Chapter 13
Going Direct with Your Marketing
In This Chapter
Making your direct marketing better than the pack
Designing effective direct-response advertisements
Using direct mail
Setting up a call center to service your direct customers
Engaging in telemarketing to pump up sales
Doing direct marketing is easy, but doing it well is difficult. You have to master it to the degree that you can beat the odds and obtain higher-than-average response rates. I share multiple ways to achieve this goal in this chapter as I help you review the varied problems and practices of direct marketing. This chapter focuses on conventional media: print ads, conventional mail (versus e-mail; that’s covered in Chapter 10), and the telephone. These media can all be integrated with (or sometimes replaced with) Web-based marketing, which I fill you in on in Chapter 10.
Beating the Odds with Direct Marketing
Direct marketing, relationship marketing, one-to-one marketing, and interactive marketing: They’re all the same thing at heart, so I don’t care what term you use. To me, direct marketing occurs whenever you, the marketer, take it upon yourself to create and manage customer transactions through one or more media.
The odds of success in direct marketing aren’t particularly good. The average direct appeal to consumers or businesses goes unanswered. If you can up the response rate even a little bit over the average, you can make some serious money in direct marketing. Make sure your marketing message is well targeted at prospects when they want and need to buy. Your message should also be well crafted, meaning professional, clear, and with an appealing hook and call to action.
To get you started on the right foot, the following sections point out how to maximize your direct marketing and minimize your risks.
Recognizing that practice makes perfect
Practice makes perfect in direct marketing, if you make sure to keep records of what you do and track the responses. That way you can tell when a change improves response rates. Even if you have little or no experience in direct marketing, have faith that a small initiative can generate enough information for you to get a grip on how to direct market better and on a larger scale. The best way to become good at direct marketing is simply to start doing it.
Ease into direct marketing with a modest program to minimize your downside risk and start growing from there. This principle is true, whether you’re big or small, a retailer or wholesaler, a for-profit or nonprofit business. Include a registration card with shipments of product and add a registration option to your Web site to begin building your in-house list. Also, consider buying a list of prospects from an established list broker and testing it with a mailing or e-mailing. Positive responses to this test mailing may be added to your in-house list. Then keep mailing and e-mailing your in-house list regularly so as to keep it fresh and up to date.
Knowing what you’re up against
Failure is the most common outcome of direct-response advertising. So your real goal is to minimize failure. Direct marketing basically doesn’t generate very high response rates, which means you need to make realistic projections before deciding to pay for a program. Check out these average statistics to see what you’re up against:
A full-page magazine ad typically pulls between 0.05 and 0.2 percent of circulation (the pull rate is the percentage of readers who respond to the ad by calling or mailing, according to the ad’s instructions). So you can expect only two responses per thousand from a decent ad. Pretty bad, huh?
An individually addressed direct-mail letter typically pulls between 0.5 and 5 percent of the names you mailed to. So you can expect, at most, 50 responses per thousand from a decent letter. Better, but still pretty bad. By the way, the cost per thousand (or CPM, from the Roman numeral M meaning “one thousand”) of a letter is often higher, so you don’t necessarily get a better deal from direct mail than from magazine ads.
A direct-mail showing of your product in a portfolio of products, as in a catalog or card deck, pulls far less. Divide that 50-per-thousand figure by the number of competing products for a rough idea of the average response rate (prominent placement does improve the rate; so does any tendency of customers to make multiple purchases from the catalog). For example, if your product is on one postcard in a shrink-wrapped deck of 50 cards, the maximum response may be 1 per thousand. That’s really bad, unless you happen to be selling something expensive enough to give you a good return at low numbers.
A telemarketing center making calls to a qualified list can do somewhat better. The center may pull in the 0.75- to 5-percent range for a consumer product, but that pull can get as high as 10 to 15 percent for some business-to-business sales efforts. However, the CPM of telemarketing is often higher than direct mail because it’s more labor intensive.
