Dial 800, the leaders in marketing optimization will be attending the International Housewares Show in Chicago, March 14-15, to demonstrate the latest release of its call tracking, call recording and call routing software, CallView 360° and IntelliRoute.  Recent data suggests that direct marketers can increase inbound responseby taking advantage of Dial 800's bank of numerically memorable numbers, RapidRecall by as much as 20, 30, even 50 percent or more.  In addition, Dial 800's save the sale automated direct mail engineBoomerang will be showcased.  COO James Diorio along with CMO Rick Petry will be present and also attending the Direct Response Marketing Alliance and Electronic Retailing Association networking events while in the Windy City on Monday evening, March 15th.

In the world of broadcast direct marketing, when a commercial airs, it's imperative that the call center be ready to receive the inbound inquiries. After all, such consumer calls represent a finite opportunity that occurs in real time. If things go awry, those inbound calls can evaporate in the blink of an eye. But disasters occur, natural and otherwise, that can disable a call center. That's why at Dial 800 we strongly advocate that direct marketers consider not putting all of their eggs in one basket, and that they also consider the benefits of call routing services. Effective call routing services allows a marketer to distribute inbound call allocations to multiple destinations and to do it immediately, on the fly, in the event of an emergency or other change in circumstances.


While call centers are suppose to maintain redundancies such as back up energy sources, even these are subject to failure in the wake of a disaster, so it is imperative that the marketer control the ability to route calls to other places that are unaffected. Call routing software such as Dial 800's AccuRoute enables a marketer to route their calls to multiple destinations from their computer using the Internet at anytime and anywhere, and take their destiny -- literally -- into their own hands. When you combine this powerful tool with other components such as call tracking and call recording, the marketer gains enormous advantages that can help optimize a direct marketing campaign. But if the call is lost in the ether due to unexpected circumstances, it is all for nought; hence, call routing should be an imperative part of every direct marketing campaign.

As a service provider that controls tens of thousands of toll free numbers through our RapidRecall service, at Dial 800 we make it our business to understand the important nuances that are going to give direct marketers the very best results.  Well here is the 411 on toll free numbers (TFNs): not all TFNs are created equal!  Even though 888, 877, and 866 prefixes have now been around for years, consumers are still programmed to dial 800 first.

The proof?  Just last week 2,652 people accidentally dialed our number 1-800-XXX-CELL instead of 1-877-XXX-CELL in an attempt to reach a low coast cellular service provider.  And that was just in one week! Imagine how many lost opportunities that represents over the course of a campaign and/or business' life -- literally tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of missed sales!

Many marketers and their agencies are under the misperception that 800 numbers are simply unavailable.  Not true!  Service providers like Dial 800 allow marketers to lease numbers, often at a cost of what adds up to a nominal cost per lead, that can have a marked impact on results.  A good quality 800 TFN may cost a few hundred dollars per month, but let's break down the math.  If the marketer cited above lost 10,000 leads due to misdials and each inbound lead was worth a conservative $5, that's $50,000 worth of leads lost in a single month.  The monthly cost to lease the 800 version of their number and gain the advantages of Dial 800's call tracking, call routing and call recording software?  About 38 cents per lead.  Calculate average closure rates and revenue and the cost versus the ROI is obviously through the roof!

An article I wrote in Response magazine recently examined the marked advantages of 800 toll free numbers over other prefixes that were introduced to the marketplace years later. In response to the article, entitled “The Right Numbers Add Up to Increased Profitability”, a senior media director contacted me expressing his surprise, “I would have thought the market is knowledgeable enough to recognize 888, etc. by now.”

Yet the evidence that consumers are pre-conditioned to dial the 800 prefix first continues to pile up. Businesses using non-800 prefix toll free numbers such as 888 and 877 are missing hundreds if not thousands of leads due to misdials. Here’s a case in point:

I went on the agency’s website, found their client, an animal humane society, was using an 888 prefix number on their website for animal poison control. Next, I phoned the 800 version of the same number where I encountered an exasperated small business owner who explained that the misdials were literally ruining her life. Hundreds of misdials occurred every year from panicked pet owners who had called her business by mistake, even though the number is right in front of those dialing in black and white. Worse, the business owner has the calls roll over to her home number and is frequently woken in the night by the distressed, creating even more stress!

This is just one illustration of why it is imperative that any direct marketer using a toll free number use an 800 number, particularly in broadcast advertising. But, as our media director observed, “The problem I found is that there are no 800#’s with good repeaters left.” While it’s true that virtually all 800 numbers are spoken for, there are services such as Dial 800’s RapidRecall that make numbers available on a lease basis. When combined with powerful call tracking, call routing and call recording software the incremental cost of having access to the right toll free number can have an exponential impact on the bottom line of a campaign. Given how hard it is to generate a lead and then close a sale, capturing hundreds if not thousands of additional consumer inquiries keen on your offer is absolutely critical.

