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Hello, Ruth. This is Susan Doe from Acme Widgets calling. I’d really like to speak with you. Would you please call me back? You can reach me at 1-800-555-5555.
DELETE!
This recent message on my voice mail got me thinking. Why did I delete it so quickly? Was it because I didn’t know her?
No, that wasn’t it. I often reply to voice mail from people I don’t know. So what makes me respond to some and not others? A well-crafted voice-mail message can be a potent opportunity to begin, or strengthen, a business relationship. There ought to be better ways to motivate a response than what our hapless Susan Doe demonstrated.
What should business marketers do when confronted with a voice-mail greeting?
After a bit of investigation, I didn’t find much. Voice-mail marketing is nowhere as a discipline. As far as I can tell, no one seems to be talking about it. No one’s researching it, setting up tests, or figuring out best practices.
I believe this is a lost opportunity, because outbound telemarketing is huge in B-to-B. And business marketers find that upward of 85% of outbound business calls go to voice mail. If you don’t have a clear strategy for how to manage voice mail as part of your campaign, you’ll be squandering a major chance to connect with customers and prospects.
The place to begin, naturally, is with your aim for making the call. A sales rep cranking through a series of cold calls will have a different strategy than a marketer who uses the phone as a follow-up to direct mail. Do you want to gain awareness? Is the message intended to motivate a return call? Is it part of a series of touches, or does the message need to pay off on its own? The answers will help identify the right approach to voice mail.
When asked for his recommendation on voice mail, LinkExperts’ vice president for revenue Mike Chaplo says firmly,