Before you despair, know that good direct-marketing programs beat these odds and can be highly profitable. And if you’re looking to build up a list of good customers, you may be happy just to find them now and wait for them to reorder before you see profits from your direct-marketing campaign.
Focusing on tactics that create high response rates
In order to boost sales from your offers, you need to be focused on the goal of generating high responses to your direct marketing. Here are some tips that can help:
Send a letter, special announcement, small catalog, or brochure by first-class mail once in a while to find out how well your mailing list responds. The U.S. Post Office returns undeliverables if you use first-class mail, so you can remove or update out-of-date addresses.
Run a very small ad in an appropriate magazine. Limit yourself to 15 words or less. Describe in a simple headline and one or two brief phrases what you have to sell and then ask people to contact you for more information. Here’s a hint: Including a simple photo of the product eliminates the need for wordy description. (See Chapter 7 for tips on designing and placing your print ad.)
Create a landing page on the Web with a more detailed direct-response ad on it and bid on key terms on Google to drive leads to your landing page. A landing page is a dedicated Web page where you explain your offer and guide customers to a form to fill out or a shopping cart to fill up. Check out Chapter 10 for more info.
Use testimonials on your Web landing page and in direct-mail letters and direct-response ads. Testimonials are quotes either from happy customers praising your product or firm or from news coverage discussing your firm or product. These comments attract more buyers because they seem more believable than positive things you say about yourself.
Trade customer lists with a related business to boost your list size for free. For example, a magazine specializing in your industry may be willing to exchange its readership list for your customer list.
Give away a simple, useful, or fun gift. You can give the gift in exchange for placing an order, or simply as an inexpensive premium (giveaway product) in your mailing. Nicely decorated pens, pencils, stickers, refrigerator magnets, or anything with utility can boost response rates by making your mailing more interesting and memorable. After all, who doesn’t love receiving gifts? (Check out Chapter 11 for some premium ideas.)
Send a thank-you note or card to customers by mail or e-mail after they place a purchase. This polite gesture often wins a repurchase. It also lets you test your contact information and habituates customers to reading your messages so that they’re more likely to pay attention to a sales-oriented message later on.
Send birthday or holiday greetings in the form of cards or gifts to your in-house list. If you consider them valuable customers, let them know it. You may be surprised at how many contact you afterward to place a new order, even though your mailing to them was noncommercial.
Change the medium or form of your communication every now and then. If you always send a sales letter, try a color postcard or an e-mail newsletter once in a while. Such variations can increase customer interest, and you may also find that different customers respond best to different forms of communication.
Include a photograph of a person’s face, looking directly at the viewer with a friendly expression, in print ads, mailings, Web banner ads, and Web landing pages. The person should represent a user or an expert on the product, or relate to the product or offer in some other way. A face attracts attention and increases sales for most direct-response ads and direct-mail letters. (On the Web, streaming video and audio permit you to upgrade to a video spokesperson.)
Use a clear, appealing photo of the product in your ads, mailings, Web banner ads, and Web landing pages. Showing what you have to sell attracts appropriate customers simply and effectively. And if some details don’t show up in the photo, add close-up photos. Seeing is believing, and believing is a prerequisite for buying! Few businesses use largely visual direct-response ads, though I can’t tell you why. Visual direct-response ads can outsell wordy ones by a wide margin.
Post a short how-to or demonstration video on the Web. The video can feature a new product, and you can end the video with a link to a special trial offer.
Try an old-fashioned radio advertisement using a lot of amusing sound effects and asking people to call a toll-free number or visit a Web site. Radio ads can be fun! Flip to Chapter 9 for help constructing one.
Run your direct-response ad in Yellow Pages phone directories. Get a local number for each directory you list your ad in. You can have the calls forwarded to your central office; ask your local phone company for details.
Behind every effective direct-marketing program stands a well-managed database of customer and prospect names. (If you need some help with your database, see the nearby sidebar.)