Dial800 had a tremendously successful Great Ideas Summit in New Orleans February 1-3. Presented by the Electronic Retailing Association, of which Dial800 is a Platinum Member, the direct marketing summit set a new record for attendance. Here Dial800 COO James Diorio (front left) and BJ Global's BJ Fazeli (front right) enjoy the company of industry colleagues at SF Video's blowout 20th Anniversary party at the House of Blues. Dial 800's latest research, which shows the power of toll free repeater numbers, was met with tremendous reception at the conference as was its call routing, call tracking and call recording software, CallView 360. Dial800 has signed several new accounts as a result of the show.

Using multiple call centers can be enormously advantageous to direct marketers for a number of reasons. You’ll be able to increase sales and profitability by leveraging these attributes:

1. The ability to use more boutique call centers that specialize in order making versus order taking who can deliver higher closure rates and a higher average ticket, yet because of their specialized nature may have capacity issues.
2. Using our call tracking system, you can monitor the performance of multiple telemarketers from your computer anytime and anywhere. Based on how they deliver, you can then allocate the lion’s share of leads to your best performing center, which can greatly affect a campaign’s overall profitability.
3. Keep vendors on their toes. Often suppliers get complacent over time. Using more than one telemarketer will help keep them hungry and competitive.

Dial 800’s optimization tool set is designed to empower the marketer, giving you more control and the ability to route calls on the fly using our call routing tool, AccuRoute. When used in combination with our bank of memorable toll-free repeater numbers, RapidRecall, you can increase your inbound calls by as much as 20, 35, even 50 percent or more and send them to a center capable of closing.

The Optimizer is an ongoing informational video series containing tricks and secrets to optimize your marketing. In this segment The Optimizer explains the basics of marketing optimization, and what it involves.

Transcript:

I’m Scott Richards, “the Optimizer”, here to show you how to generate more sales from your direct response radio and television campaign. At Dial 800 we’re in the business of Marketing Optimization – but what is Marketing Optimization? Let’s talk about what it is we do and how it can help your campaign.

First of all, Marketing Optimization involves call tracking – that’s tracking all the inbound calls, all the caller details, at the switch level. It also involves call recording – that is, having all calls – regardless of which call center those calls go to – recorded so you can listen to them. We strongly recommend that you listen to them on a weekly basis. Have your sales team or operators listen to how they’re selling, ensure they’re pronouncing company names and products correctly and examine how effectively they are up-selling and cross-selling. What could be more important!

Marketing Optimization also involves demographics. Call centers have the calls going to them, but what does the quality of the caller look like? How much money do these households make? What kind of occupations do they have? Do they own or rent a home? Our software, CallView 360°, does a deep demographic dive that shows you not only the quantity of calls, but also the quality of the callers. And that information can be critical in letting you know if your advertising is attracting the right people.

Next is Call Routing. Call Routing allows you to send calls to multiple call centers on a percentage allocation basis. You can do that on the fly, from your computer anywhere. Send one call center more or less calls, depending upon how well they’re closing deals for you.

At Dial 800 we also have the largest bank of memorable toll free numbers available anywhere. With memorable toll free numbers – repeater numbers in particular that have lots of digits that repeat over and over again, you can actually increase your sales by as much as 50 percent. We’ve tested this with our clients and if you try it for yourself with an A/B split, which is the best way to test it yourself, you’ll see for first-hand how a memorable, repeater toll free number can help optimize your campaign.

Finally we have what we call Save the Sale. A lot of consumers raise their hand by calling in, but unfortunately a lot of people don’t buy. At Dial 800 we have perfected an automated postcard fulfillment service that appends the caller’s phone number to a name and address so that you can send a postcard in the mail within 24 hours. As a result, people who didn’t buy but were interested in your offer, receive another timely, relevant piece of communication that can help you close more sales.

How would you like to see your short-form direct marketing results potentially increase by as much as 40, 50, 60 percent or more? The key may very well lie in something as simple as the quality of the toll free number you are using to drive inbound calls. That’s right – not all toll-free numbers are created equal.  Repeater numbers that employ repetitive digits are easy for consumers to remember and can increase your inbound call volume and resulting sales by such significant margins.

 In a head-to-head television test for a product in the health and fitness category, the memorable toll free number 1-800-940-0000 ran against the randomized number 1-800-850-6457.  The memorable number delivered staggeringly better results including:

• A 69 percent increase in overall call volume.
• A 68 percent increase in total gross revenue.
• And, after declines, holds and cancellations, a 63 percent increase in net sales.

