If you’re in the local marketing world, there is one metric that you need to pay attention to.
Phone calls.
Web traffic and form fills are all well and good but they are practically insignificant when compared to calls. Successful agencies and local businesses have phone calls at the top of their priority list.
Why?
Because calls are the best leads that your business can receive.
BIA/Kelsey researches and delivers expert data that is focused around local marketing.
Here are a few stats from their research:
1) By 2018, BIA/Kelsey estimates that mobile search will generate 73 billion calls to businesses in 2018, up from 30 billion in 2013.
2) Local Businesses and local marketers say that phone calls are their best leads. 64% of local marketers value phone calls more than any other lead source.
3) One of the driving forces behind the growing importance of calls as currency is the growing sophistication of call analytics, to measure call quality and gain strategic insights from call data.
We have analyzed millions of phone calls at Convirza and our data shows that 25%-40% of inbound calls to local businesses convert.
This represents an enormous opportunity.
The research above illustrates the significance of phone calls.
Our work with thousands of local businesses also supports this data. Their feedback confirms the BIA/Kelsey findings:
Phone calls are your most important lead source.
The customers produced by calls far outweigh those generated by clicks.
In order to fully make use the opportunities that are offered by phone calls, it is essential to measure call metrics. Call tracking software makes it possible to execute a marketing strategy that is backed by hard data.