Making Your Direct-Response Ads Work
Direct-response ads are ads that stimulate people to respond with an inquiry or purchase. (Some marketers call them direct-action ads. Take your pick.) The registration cards that Levi’s now includes with each pair of jeans fall into this category, although you see direct-response ads more commonly in print media — magazines and newspapers — and on the fax machine (I don’t recommend this approach) and the Web (a better idea) as well. Additionally, the ads and purchased listings on Web search engines give you new, and often highly effective, forms of direct-response advertising (see Chapter 10 for details on how to use them).
The people who respond to direct-response advertising are self-selecting as customers or prospects. You need to do two things with them:
Try your best to close the sale by getting them to buy something.
Find out as much as you can about them and put the information in your database for future direct-marketing efforts.
Many businesses build a direct-marketing capacity through this very process. They place ads in front of what they hope is an appropriate target market and wait to see who responds. Then they attempt to build long-term direct-marketing relationships with those who respond (for example, by sending them catalogs, e-mails, and letters). Over time, the businesses add respondents to their direct-marketing databases, information about the respondents builds up, and many of those respondents become regular direct purchasers.
The high failure rates of direct-response ads (presented in the earlier “Knowing what you’re up against” section) make sense if you consider how much more these types of ads must do than the typical image-building or brand-oriented ad. A direct-response ad must create enough enthusiasm to get people to close the sale, on their own initiative, right now. How do you accomplish this goal? By making sure your direct-response ad
Appeals to target readers: A good story, a character they can identify with and want to be more like — these factors make up the timeless elements of true appeal (I cover appeal in greater detail in Chapter 6).
Supports your main claim about the product fully: Because the ad must not only initiate interest but also close the sale, it has to give sufficient evidence to overcome any reasonable objections on the reader’s part. If you think the product’s virtues are obvious, show those virtues in a close-up visual of the product. If the appeal isn’t so obvious (as in the case of a service), then use testimonials, a compelling story, or statistics from objective product tests — in short, use some form of evidence that’s logically or emotionally convincing, or better yet, both.
Speaks to readers in conversational, personal language: Your ad must be natural and comfortable for readers. Don’t get fancy! Write well, yes. Polish and condense, yes. Seek better, catchier, clearer expressions, yes. Just don’t be stiff or formal.
Targets likely readers: Your ad’s readership dramatically affects your response rate. In fact, the same ad, placed in two different publications, can produce response rates at both ends of the range. So the better you define your target consumers, the easier it becomes to find publications relevant to those target consumers, and the better your ad performs.
Highly selective publications and Web sites work better for direct-response advertising. A special-interest magazine may deliver a readership far richer in targets than a general-interest magazine or newspaper. If you’re focusing on women, select a publication or Web site read by them. That specification ups your response rate by 50 percent right off the bat! Good Housekeeping, for example, reaches more than 5 million readers — most of them women.
Is timed correctly: The right prospect is no use if the timing is off. Don’t sell lawn and garden care in December, or tropical vacations in August. Getting the timing right can greatly increase response rates.
Makes responding easy: If readers can make a purchase easily, ask them to do so. If the product is complicated or difficult to buy (because it’s technical, for example), then just ask people to contact you for more information and try to close the sale when they do so. Sometimes, you need an intermediate step (a way for the customer to find out more about the product before making the final decision to buy). When in doubt, try two versions of your ad: one with an intermediate step and one that tries to make the sale on the spot. Then see which one produces the most sales in the long run.
Both print and television advertising have fairly successful track records when it comes to direct response. Radio may work, too, but you have to innovate to overcome the problem of people rarely writing down what they hear on the radio. In other words, you need to convert the otherwise passive medium of radio into an action-oriented medium by making your call to action easy to remember. A memorable Web site address may do the trick. And Web advertising is quite good for direct response because many people have grown accustomed to purchasing on the Web and are willing to enter a credit card number and complete their transaction while online.
