots of activity corresponding to their broadcasting activity.

Despite this, the biggest positive to the “answer machine only” campaign is that the amount of negative calls (the calls asking to be removed from the call list) is greatly reduced, and sometimes eliminated. Additionally, the quality of the calls that are made back to the broadcaster is usually much higher, that is, the caller is much more likely to be considered a good lead, simply due to the fact that they’ve gone to more trouble to call back, and are usually more aware of the contents of the broadcast message.

The savvy broadcaster should test, and carefully track results, using each method before deciding on one or the other.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

A typical attitude among new voice broadcasters or businesses thinking about using voice broadcasting is that a great majority of their responses will turn out to be good leads. In most cases this is far from true. Yet despite the fact that a minority of responses turn out to be good leads, voice broadcasting can be employed profitably in many instances, given a thoughtful approach and good business metrics.

If a broadcaster is delivering a message to live-answered phones only, and accepting press one live transfers to sales staff, we’ve seen many successful campaigns that obtain only a 15%-25% “long call rate”. (Here a long call is defined as a call where both parties are on the phone together for a minimum of 1 1/2 minutes.) And this is not to imply that all of the “long calls” turn out to be classified as good leads by the broadcaster. Far from it. Some broadcasters have told us that often only 1/2 or even less of the long calls are good leads.

This is why it is so important that a business consider their business metrics carefully as they embark on a voice broadcast campaign. For example, if their effective cost for a “long call” is $25, and 1/2 of them are good leads, and they can ultimately close 1/4 of the good leads, then the cost of a sale for them is $200. If the profit for a single sale is not substantially more than $200, their own business metrics may make it impossible to employ voice broadcasting profitably.

These numbers will vary widely among industries, and are affected by both the message as well as the target audience. For example, the hypothetical firm “Wonderful Web Widgets”, wanting to sell website services to small business, would be ill advised to send a broadcast to an “all businesses” list, because such a list would include large businesses (which they’re not targetting), as well as many small businesses that have not found a need to have websites.

Why send a message to beauty parlors and accountants if these industries aren’t normally interested in websites? This just increases the cost of the lower number of good leads that are obtained.

Another thing to consider is the mode of the broadcast campaign. The example above was about a live delivered message. What about answer machine / voicemail campaigns?

For most industries, the response rate for the live delivery - live transfer campaign is between 0.6% and 1.0%. Meaning that for every 100 calls delivered to a live answered line, there is less than 1 transfer.

For a campaign that leaves messages on answer machine / voicemail, the numbers will be significantly lower, because the prospect will have to have enough interest to write the callback number down, and then call it back, taking much more effort than simply “pressing 1″ during a live message. These numbers are impossible for us to track, since the calls back to the broadcaster don’t utilize our broadcast system, but broadcasters who use this method have indicated to us that the call back ratio is probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the live transfer rate for a similar message.

For a businessperson considering voice broadcasting as a lead generation system, the message is important, the calling list is important, and the basic business metrics are probably the most important factor to consider when planning a campaign.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

But four specific steps can turn disastrous campaigns into successes. Despite frustrations, B2B cold calling is alive and well and continues to fill companies’ sales pipelines. Professionals at the highest levels of their careers employ this prospecting activity to augment sales made through warm referrals and introductions.

For many salespeople, telephone canvassing has posed challenges that have driven them to stop cold calling altogether. Here’s why: a. Only 5% to 30% of prospects are at their desks and answer their phones. b. Most calling lists do not contain the decision-makers’ correct names. c. Voicemail is universal and blocks most calls. d. Roughly 30% of a cold caller’s time is spent navigating phone systems and company directories.

How, then, do successful cold callers make sales this way? Here are four critical activities to make cold calling worth the time, aggravation and investment: a. Make absolutely sure you have the very best list you can obtain. Your calling list accounts for 70% of the success of your campaign. Today, successful calling campaigns require a targeted, accurate list. There is an entire cottage industry of Internet researchers who create custom lists - at rates of $60 to $150 per hour - using proprietary databases and other techniques.

The rates are well worth the investment if your campaign relies on reaching prospects with specific criteria that cannot be found on generic mailing lists. For instance, a global technology firm wanted to target prospects who owned specific hardware. It paid an outside company to identify these prospects and create a qualified list. As a result, the technology firm implemented a focused and effective calling campaign.

b. Develop a compelling voice message and call multiple times. Most sales training imbues people with the practice of never leaving voice messages because they are a waste of time and money. It is absolutely false that no one will return a cold call. Recipients in greatest need of your product or service will return persuasive voice messages. More importantly, every voice message serves as a “touch.” Advertising experts say it takes six to 30 “touches” such as print ads, TV ads, phone calls, or letters for a prospect to take action. If an individual is not ready to respond now, he or she may respond to another “touch” in a month or two.