The reason for the difference is relatively easy to explain.  As New Yorker journalist Malcolm Gladwell writes in his latest bestseller Outliers, human beings store numbers in a memory loop that lasts about two seconds.  Hence, you can appreciate what an advantage it is to have a number such as 1-800-940-0000 that is so much easier for a consumer to recall – particularly in a short-form spot – than a randomly sequenced number.

It all sounds simple enough, but invites the question: Just how do you get the good numbers?  The answer is RapidRecall, the largest bank of numerically memorable 800 prefix toll free numbers available anywhere exclusively through Dial 800.  For mere pennies on the dollar, marketers can now realize such exponential gains in their campaign results.  To learn more, click here to fill out a brief request form and an optimization specialist from Dial 800 will contact you shortly.

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 By Scott “the Optimizer” Richards, CEO, Dial 800

 It was none other than Jack Welch, the revolutionary GE CEO who suggested the watchwords that comprise our second resolution for direct marketers.  But if you think about it, it is direct marketers such as Beachbody, Guthy-Renker, and Murad who have not only relied on their expert supply chain partners to succeed, but who have also largely assumed responsibility for shaping their own destiny, that have succeeded in the long haul over the past two decades of tumult and change.

 The truth is, trying to figure out how to make a direct marketing campaign work effectively is tough work.  It requires uncommon perseverance and pluck – not to mention financial resources – and a willingness to test again and again.  But to make sound decisions, you need sound data on which to base those decisions and the fact is, the closer a marketer is to controlling that flow of data, the more they are in command of their fate.

 Here’s a simple illustration: if you’re not getting call count information at the switch level, then you most likely do not have a clear picture of your inbound call dispositions.  As a result, basic information such as total calls received that are used to calculate the effectiveness of your call centers, may be skewed by disparate definitions of what comprises an answered, short, incomplete, and no answer call, etc.  This information is fundamental to making decisions about the effectiveness of not only your call center, but of individual media airings.

 One solution to this conundrum is to use toll free numbers where you can get access to switch-level data.  With Dial 800’s RapidRecall bank of memorable toll free numbers, for example, you see all of your data at the switch level.  These telephone numbers can be deployed with any call center and you can move them from place to place.  Since you control the numbers, you also do not have to send out separate dubs to stations and networks if you decide to move from one call center to another.

 This is what we mean by controlling your fate.  If you’d like to read more, check out my article in Direct Avenue’s most recent Direct Connect Quarterly Newsletter, “Control Your Telemarketing Data to Control Your Fate.” At Dial 800 we are committed to giving marketers the tools they need to optimize their campaigns by obtaining insight that reveals the truth – truth that sows the path to success.

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 By Scott “the Optimizer” Richards, CEO, Dial 800

It's the beginning of a new year, a new decade and a cyclical upswing in our stagnant economy.  Therefore, it's the perfect time for marketers to take stock and to resolve to make their direct marketing campaigns work smarter.  Here, with resolute humbleness, is the first of some suggestions for direct marketers to consider as they compile their resolutions for 2010:

1.    Listen to the Consumer.  Peter M. Leschak once commented, “All of us are watchers – of television, of time clocks, or traffic on the freeway – but few are observers.  Everyone is looking, not many are seeing.”

While we all know that the balance of power shifted from the marketer to the consumer with the advent of the Internet years ago, what are we really doing to listen to our consumer?  Certainly online marketing affects the ability to track their navigational behavior and the ability to divine a sense of what messages are driving click through and sales, but what’s missing in such analytics is perhaps the most important thing: the consumer’s voice.

For marketers using inbound telemarketing, call tracking and recording such as that provided by Dial 800’s CallView 360° can provide one cost-effective solution.  Imagine having the ability to listen to every single one of your inbound consumer inquiries to cull insight that helps you proactively address objections, optimize your sales message, and close more sales?

While focus groups have been the preferred avenue for gaining such insight, they are often cost prohibitive and, while capable of giving a marketer solid qualitative acuity, are typically limited quantitatively by the number of participants due to their cost.  In other words, while you may hear from a dozen or two consumers in a typical focus group endeavor, imagine if you could scale that up to a critical mass number that is statistically sound – say hundreds of consumer voices – for a fraction of the cost of focus groups?  With unlimited call recording, a marketer can obtain both powerful qualitative and quantitative data.  Your laboratory isn’t a shadowy room with a one-way mirror and too many gut-busting snacks, it’s as mobile and convenient as your laptop computer which enables you to access the data anywhere and anytime that works for you.

Think of call tracking and recording as field research where the field is brought to you.  Your task becomes listening, a skill that has become lost amid our cacophony of information overload, but one that can serve as a potent instrument when wielded by a marketer willing to invest their time and intelligence; a tool to mark a new era of prosperity as you embark on a new year.

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 By Scott “the Optimizer” Richards, CEO, Dial 800