How to Get Valid Phone Numbers From B-to-B Prospects

Last week, MarketingSherpa research partner KnowledgeStorm distributed a press release about its new research, which shows that B-to-B tech buyers were twice as likely to give a valid e-mail address than a valid phone-number when registering for content.

At first glance, it's an obvious truth. Let's face it, when a site asks for your telephone number, it's akin to saying, "a sales rep will call." Many folks figure they would rather not be pestered, so they lie about their phone number.

MarketingSherpa has additional data, on both the B-to-B and consumer marketing side, that if your online registration form asks for a phone number, the presence of that question alone can – and usually will – reduce response rates. So, when you ask for a phone number, people will either abandon your page or flat-out lie.
What's a marketer to do? Your lead qualification team needs a phone number for follow-up. If you don't follow up, you may lose a sale or waste a lead.

Plus, other new MarketingSherpa data just released indicates that only 11% to 17% of business prospects are actively annoyed by the call when they get it. In fact, 45% to 53% of the executives admit a cold call made a positive difference in their new vendor or technology selection decisions. The cold call helped the vendor leapfrog onto the consideration short list.

My advice?

#1. Do you have to get the number from the prospect directly?
If your marketing database is remotely up to snuff, chances are that you have a phone number – at least a main number – on file for that organization already. Even if you market to fairly small organizations, these days in B-to-B you're marketing to a committee. So, several members may have already given you that data via other media (such as trade show contacts).
You can also buy and append main company phone numbers for your database fairly easily, without breaking any privacy regulations. Or you can use look-up services, such as JigSaw.com, to append these manually.

#2. Can you get the number further down the pipeline?
If you get an e-mail opt-in or a webinar RSVP, you have a chance to get a phone number later. Do you need the phone number right now, or do you need it when the prospect is further along in the sales cycle? For example:

• Could you ask for the phone number on the sign-in form for a webinar rather than on a webinar invite form?
• How about asking for phone number as one of the questions – preferably the last – for a survey or giveaway to your e-mail file?
  

#3. Prefill a phone number and get it corrected by the prospect
One nearly guaranteed way to raise response rates to a B-to-B offer is to prefill a registration form so prospects don't have to type in their contact information. It's already there for them. All they have to do is eyeball it for possible corrections, answer another question or two and then click submit.
This requires more work from your team, but personalized URLs and prefilled landing pages have come a long way in the last few years. And, your content offer conversion rates could go from an average of under 10% to more than 40%. That's a big enough difference to be worth testing marketing tech investment.
If you have a generic phone number on file, put that in and see if the prospect fixes it. Or, ask for their extension as your extra question.

#4. Consider not "requiring" a phone number on forms
I've seen case study evidence that when a marketer asked for a phone number but didn't make it a required field, he ended up with both better phone numbers and more responses as a result.
Prospects may see the nonrequired field as a sign of respect. You as marketer respect their privacy. If they don't want to get a call, you won't call. You won't force the issue. That respect can engender respect in return.

#5. Budget extra for phone number research
Lastly, use this data to get your database budget increased. The fact is, humans are humans, so they're going to lie about their phone numbers. Your job as a marketer is to gather the information for the CRM system or sales database that your team will need to follow-up properly.
Consider making "getting the correct phone number" a separate line item from "getting registered leads" in your budget. After all, even if you don't budget that way, your prospects are responding that way.

Anne Holland is content director of MarketingSherpa, a research firm publishing case studies and benchmark data for its 237,000 marketing executive subscribers. For your own copy of the transcript and PowerPoint slides from the Selling Subscriptions Summit, go to: www.sherpastore.com/transcripts.html.