The Worst Mistake Voice Broadcasters Make Answering Calls - And It’s Very Common (seo marketing)
No commentsBy David Seldon
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.
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Successful Emails: 6 Secrets To Make Them Sensational
By Ramon Vela
During a new project call, today, a client asked for my advice on which was better, telemarketing or email, for finding new prospects.
My basic answer is that the telephone is overall more high-touch and more reliable. However, email, when done correctly can be effective. I didn’t say *as* reliable or *as* effective but it can be a wonderful secondary form of air cover.
So that begs the question — what makes a successful email?
At a high level, here are the six secrets to what makes a successful email. Notice, I didn’t say “good” or “well-written” or “pleasant” or “graphically appealing” email — I said *successful*. (I don’t have time to go into the other components of an email campaign, so, for now, I’ll cover the email itself.)
* Subject line with a great offer: If the email reaches the target, you have only a few seconds to get them to open the email; make sure the subject line jumps out at them by including a great offer. Another way of looking at this? “Don’t be ashamed of bribing people.”
* Headline w/great offer: Once people open your email and view your headline, you have another 3 seconds during which they decide whether to read the rest of the email or hit ‘junk’ or ‘delete’. Make sure the headline captures their attention and again tells them about your wonderful offer.
* Content: Short and sweet and to the point: That’s it. Don’t write the great American novel. This is about time - and how much they can/will give to an email message, during their busy day.
* Single objective: Don’t try to sell them anything; don’t try to get them to do *several* things. You have one objective and one only — You want them to go to a landing page or whatever the next step is. The landing page structure is a whole different animal - but my single objective advice is to focus on email effectiveness, for now.
* Contact: Make sure to give them various ways to connect with you including landing page, click to call, phone number, email, etc.
* Remind them of the offer: Again make the offer very enticing and remind them at least *three* times in the email about what they get if they respond. I also find that images of your offer works great, too (ex: If you give them a gift card for meeting with you, then use the image of a gift card, etc.).
There are other points of advice regarding email communication, of course, but my organization has found that these are the main secrets to our online success.
Just a little warning — when we do emails I run into a lot of resistance from vendors who might be paying for these (our/your) marketing activities. As we develop marketing campaigns for these vendors, we must have all emails meet with their approval. Depending, of course, on your vendor client, they may try to water down the effectiveness of your email. That’s your challenge.
Ramon provides more marketing information, especially created for the IT VAR industry but also applies to everyone who wants to improve their sales. Stay up-to-date at StreetSmartVAR.com and while you’re there, don’t forget to sign up for Ramon’s popular, no-cost online marketing course!
Best Resources for Internet Marketing
By Justin Stewart
Internet marketing is literally any way that you can market your company through the internet. This can include simple advertisements for name recognition or response, but also includes simple things such as homepages. Internet marketing is an integral part of the marketing process, and is something that is finally beginning to gain steam. Marketers everywhere are beginning to realize that the internet is a major source for their marketing needs.
The internet is so special for marketers simply because of how the internet works. The internet brings together everyone from around the world into one area. Internet markets can reach their exact target in a simple an effective way. No form of media has allowed for such saturation is such a fast, efficient, and immediate kind of way. While there are multiple ways to do this, there are three major resources for internet marketing.
Simple Web pages
The most basic form of internet marketing is the web page. Having a web page for your product, service, or company, is the best way to have a singular source for your internet marketing campaign. This is a place where every person in your target can be directed to; it can lead them to sales, or simply to more information. To have a cohesive internet marketing campaign, a website is a basic resource that is incredibly crucial.
While e-mail has been around for a long time, there are many companies who have failed to figure out how to use this resource in an effective and successful way. Because of the advent of spam, many people simply avoid any e-mail that is connected to a company. To use e-mail for internet marketing, you have to give the people something that they will actually want to read. By creating e-mail that is useful and seen in a good light, it can be a free and successful resource for your internet marketing needs. Be careful to make sure that you are not seen as spam, as this will render your time worthless and wasted.
Social Networking Sites
Social networking sites are one of the newest and most interesting resources for internet marketing. These websites bring together millions of individuals in one place; an internet marketer’s dream. This is a great way to reach your target market in an efficient and successful way, as they will all be in one place. Done right, this can be the most powerful internet marketing tool in existence.
Having a simple web page can allow you to bring all of the internet’s users to one location for all of the information about your company or service. Using e-mail to direct people to your website is a great way to get one-time customers to turn into repeat customers and visitors. By using social networking sites, you can bring in a large amount of traffic in a simple and effective way. Using these resources for internet marketing can allow you to be as efficient and successful as possible.
Click here to learn more about making money online by exploding your traffic with social bookmarking internet marketing techniques.
Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