Delivering Direct Mail
Direct mail is the classic form of direct marketing — in fact, the whole field used to be called direct mail until changing practice forced marketers to adopt a broader term. Direct mail is the use of personalized sales letters, and it has a long tradition all its own. Direct mail is really another form of print advertising. No more, no less. So before you design, or hire someone to design, a direct-mail piece, please think about it in this context (and refer to Chapters 6 and 7).
Actually, a direct-mail piece isn’t like a print ad. It’s more like two print ads:
The first ad is the one the target sees when the mail arrives (usually an envelope). This ad has to accomplish a difficult action goal: get the viewer to open the envelope rather than recycle it. Most direct mail ends up in the recycling pile without ever getting opened or read! Keep this fact in mind and devote extra care to making your envelope
• Stand out (it must be noticeable and different)
• Give readers a reason to open it (sell the benefits or engage their curiosity or, even better, promise a reward)
Note: If you’re sending a color catalog with a stunning front and back cover that people can’t resist, make sure the recipient can see the catalog’s exterior. Don’t hide it under a dull envelope.
The second ad goes to work only if the first succeeds. The second ad is what’s inside, and it needs to get the reader to respond with a purchase or inquiry. In that respect, this ad works in much the same way as any other direct-response ad. The same rules of persuasive communication apply — plus a few unique ones that I present in the sections that follow.
Unlocking the secrets of great direct mail
A great many so-called formulas exist for successful direct-mail letters. None of them work, so avoid the temptation to make anything about your letter formulaic. Your letter must have creative copywriting and design at its best. It needs to use the secrets of direct-response advertising design (as described in the earlier “Making Your Direct-Response Ads Work” section) and employ the principles of creative marketing and good communications, which you can find in Chapters 5 and 6, respectively. However, certain strategies can help you employ these principles of good design in a direct-mail piece.
The most effective direct-mail letters generally include several elements, each with its own clear role:
Bait: You should include some sort of bait that catches the reader’s eye and attention, getting her to read the letter in the first place.
Argument: You then need to provide a sound argument — logical, emotional, or both — as to why your great product can solve some specific problem for the reader. Marketers devote the bulk of many letters to making this case as persuasively as possible, and you should keep this sound practice in mind when drafting your direct-mail letter.
Call to action: Finally, you should make an appeal to immediate action, some sort of hook that gets readers to call you, send for a sample, sign up for a contest, place an order, whatever. As long as they act, you can consider the letter a success. Your call to action is really the climax of the letter, and you need to design everything about the piece to ensure your call works.
These three essential elements are sometimes called the star, chain, and hook. Although the terminology — and metaphors — differ, the basic concept is the same: You need to include something attractive (the star or bait) to catch attention, followed by something substantive to arouse enthusiasm (the chain of argument that pulls the reader through the copy), followed by some kind of call to action that hooks the reader into responding.
These formulas refer specifically to the text of your letter itself, but that doesn’t mean you should forget about what else goes into your mailing. The outside of the envelope needs to entice readers and get them to open your letter in the first place. Following are some techniques to make your envelope enticing enough to open:
The stealth approach envelope: You disguise your letter so that it looks like a bill or personal correspondence — or so that it can’t be identified at all. The theory is that the reader will open the envelope just to find out what’s inside.
The benefits approach envelope: You include a headline, perhaps a little supporting copy, and even some artwork to let people know what the mailing is about and to summarize why you think your offer is worthy of their attention. I like this approach best because it’s honest and direct (this is direct marketing, after all!). Furthermore, this method ensures that those who do open the envelope have self-selected based on interest in your offer. But this technique only works if you have a clear benefit or point of difference to advertise on your envelope. If you can’t say “Open immediately for the lowest price on the XYZ product ranked highest in Consumer Reports,” then this ploy may not work.
The special offer envelope: This envelope entices with your call to action — never mind your offer. By letting consumers know that they can enter a sweepstakes to win a billion dollars, or get free samples, or find valuable coupons or a dollar bill enclosed, this envelope gives them a reason to read the letter inside. But the envelope doesn’t try to sell the product; it leaves that to the carefully crafted letter inside.