Each voice message is a new touch. Three companies - a major national marketing firm, a 60-year-old national fund management company, and an up-start regional advertising firm targeting Fortune 100 companies - can attest to the benefits of repeat calling. Each reported gaining some of their most valuable prospects after the third or fourth phone message.

c. Create a B2B cold calling department or hire an outsourced calling team. A top-tier sales person could be on the phone for five hours before getting a single qualified lead. This is a waste talent ant time. You don’t need a top tier salesperson to make calls. Callers need to know two things and only two things: what problems your products or service solve for prospects, and what makes your firm unique.

You can hire an entire team of callers with no experience in your industry to canvass prospects via the phone and hunt down hot leads. Your team of cold callers must be conversational, work without a script and sound alert for every call. Leave the technical and pricing details to the high priced salesperson.

d. Create campaigns that intersperse mailings and calls. Mail prospects before and during your cold calling campaign, especially if your product or service is: 1, Visual, such as advertising or promotional products. 2. Complex, such as a technology or pharmaceuticals. 3. A mature product in a saturated market such as printing or collections.

If the mailing piece is memorable, it will create a warmer reception for the cold caller and enhance opportunities for success.

In today’s environment, planning and creative thinking result in cold calling success - and help sales professionals fill pipelines during times when referrals fall short.

Visit Terry’s site for information on outbound telemarketing and telemarketing programs.

If you are consider using a phone broadcasting campaign in your business, this article will discuss ways to record the most effective message possible, by concentrating on the most crucial components in the script.

First, we need to consider the purpose of your message. It is not to “sell” the prospect. C’mon, it’s a recording, it can’t possibly do that! But what it can do is deliver to you a positively interested, qualified prospect. That prospect may have questions, but you can answer those later, once you’ve created a relationship. Also, please remember that your message is short, 45 seconds maximum. It has a lot of work to do, and it needs to do it very quickly.

So… the first crucial component is not really a component of the script, but it needs to be a component of your mindset as you create your script. And this is the most important component of the script writing process.

That is to always, always, remember, there must be a reason for every word. Most recorded messages consist of 160 words or less, so use them wisely.

The second crucial component is to remember that people most love to listen to WII-FM - you know, “What’s In It For Me”. As you consider every word, every sentence, make sure you present your ideas from the prospect’s standpoint - “you” language is much better than talking about “me”, or “our company”… Focus on the benefits to the listener, or on the problem that your service solves. Folks care much more about how they can benefit, than about how experienced or smart your staff is, or how solid your firm is. (These types of “credibility” statements are fine if used sparingly. Most credibility issues cannot possibly be answered by a recording in a few seconds! Later, once you’re speaking with a prospect, you will be able to describe these aspects of your offer, or company, much more effectively.)

A “credibility” builder in a recorded message need not take up much time at all. It could be something as short and sweet as “we’ve helped thousands of businesses financing without a bank for 30 years”. (And you’ll note that 5 of these 12 words are actually also a benefit - “by financing without a bank”.) The bottom line regarding “credibility statements” is that they rarely will do much to get a qualified and interested party to transfer to you, so consider their use carefully.

Exception - The issue of “credibility” is ultimately really about believability, And one of the most powerful builders of believability is - a bold Guarantee! If you can work a solid guarantee into your script, it will be a potent addition, once you’ve done a good job of describing the problem that you can solve.

And the third crucial component is to include a qualifying statement, as it applies to your market. A strongly qualifying statement may reduce the number of responses you get, but will usually increase the quality of those responses, with a corresponding reduction in your lead cost.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

Most of my professional experience has been in conducting direct mail campaigns, many of which were of the multi-million-piece variety. Here is my take on how the file has evolved and how new, more useful and effective methods have evolved, paralleling the development of surprising new resources.

In contrast with previous huge-quantity mailing, today’s marketing strategy calls for smaller “micro-mailings” as the most effective approach. Presented here are details about steps you might want to take following the current methods for creating, segmenting, profiling and producing test lists. This approach is vastly different from the procedures that training used to prescribe - but field experience always differs from static classroom rules to some degree, doesn’t it?

Methods are constantly changing and a classroom presentation is always at least a little behind the latest developments based on real-world conditions.

For example, in the past, professionals who ran large direct marketing campaigns for Fortune 100 companies added millions of names every quarter to an in-house database. They applied the newest profiling methods. They sliced and diced their already “high-responder” segments to achieve THE PERFECT LIST!

Targeted Networking Comes of Age

What smart marketers do now - and what you probably should do, dealing with the same kind of campaign - has little similarity to this older, more systematic, routine approach. Often the challenge is to run a boutique-type consulting firm, using telemarketing methods to generate B2B meetings for very small clients. If your business presents this kind of marketing challenge, you can use a similar approach effectively. A good name for this approach might be “Targeted Networking”.

In this kind of business, the goal is to link professional service clients in cooperative groups with others who serve the same market. Campaign respondents meet with clients in related businesses, and together they create relationships. These associations then blossom into lifelong referral partnerships, thereby creating new revenue streams for clients.

Using this method of list creation results in lists comprising as few as 25 to 100 records, unlike the huge lists created in the older marketing milieu. However, when you create these “small” lists, you will be mail-targeting industries carefully for their relatedness, giving THE PERFECT LIST a new meaning. Compact dynamic enterprises can not afford to waste money on non-responsive mailings.

