Maximizing your telephone marketing conversion rate is a worthy ambition to hold. But unless you’re using the right tools and tactics, it won’t be achievable.
If you want to overhaul your telephone marketing efforts and see conversion rates skyrocket, take onboard the following tips. You’ll be glad you put the effort in when your telesales performance improves.
Create an effective script for your telephone marketing team
Putting together a script for your telephone marketing team to follow is essential in order to increase conversion rates.
The script should be tailored to the individual customer and should include information about the product or service being offered. It should cover any relevant incentives that may be available to sweeten the deal.
It’s also important that your sales specialists are trained on how best to engage with customers. This includes sales skills such as using active listening techniques and asking open-ended questions. By providing an effective script, you can ensure each conversation is meaningful and will have a greater chance of leading to conversions.
Customization is achievable by keeping detailed info on prospects, and narrowing down your demographics through customer personas. Most importantly, test your script’s performance over time, and check that it’s working as intended. Don’t be afraid to tweak it if shortcomings become apparent.
That’s a lot to digest, so here are the main points:
- Build a script that works for customers as individuals
- Train team members to go beyond the script and get better results
- Review script performance and fix issues to catalyze conversions
Use a robust phone system that lets you easily share notes on contacts
A robust phone system is essential to increasing your telephone marketing conversion rate. It should be easy to use, have features like call recording and shared notes. That way you can review conversations and make sure your team is following the script.
This will help ensure consistency in customer service, giving each caller an optimal experience every time. With a virtual phone system, you can also quickly track data from previous calls to inform future campaigns. All of these features contribute greatly towards improving customer satisfaction and thus boosting your sales conversions over time.
If you don’t have such a solution in place, you can get a VoIP phone system easily and affordably. It’s worth comparing several options before deciding. Also factor in your budget, and ensure that the aforementioned features are offered by the platform you pick.
To sum up:
- Take advantage of a modern phone system and all its features
- Aim for consistency of service quality across every call
- Harness VoIP solutions which are cost-effective and reputable
Understand the objectives of each call before the conversation takes place
Before engaging in a telephone conversation, it’s important to understand what each caller wants to improve customer service. Knowing their objectives will help you tailor your sales pitch and create a more meaningful connection with prospects.
Ask questions that will give you an insight into their needs and motivations. This can cover things like what they are looking for in terms of product or service, and how soon they need it. This will ensure that your calls are efficient, effective, and boost conversions.
It’s also useful to know what you hope to achieve out of each call. Is your team looking to make a sale right away, or is it the first stage of building a relationship? Depending on how you answer, this will determine the approach you adopt going into a call.
Feeling lost? Here are the key takeaways:
- Delve into the needs of prospects before each call
- Get insights by asking the right questions
- Have goals and targets of your own to aim for
Utilize analytical tools to assess conversion rates after calls
In order to track the success of your telephone marketing campaigns, use analytical tools that can measure conversion rates. These tools will help you understand how effective your calls are in terms of generating leads and sales.
You can also use them to identify which techniques work best, such as different scripts or incentives offered during conversations. With this data, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about future campaigns.
There are a lot of analytics platforms to choose between, so don’t rush ahead without doing research. Telephone systems themselves can have built in conversion rate trackers as well, which makes things simpler.
The key is to not let data-driven insights go to waste. So in short:
- Record data from every call
- Track performance of campaigns and individual employees
- Compare metrics to see what’s working, and what isn’t
- Change things up and experiment with incentives and offers to instigate improvements
Follow up with customers who express interest in purchasing products or services
You’ll have a better idea of what you can do to send your conversion rates from telephone marketing through the roof by asking interested customers.
By getting back in touch, you can remind them of the benefits you offer and provide additional incentives if necessary.
It’s also important to make sure each customer feels heard and understood. Listen closely during initial conversations so that the follow-up call is adapted specifically for their needs.
Doing this will help build trust and create more meaningful connections. Plus it will let you know where you’re missing the mark. Customers that aren’t happy with some aspect of a service will generally tell you about it.
What you need to know here is straightforward:
- Reconnecting with customers who are already onboard
- Listen to their feedback and reward them for their further involvement
- Foster trust and find out where you’re falling short
Focus on quality over quantity when making cold calls
They say that less is more, and that definitely applies to cold calls. You can bombard as many people as possible with calls, but that rarely guarantees good outcomes.
Instead, aiming for quality and taking your time with each conversation can push you in the direction of ever-climbing conversion rates.