The creative envelope: If your mailing is unique enough, everyone wants to open it just to find out who you are and what you’re up to. Consider an oversized package in an unexpected color, an envelope with a very funny cartoon or quote on the back, or a window teasing readers with a view of something interesting inside. Or how about an envelope that reads “Don’t open this envelope!” You can make your envelope the most exciting thing in someone’s mailbox by using any number of creative ideas. Yet this strategy is the least common, probably because creative envelopes cost more. But don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. If you spend 25 percent more to double or triple the response rate, then you’ve saved your company a great deal of money on the mailing by spending more on the envelope!
What else should go into your mailing? In general, a letter combined with a circular — a simple catalog-style description of your product(s) — pulls more strongly than a letter alone. Circulars don’t work for all products (don’t bother for magazine subscriptions), but they do work well for any product or service the consumer sees as expensive or complex. Be sure to make the circular more elaborate, involving, glossy, colorful, and large where involvement should be higher. Think big circulars for big-ticket items and little ones for simple items.
Also include reply forms that allow readers to easily get in touch with you in multiple ways. Give readers some choices about what offers they want to respond to, if possible. Postage-free (or prepaid) reply forms generally ensure a higher response rate and thus justify their cost many times over. Don’t skimp on the form because, after all, getting that response is the whole point of your mailing.
The final design issue is deciding how to send the letter. Should you use the U.S. Postal Service’s standard mail (what used to be called third class) versus first class? Should you use an overnight air service for an offer to business customers? Perhaps you need to send the letter by e-mail? In general, the U.S. Postal Service is still best. And, on average, standard mail (which costs less) pulls as well as first class, so save your money unless timeliness is important or you want to check your list (first-class postage means the envelope comes back to you if the address is no good).
When writing a direct-response e-mail, include the bait, the argument, and the call to action, just as you would in a traditional mailing. However, when writing the copy, think computer screens, not pages. It takes as much effort (and involvement) to click on the next screen as it does to turn the page, yet a screen holds less than a page. So be more precise and less wordy, or else your e-mail can’t pull as well as the same letter in printed form. And pay attention to each transition between screens. Break the text in a way that creates suspense and gives viewers a reason to click or scroll onward toward the final offer (the call to action or hook).
Getting your letter mailed
One little detail often puzzles first-time direct mailers: how to actually get their mailing printed, folded, stuffed, and mailed. If you don’t know, you need to hire someone who does. Your local telephone directory lists some companies that do this kind of work under Mailing or Marketing headings. Commercial printers regularly do this type of work as well, and they can often handle anything from a small envelope to a major catalog. Talk to various printers to get an idea of the range of services and prices.
If you’re planning small-scale mailings — say, less than 2,000 a pop — then you may find doing the work in-house offers you a cheaper and quicker route. Many local businesses and nonprofits do small-scale mailings, and they’d be throwing away money by hiring printers. If you want to set up this in-house capability, talk to your local post office to find out how to handle metered or permit mail. And consider purchasing mailing equipment, such as the following (all of these items can process standard-format mailings): feeders, sealers, scales to weigh the mailings, and meters. Combine this equipment with your local photocopy shop’s ability to produce, fold, and stuff a mailing, and you have an efficient small-scale direct-mail center!
Purchasing mailing lists
I cover the topic of mailing lists in more depth in my book Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition (Wiley), but I cover the basics here in case you want to use purchased lists to prospect for leads. Don’t expect purchased lists to work very well — response rates can be low, and you may get high returns or undeliverables. That’s okay though, because you’re just using the purchased lists to build up your own higher-quality in-house list of purchasers. So plan to send relatively inexpensive mailings with easy-to-say-yes-to offers and then focus on the replies. If you get any calls, faxes, or postcards from these purchased lists, qualify them as leads or customers and move them to your own list.
