Mobile marketing has opened new avenues for companies and organisations to reach consumers. The ability to combine voice and messaging is proving particularly powerful as part of the campaign toolkit, but only if the approach is sensitive to the recipients’ expectations. New developments in messaging systems are enabling marketers to apply creativity around voice-based promotional activity with impressive results. Here are five ways in which incorporating voice as part of your mobile or customer marketing strategy can pay dividends.
1. Put the decision to interact in the hands of the consumer
Voice messages can be more powerful than an email but how do you speak to a current, past or prospective customer in a way that will not irritate them? We have all received annoying or badly timed calls on our mobiles from companies trying to sell us something. We all prefer to listen to messages when it’s convenient for us.
There are new voicemail broadcast marketing systems that put control back in the hands of the recipient. One key aspect of these new-style mobile marketing solutions is that text alerts can be personalised. The recipient sees the organisation that sent them a message,which in turn boosts open rates if it’s one they know, a service they subscribe to or a charity they’ve donated to in the past. Recipients can see that they’ve been sent a voice message in their inbox; they see the sender, the subject and then listen to the message when it’s convenient for them.
2. Make it easy for the recipient of a voicemail message to take action
Organisations using voice-based marketing systems have found that when offered an option to be put through to a company representative, the majority of message recipients choose this option.
Intelligent voicemail broadcast systems not only put control into the hands of the recipient, they make it intuitive for the customer to make a decision on how to act. By incorporating features such as 'hot call transfer', it’s possible for a recipient to connect with one click to a call centre, to take advantage of a special offer or renew a lapsed subscription, for example. In trials of our hot call transfer capability, over 70% of message recipients opted to be transferred to a call centre, rather than requesting a call-back. Users felt positive when connecting with the call centre, freeing staff to focus on inbound calls, rather than fruitless or costly outbound calls. Trials proved that recipients prefer the ease of responding with a ‘transfer to call centre’ option to a call back request.
3. Be creative to make your voicemail broadcast messages appealing
With listening rates approaching 100% when a CEO sends a message to employees and up to 50% when a celebrity sends out a message to consumers including an offer, it pays to think carefully about who you are using to deliver your message.
Celebrities or people on the front line making appeals on behalf of charities work well. A leading charity used a senior member of their team to record a message thanking donors for their support during a recent humanitarian crisis. Responses to an appeal from someone working on the ground in a disaster zone were high, due to the power of the message.
Messages sent by Ian Holloway, the manager of Premiership football club Crystal Palace, also achieved high listening rates. Pre-recorded messages to fans were listened to repeatedly and actively shared. Crystal Palace FC used voicemail broadcasting to thank fans for their support but also announced that season tickets were available, delivering asales message simultaneously.
Racing UK used leading jockey Hayley Turner's voice to deliver their subscription campaign and achieved impressive results, with around a fifth of message recipients taking out full subscriptions for their TV channel. In addition, Racing UK reduced their outbound call centre costs, freeing staff to deal with inbound calls.
4. Make sure the system you use can measure the success of your campaign
It’s crucial to know who has and hasn't listened to voicemail broadcast messages, so always choose a system that delivers tracking information. It’s essential to track each message to see when it was opened, if the recipient listened and any options that were chosen. Ideally, the results should be available in real-time to deliver factual ‘return on investment’ information for each campaign. Systems with real-time tracking can be accessed from outside the organisation, in the event of a disaster recovery situation, ensuring business continuity.
5. Go cloud-based for speed, flexibility and cost control
Cloud-based voicemail marketing systemshave no software to download, no set-up fees or licensing arrangements - services can be used on a standalone basis, immediately. Customer or prospect contact information is easily loaded, stored securely and messages can be sent as required.
If you choose the right cloud-based voicemail marketing broadcast solution, it’s as easy as opening an account and sending messages, plus it is simple to link to existing systems via an API.
By Keith Hawkins, CEO of CleverVoice.
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