Using this approach, you still must produce great copy and produce extremely professional packages. But, don’t test creative presentations or special offers - rely on THE PERFECT LIST. Use the Internet to research each mailing file to make sure each list entry passes the criteria making it a legitimate choice. Manually research each mailing file before proceeding, assuring that all relevant, special criteria is kept in mind. Analyze candidate entries by mining data from on-line directories, Web sites, physical or online phone books, local library resources (right on company computers,) or hardbound lawyers’ guides, to name a few. When no public data is available, do a little creative detective wok to find ways to obtain industry-specific data from friends who are willing to lend lists that are allowed to be mailed. Compare and combine your research across multiple sources, and then contact organizations directly by phoning to learn an individual’s name for addressing purposes. No two lists will look the same.

It is necessary for you to go through all this trouble because no ready-made resources are as suitable or useful as the specifically targeted and accurate ones you will create. When you stumble across a great list online, it’s usually outdated — which, of course, can happen the day after the list is posted. So, in using available material like this, confirming mailing names by phone is a necessity.

Micromarketing List Generation Micromarketing list generation is data mining at its purest. Although it may seem an unusual method to build micro-lists, the largest list vendors and direct mail ships build their own lists this way. They purchase parts of lists from various sources and combine them - not manually, of course - to result in a composite record that contains all the relevant data ready for profiling and segmentation.

Your profiling must be a bit more hands-on. Base it on your client’s historical success. Consider relevant questions. What size firm, industry and geographic area typically wants to meet with him or her? What is the title of the individual who is generally the best referral partner? With these questions answered, replicate this profile, and use it to create a list of other professionals.

Technology: Helping the Little Guy, Too

This type of small-scale targeting is the example of how technology - especially in-house computing, the Internet and telephone communications - has made it possible to alter the way businesses can mine data and compile lists. It has made data mining more effective for specialized applications. Since creating even small lists manually is time-consuming and expensive, we could not economically perform these kinds of services twenty years ago. Using this approach you, and even the smallest of clients, can use direct marketing successfully.

The list in this new, carefully crafted form - formerly just one element in the entire direct marketing mix - is now the core of modern success.

Visit Terry’s site for information on outbound telemarketing and telemarketing programs.

This article reveals the single worst mistake broadcasters make when answering calls in response to their recorded message. And this mistake is very common. Many experienced broadcasters continue making it! Luckily, this mistake is real easy to fix.

The single worst mistake in answering is to say something like…”Hi, this is Amy, thanks for calling Wonderful Web Widgets, how can I help you?”

Now, you may be thinking “what’s the big deal, that sounds courteous and professional”. Well, you’re right, it is, but that’s not the problem. The problem is, just because Amy’s phone rang, it was not really an inbound call! And it shouldn’t be answered as such. Amy’s response is a mistake, because;

The caller is responding to Amy’s outbound call (whether she realizes it or not, the broadcast message is just like Amy calling outbound). And the message included an offer - “to speak to a consultant about web widgets for your business, press 1 now”.

Don’t see it yet? Sometimes it’s not obvious. To understand, you need to put yourself in the place of the prospect. Remember that most folks receive your call and hang up, or press “2, to be removed from the call list. And of the folks who press “1″ to speak to Amy, some are negative callers who will only ask to be removed - so for them, Amy’s mistake really doesn’t matter - there’s no way they’ll be interested in your web widgets, ever.

The folks you should be focused on are the ones who pressed “1″, and who have a positive interest. Remember, your message just interrupted their day, and sure, they are interested, but since this is a cold call, many of them will have a pretty high level of doubt, suspicion, or wariness. So, consider the prospect’s mindset as you look in on the scenario…

Prospect hears: “to speak to a consultant about the benefits of web widgets for your business, press 1 now” … A few seconds pass as the respondent listens to hold music … Amy connects and says: “Hi, this is Amy, thanks for calling Wonderful Web Widgets, how can I help you?”

Now do you see the problem? Amy made two mistakes in one, in this example.

1. She said “thanks for calling”, but the respondent will think “I didn’t call you, you called me”…

2. She asked how she could help, but the respondent pressed 1 “to speak to a consultant about the benefits of web widgets” - and Amy knows that, or should…

If you consider a prospect who has a certain level of wariness along with interest, Amy’s response will do nothing to increase interest, and may reduce it. Worse, her response will probably increase the respondent’s wariness or suspicion. Which is obviously not the best start to a phone conversation with a prospect!

So what’s the answer? Amy needs to acknowledge two things: 1 - that she called the respondent, and knows that they responded. 2 - that she knows why they responded. So, a much better response could be:

“Hi, this is Amy with Wonderful Web Widgets, thanks for responding to our call…Would you like to speak to a web consultant?”

For the prospect who is positively interested, the second response flows smoothly and naturally from the recorded message, allowing the conversation to proceed without raising the prospects doubts. Like I wrote earlier, this mistake seems so trivial, you’d be surprised to listen to how many experienced broadcasters ignore this advice. Since this is a numbers game, isn’t it best to begin all of the conversations the smoothest way possible?

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.