I recommend buying one-time rights to mailing lists, with phone numbers (plus e-mail, if it’s offered) to make replying to a response easier for you. One-time use means you’re just renting the list; you don’t actually own it. You do, however, own the replies. As soon as someone contacts you from that mailing and you begin to interact with her and gather information about her, you can add that person to your own list.
Buy lists from list brokers or other vendors; you can find hundreds (I’ve posted some links at www.insightsformarketing.com). List suppliers usually have minimums. I recommend buying the minimum (it comes on sticky mailing labels or in a database, depending on what’s easiest and cheapest for you to use in your business). Then test the list with a mailing and see what happens. If you get some good customers out of it, go back and buy a larger number of names, excluding the ones you already used. Or if you’re disappointed in the response, buy a different list next time. And if your mailing is too expensive to test on the minimum — which is often 1,000 names — just mail to the first 250. That’s enough to find out how the list performs.
You have so many lists to choose from that you can keep shopping until you find one that works for you. But remember the basic principle of list-buying: The best indicator of future purchase is past purchase. Try to find lists of people who’ve purchased something similar to what you’re selling, preferably through the mail, rather than people who fit your customer profile in other ways.
Establishing and Running a Call Center
A call center is the place where telephone calls from your customers are answered. It can be a real, physical place: a big room full of phones staffed by your employees. Or it can also be a virtual place: a telephone number that rings to whatever subcontractor you’re currently using to handle telemarketing for you.
Every business is a call center, but most don’t realize it. If you have telephones and people calling in and out on them, you need to manage this point of customer contact very carefully. Small businesses may not operate on a big enough scale to hire or build a dedicated call center, but they still must manage this function wisely if they want to win customers, rather than lose them, on the phone.
When you use the telephone in your marketing, you need to follow the common-sense principles that I cover in the following sections.
Make your brand available by phone
In the United States, three-fourths of all consumers use a toll-free number at least once each year. And more than $500 billion in sales take place over the phone. In spite of the growing dominance of Web commerce, many services are still purchased by a consumer who uses the local Yellow Pages phone directory and calls the number of a company with an appealing ad in it. Don’t lose control of your inbound calls just because the Web is hot and advertising your business on craigslist is cool. The phone may still be your most powerful tool for finding and closing on new prospects. Answer it!
Although telemarketing requires nothing but a telephone, combining it with toll-free, inbound calling usually makes it the most effective. In the United States, you can offer free calling to your customers and prospects on numbers with prefixes of 800, 888, 877, or 866. Toll-free numbers are becoming increasingly available in similar forms in other countries, as well. The beauty of toll-free numbers, no matter your location, is that you, the marketer, get to pick up the cost of the customer’s telephone call, thereby removing her possible objection to calling.
Here’s a little-known alternative to the toll-free number that’s particularly effective if you’re in a business that values local relationships (such as pest control, lawn care, or computer repair): You can arrange for most phone companies to list a local number in each local market you sell to and then have the phone company bill you the added cost of transferring that call to your non-local office. That way, people pay only for their local call and feel that they’re dialing a local business rather than an impersonal national business. List the local number in the local Yellow Pages or other phone directories for effective local advertising.
Be accessible to desirable customers when they want to call you
Being accessible to your customers in part means having staff by the phones. If you service businesses, then you can use business hours to answer business calls (but make sure that you cover business hours in the customers’ time zones, not just your own). If you service consumers, be prepared to take calls at odd hours. Some of the best customers for clothing catalogs do their shopping late at night — just before bed, for example.
Of course, you also need to make sure nobody gets a busy signal. Your phone company offers a variety of services to help solve this problem; ask it for details. If you answer your phone faster than the competition does, you can gain some market share from them. (Note: A hidden advantage of keeping your call center in-house is that managers can keep an eye on the accessibility issue and add more lines and staff quickly if a problem arises.)
