5 ways to increase call volumes

Article Word Count: 1070

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Introduction

For most businesses out there who rely on telemarketing, they can confidently tell you that calling is a much more efficient way of increasing sales as compared to other modes like email blasts, online forms, and paid Google ads. Getting someone physically talking to you over the phone is already half the battle won — your prospective customer has given you a precious 10 minutes of their time to convince them to purchase your product and service. Despite this, it is still incredibly difficult to keep potential clients engaged on the call, as many are increasingly ending the call the minute they realize that they are the center of your telemarketing strategy. As such, here are some tips to effectively drive more calls to potentially improve your sales and push you closer towards your end-of-month sales target.

1. Ensure that your campaigns have call extensions

Call extensions are one of the easiest ways to simply drive up your call traffic from paid search ads on Google or Microsoft. Leveraging call extension allows you to strategically place a phone number beside your ad, allowing your potential customers to reach your business directly, skipping out on the product page. Regardless of whether the customer’s purpose is to clarify certain doubts regarding your products, or he or she simply clicked on the number instead of the ad, it lands a prospect customer right into your lap since the person has already shown interest by hovering the cursor over your ad. The best part of call extensions is that you are only charged for the click, just like how click-through rates are charged.

With the added call extension in place, it is important to navigate calls to your business directly during working hours where employees with the requisite skill sets are able to take the call and attend to prospective customers.  One suggestion would be to redirect calls to your business during working hours while scheduling customers to be redirected to an online form instead during the non-working hours; to ensure that the use of call extensions is maximized. While convincing your customer to purchase your product or service is another issue altogether, a person on the line has a higher chance of you converting leads to sales.

What’s more, there are various tools available to help you track the success of your campaigns. Integrating CallRail with Whatagraph is one such way and you’ll find it much easier to stay updated; tweaking your campaigns if necessary to improve your sales. 

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      2.Use call-only ads and campaigns

Alternatively, if you prefer to direct all your campaigns and ads to phone calls instead, you can engage in call-only ads that minimize the instances of your business’ phone number not showing up on their screens. With such ads and campaigns, it restricts customers from having alternative options to connect with your business, hence forcing them to only reach you via phonecalls where your company’s confidence is the highest at enabling conversion rates. 

However, not all companies benefit the most from call-only ads. If the product or service that you are selling requires much consideration, having a landing page that gives customers the option of researching and reading up on your background information and about the details of your product/service will be greatly useful for them. In such cases, call-only ads do result in higher call volume but have proven to achieve a lower lead qualification. Conversely, businesses that have more complicated landing pages and poor web experience may benefit more from calls-only ads, allowing potential customers to reach an agent directly to learn more about the business.

    3.Incorporate bid adjustments for calls

Aside from launching call extensions or call-only ads, the next step you can take is to implement bid adjustments so that Google Ads is aware that your business prioritizes calls.  Bid adjustments are a percentage change to a bid and allow for an increase or decrease to better influence where your ads are shown. With these plugins, you will be able to take control of how frequently your call extensions and call-only ads appear. This enables your company to target your audience more aggressively during stipulated periods in the day when call volumes are higher. Though this may seem like a pretty simple and obvious step to take, this can effectively increase your call volumes and potential conversion rates.

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     4.Deliver ads within Google Maps

Having your ads appear on Google Maps is another way to effectively drive calls, since it indicates the urgency of your customer. When individuals are searching for places on Google Maps, they are likely sourcing for a company that is within close proximity from where they are living or from where they are currently. Searches from mobile phones indicate a higher sense of urgency since these individuals are likely to be out and about, sourcing for a suitable place to purchase your product or service immediately. Hence, this small group of people will be easily convinced into purchasing your product/service, making them good targets for marketing. Therefore, all you have to do is target your campaign locally. Furthermore, you can also add bid adjustments in a radius around one of your business listings, allowing you to bid higher for customers who are in the vicinity.

     5.Market your calls explicitly

If your business is call-centric in nature, be sure to write it down clearly on your website. Instead of leaving it out and confusing your customers as they navigate mindlessly through your website, adding phrases like “call now” and “reps available 24/7” can certainly increase your call volumes if you literally spell it out. Ensuring that your tone is one that is welcoming and warm will allow your customers to have the confidence that your business is responsive and quick-to-action, increasing their chances of dialing in to an enthusiastic agent.

Conclusion

If your business relies on and prioritizes calls over anything else, it is important to take these necessary steps to increase your call volume, which is the first step to translating into conversion rates. Ensuring that your agent is always friendly and forthcoming, as well as possessing the right skillsets will definitely help to translate calls into sales, instead of agents who do not have a glib tongue, and sound unsure about the details of their business. With higher call traffic, you will soon be on your way to reeling in interested customers and improving your company’s sales!