Ringing in the new: 11 tips for driving more calls to your business

tips for driving more calls to your business

As more businesses focus on inbound marketing strategies, more are recognizing the value of incoming calls as revenue generators.

Not only do many people prefer to make their purchases by phone — which is unsurprising, since worldwide mobile phone users are slated to reach 4.77 billion this year — but research shows leads via phone are worth five to 10 times the revenues of web form leads. That’s largely because callers are present in real time and are clearly already interested in your offerings.

The long and the short of it is, your business could boost sales by better optimizing incoming calls. What can you do to drive in more calls? Here are several suggestions.

  1. Make calling your company the call to action in all your online and offline advertising, ensuring customers know you welcome such interaction. Test different CTAs for maximum effectiveness.
  2. Train your call center staff to be friendly, welcoming, service oriented and professional so customers are pleased they called.
  3. Buy phone calls from Dial800’s new trading program, Leads Marketplace, which allows you to sell your own wares via the unneeded extra calls driven in by other companies’ marketing efforts. Dial800 matches buyers and sellers by industry to create a win-win for both sides.
  4. Secure a memorable vanity number that makes it easier for clients to call you. Then opt for dynamic number insertion (DNI) when using that number in ads; the DNI acts like a code to inform you on which ads are driving in phone calls.
  5. To optimize local customers, use local language in ad copy and choose toll-free numbers with local prefixes. The idea that toll-free numbers must start with 1-800 is a myth, and often local prefixes get better responses from customers who seek to patronize local businesses.
  6. On your website, keep your number highly visible in headers located at the top of each page. Also place it on landing pages and next to contact forms as an option for those who prefer voice.
  7. Study up on Google best practices for creating call-only ads and call extensions in AdWords. Some 28.4 billion calls resulted from display advertising last year alone.
  8. Create compelling ads for social media, a category expected to generate 19.4 billion conversions by phone call this year alone. Facebook ads are particularly effective in driving calls to businesses in the automotive, insurance, financial services, travel and hospitality, education and health care segments, and/or to businesses handling expensive, complex or infrequent purchases that tend to benefit from human customer service.
  9. When possible, use analytics to target audiences who have historically responded to offers (and/or made purchases) by calling. Make your ads even more compelling by “layering” messages in your ads geared toward such customers’ other preferences, interests, locations and demographics.
  10. Ensure your call centers or personnel are available at optimal calling times. One study shows Tuesdays generate the highest call volumes — 48 percent more than Sundays, which receive the lowest.
  11. Optimize call tracking to glean information from your existing calls so you can better strategize which audiences to pursue moving forward.

Your efforts to beef up your call marketing are bound to pay off by capturing customers who prefer to conduct business by phone.

“Technology has helped all kinds of businesses make significant leaps in their efficiency in reaching as many prospects as possible, but we cannot forget the importance of human contact,” advises Stuart Leung on Salesforce.com. “It shouldn’t come as a surprise that human interaction actually works in sales: after all, salesmen have been around much longer than any computer has been.”

Ready to get serious about call marketing? Ask Dial800 about its full spectrum of products and services that can make that happen.

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