While many marketing departments are working with expanded budgets these days, they’re also under pressure to show the ROI of their call marketing plans.
The problem is that with many venues, channels and techniques, coming up with such numbers and dollar figures can be a daunting task.
“The unfortunate truth is that many expenditures are difficult to justify,” advises a recent white paper published by industry research center Digital Marketing Depot. “They may serve a singular purpose, but contribute little real value to marketers or their organizations across the board. The key is to minimize these kinds of ‘necessary evils’ while also investing in tools that help control costs and boost revenue.”
Fortunately, call tracking software is an easy-to-implement tool that — when conducted strategically — can produce solid metrics pointing to solid ROI. That’s partly because incoming calls convert, on average, 30 to 50 percent of the time, according to studies.
In addition to pulling in viable sales leads, call marketing strategies can produce valuable attribution data, facilitate positive customer experiences, provide a variety of customer insights and boost sales staff productivity — all at prices that pay off. Consider the following:
Call marketing optimizes attribution data. Other forms of digital marketing fail to produce measurable results because of last-click attribution, which disallows the tracing of sales leads back to their original source. That doubtlessly leads to missed opportunities as marketers lack the means to link sales with calls to action they’ve enacted via search, social media, TV or print ads. As a result, studies show 38 percent of marketing execs must use six to 10 tech solutions to try to make sense of such strategies.
In contrast, call marketing tools can use dynamic number insertion to trace each incoming call to the ad that spurred it, allowing marketers to pinpoint the messages, venues and timing that actually drive conversions. “Call tracking does more than track calls, really,” notes Nancy Lim in Search Engine Journal. “It writes a narrative for the customer journey.”
Call marketing provides extra insight. Tools used as part of the methodology can go beyond conversion metrics to shed light on customer demographics, shopping and buying patterns and pain points. From the other end of the phone, such tools can analyze the performances of call center personnel. “Marketers can also use voice intelligence technology supported by powerful algorithms that can automatically qualify strong leads based on text analysis,” explains Lim. “As more calls are recorded, the technology continually improves to better pinpoint the factors that make a customer a good lead. With this, marketers can easily understand which messaging and specific actions make shoppers convert during calls and which might turn them off — without ever having to listen in.”
Call marketing makes meaningful interactions. Because customers are choosing to call you in response to an ad or keyword that appeals to them in some way, the methodology can feel much less invasive than other forms of marketing. And analytics tools that arm your calling center staff with instantaneous information about each caller lets them use conversational tactics aimed at appealing to different preferences.
Call marketing boosts staff productivity. Instead of attracting calls at random times, your ads can be strategically placed to drive in leads only when your calling center is fully staffed and ready to sell. That means you can make full use of your payroll without dealing with idle hands.
Learn more about how call marketing overcomes common marketing barriers by calling Dial800 at 1-800-700-1987.
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