At Convirza, we care deeply about generating quality calls for our clients. The human touch can close a deal much more effectively than a cold computer. Quality calls and phone call optimization directly impact revenue. So you’ve got to do everything you can to get customers on the phone and happy. That’s why we invited Brian Massey of Conversion Sciences to discuss his rules for phone call optimization. After working with hundreds of companies and performing hours of tests, Brian came and shared his best tips and tricks with us. Follow these steps to get your phone ringing off the hook.
In a lot of ways, effective marketing is about making and keeping promises. A valid offer is an important first step in building that promise-based trust. Let me explain. As your potential customers look for a solution to a problem they have, it’s likely they will find your company. Your ad or link will make a claim that leads the potential customer to think that your business can solve his or her problem. When the client goes to click on that ad, you’ve got to follow through with that solution or promise.
For example, if your ad presents a complimentary service or a reduced price, the landing page customers come to after clicking the ad must explicitly detail the promised offer. This is called making sure the offer is aligned or congruent with your ad. If you don’t have a properly aligned ad, your customers will immediately distrust you and never make the call.
Also, if you’re optimizing for phone calls, be sure your offer or call to action asks people to call. Then, nail your offer by adding emotion. We see a lot of offers or calls to action that are mundane, stale, and emotionless.
For example, “Call Today” or “Fill out this Form” are calls to action we see all over the web, but these calls to action don’t add any emotional value in customers’ eyes. Testing shows that calls to action that elicit an emotional response are more productive than purely logical calls to action.
Once you’ve got an aligned, emotional, and clear offer, you’ve got to put it in the right places. You should take your winning call to action and place it in your headline. It should be front and center, big and bold.
The more your offer stands out (think: contrast), the more successful it will be.
- You’ll also want to repeat your offer about 75% down the page so people will be reminded of it as they scroll.
- It’s also essential to put your phone number where people generally expect to find it: the top, right-hand corner and in the footer.
Finally, if you’re optimizing a mobile site, consider using a sticky header that will stay on the top of the page while visitors scroll.
Optimizing your page for phone calls is about more than just plastering your phone number on your page with an offer; you also need to make sure that the other elements on the page encourage people to make a call.
Be sure that any forms on your page are leading to a rise in calls, if that is what you are optimizing. Test different photos and menu styles to see which encourages visitors to pick up the phone.
You can also add elements to the page that will put customers at ease with whatever may be holding them back. For example, a link like “How to Pay for Treatment” would help to alleviate people’s concern about how they are going to finance an expensive treatment up front. Giving them the peace of mind will increase the likelihood that they call. Whatever you do, be sure to test all the elements on your page to be sure that they are contributing to call traffic.
When it comes to advertising there are lots of different metrics that businesses follow. Some businesses spend time and energy measuring click-through rate, or engagement of site, or time on site, or even calls received.
While this data may be helpful, it is essential to measure your sales conversion rate. Ultimately, you’ve got to measure to the money to ensure you’re getting a big return on investment. According to Brian Massey, one of the best ways to measure to the money is to measure the quality of your phone calls in addition to the volume of calls received.
You’ll need advanced call tracking software to really get the data that you need to make sound marketing decisions.
That’s where Convirza comes in. (Pardon us, we’ve got a little bragging to do.) Our state-of-the-art call tracking software allows you to test which headlines, ads, keywords, offers, and calls to action are generating the most sales.
One of the primary features of call tracking is that each different “experience” (e.g. ad, web page, offer, etc.) has a different phone number. When a customer calls the number associated with a certain touchpoint, our call tracking software records what lead generated that call. Our software is also already integrated so you can work with the platforms you’re already using, like Google Analytics, AdWords, DoubleClick, Marin, etc. You’ll have all the metrics you need to make great decisions.
And when it comes to measuring the quality of the call, we take the cake. Convirza is at the vanguard in call tracking with its Conversation Analytics®. This new technology interprets the quality of phone calls by paying attention to important phone call indicators, not just keywords, to give you the accurate data that leads to sound business decisions. If you really want to start measuring phone calls to revenue, talk with us today about our call tracking and call analysis software.
Surprise! Mobile phones have phones in them! (Who knew?) If you are going to optimize for phone calls, then developing a strong mobile site is a must. In fact, if done correctly, you can get more form fills, phone calls, and sales from your mobile site than your desktop. And when it comes to phone calls, your mobile site should be generating twice as many calls as your desktop, since viewers have in fact already “picked up” the phone.
In order to master mobile, you’ll need more than just a responsive mobile design. You can read more about getting a mobile responsive website * link to Get Your Website Mobile Responsive publishing on Sept. 21* or mastering mobile conversion on our website, but remember test what you develop and make sure it works for your audience. Best of luck.