Personalization comes into play once more. A bespoke approach is better than one that’s too generic. By doing this, you’ll be able to build trust with potential customers more quickly. In turn, you’ll increase your chances of converting them into loyal buyers.
It also helps to call the right people in the first place. Just as email marketing campaigns work better when they target relevant audiences, cold calls need to be aimed with precision.
Narrow down your list of prospects and make sure there’s a good argument for getting in touch before you start dialing. This will save you time, and avoid annoying contacts as well.
So, your conversions will increase if you:
- Deliver value with each cold call
- Understand who to target
- Avoid going overboard, and instead aim for higher conversion rates from fewer calls
Take timing into account before you dial
There’s an interesting quirk of telephone marketing in that the time you get in touch with prospects is crucial. Call at the wrong moment, and either you won’t get an answer or you’ll struggle to win them over.
Various studies have been done into this topic, with experts pinpointing Wednesday lunchtime as the optimal point for sales calls.
Thursday is also a good day in general for securing a conversion, while Mondays are something of a write-off.
It’s all about appreciating the mindset of the person you’re contacting. Early in the week, they won’t appreciate being interrupted as important tasks are being tackled. By midweek, there’s more time for talking, and a cold call or follow-up will be more acceptable.
Timing is also key if you happen to miss a call from a prospect. The quicker you can get back to them, the more chance you have of earning their business.
Another expert tip here is to aim to return missed calls within 60 minutes. Within this window, you’ll come across as attentive, and undo any damage dealt by missing the call in the first place.
Let’s breakdown this into bite sized action points:
- Make important calls mid-week
- Follow up on missed calls in an hour or less
- Check that a caller has time to talk before diving into a pitch
Steer clear of frustrations that are in your control
Whether you’ve called a prospect or they’ve got in touch with you, your priority must be making the experience seamless.
That means removing any obstacles that might interrupt the flow of the experience, or frustrate the person on the other end of the line.
The best example of this is the dreaded use of the hold function. While you might be able to put a caller on hold, this should be a last resort. The better option is to offer to call them back once you’ve dealt with whatever task it is that you need to handle.
Another example of a mid-call disruption it pays to avoid is background noise. If you can keep the environment around you quiet and orderly, this will improve the clarity of the call, and prevent misunderstandings.
Busy, open plan offices create challenges in this regard. However, with a combination of the right hardware and good VoIP software, even this can be minimized. There are even AI-enhanced tools that filter out background noise, so consider using these if available. Make sure to check out reviews of leading VoIP providers such as RingCentral versus other top competitors to thoroughly assess and compare your options.
TLDR? Here’s what you need to do:
- Keep interruptions to a minimum, and offer a call back rather than leaving customers on hold
- Reduce background noise, either by altering the space you’re calling from, or using technology
- If customers keep saying they can’t hear you clearly, do something about it
Resist the temptation to apply pressure
Pushiness is a real turnoff for most prospects, and doesn’t reflect well on your business. So your telephone marketing team must not be tempted to pile on the pressure just to get a result.
This is where it becomes important to balance individual performance metrics against overarching sales and marketing strategies. It’s a fine line to tread, but you don’t want to compel employees to step out of line just to hit targets.
Having a level of training in quality customer service provision works wonders here. It allows you to set best practices and standard operating procedures, then ensure that they’re followed and understood.
Reining in pressure can be achieved in these ways:
- Have targets, but don’t let these come at the expense of the customer experience
- Train team members to navigate calls and win conversions without using pressure tactics
Allow telephone marketing team members to focus on the task at hand
We’ve discussed issues with prospects being distracted and disrupted by office noise and long periods on hold. Now it’s time to talk about how this applies to employees.
Your telephone marketing conversion rate will only go in the right direction if team members can give their full attention to each call. They shouldn’t be bombarded by requests from colleagues when on the line. They shouldn’t be expected to drop what they’re doing if a manager requests it mid-call.
This isn’t just a matter of increasing conversions and improving productivity, although obviously these will both benefit. It’s also about showing customers that you are attentive to their needs and engaged with their requirements. Most people can tell when the person they’re speaking with is distracted, so don’t fall into this trap.
If your team isn’t performing as expected, do something about it:
- Create an environment and an office culture that minimizes distractions
- Actively encourage engagement with customers, rather than passivity on calls
The Bottom Line
Taking your telephone marketing conversion rate to the next level can be tough. But nothing worthwhile is achievable without hard work and reflection on past performance.
Also remember that even if you do see improvements, this isn’t the end game. You have to always be looking for ways to up your telephone marketing game if you want to thrive long term. It’s what separates businesses that succeed from those that stagnate.