You’ll inevitably need to put some callers on hold some of the time. An outgoing message that includes an upbeat, attractively professional voice delivering your brand name and thanking callers for waiting is therefore essential. Also include your Web site address and let callers know what functions the site supports so that if they don’t want to bother waiting on the phone, they may still place an order on the Web.
Whatever you do, always measure and minimize customer wait time. Don’t leave people sitting on hold for more than what they perceive to be a moderate amount of time. Depending upon the nature of your product and customer, that time limit is probably less than two perceived minutes. A perceived minute is the time period a customer on hold thinks she has waited for a minute — and that time typically comes out to be more like 40 seconds when you measure it on the clock. You have to convert actual wait times to perceived wait times in order to appreciate the customer’s perspective.
If you don’t want to set up a call center yourself, you can either hire a consultant to design a call center for you or simply use a service firm to perform the function for you. Following are some recommended service providers:
24-7 INtouch: This Canadian company (available at 800-530-1121 or www.24-7intouch.com) operates call centers and has recently added the capacity for online support and chat centers.
AnswerNow!: This Arizona-based company (which you can reach at 800-226-0491 or www.answernowinc.com) can provide a simple virtual receptionist or a full-blown order handling center with credit card processing capacity.
CallCenterOps.com: This provider features an information-rich Web site (www.callcenterops.com). You can read the online newsletter Call Center News at news.callcenterguide.com.
Trade associations may also be able to provide you with information, referrals, and training. Try contacting the International Customer Service Association (ICSA; www.icsatoday.org) and the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI; www.atsi.org).
Capture useful information about each call and caller
One of the most important functions for your call center is to field inquiries or orders from new customers as they respond to your various direct-response advertisements (think magazine ads, letters to purchased lists, and your Web page). These callers are hot leads that you need to gather information about. Have operators ask each caller how she heard of your company, perhaps along with a few other qualifying questions.
The best way to capture callers’ info for your customer database is to have your operators online so they can enter the data directly into your database as they obtain it. At the very least, give them a printed information form they can fill in. If you’re the one answering those customer calls, make yourself a form so you don’t forget to capture useful information about the prospects, their needs, and how they found your number.
Putting your operators online also solves the related problem of recognizing repeat customers. Repeat customers’ names pop up onscreen for the operator’s reference. That way, the operators don’t have to ask stupid questions, and they can surprise customers with their knowledge. (Refer to the “Using computerized marketing databases” sidebar in this chapter, or go to your favorite online search engine and look for “providers of call center management software” if you don’t already have software that supports your sales and service function.)
Gather data on the effectiveness of direct-response ads and direct mail
I’m often amazed by how little information marketers gather about the effectiveness of their own work. What you don’t know does hurt you in marketing! You can easily find out which direct-response ads (both print and Web), call scripts, or mailings pull the best. Just have your call center operators or staff ask every new caller where he or she heard about you and ask repeat customers what prompted this latest call. (For Web-only customers, include a checklist so they can report where they first heard about you.) You can track the performance of each individual ad, letter, or promotion by giving it a unique code so you can discover which approaches pay off and which don’t.
Everything you send out should have your phone number and Web address on it. It’s amazing how often I find myself staring at a catalog page, package, product, Web site, bid, bill, or memo trying to find a phone number that just isn’t there. Then what? I may just call the competition instead. The solution? Audit and order.
First, audit your mailings, Web pages, packaging, and other customer communications to find those holes where you’ve accidentally left out contact information.
Next, order up some simple contact information stickers with your brand or business name, phone numbers, address(es), and Web site and e-mail information. Pop those stickers on folders, boxes, cards, products, scribbled notes, or anywhere else anyone may conceivably look when thinking of calling you with a question or order.
Drumming Up Business by Phone
If you decide to prospect for new customers by phone (in other words, if you choose to engage in outbound telemarketing), you can do so in a couple ways:
You can do a little bit of outbound telemarketing informally as part of a broader routine of contacting customers and following up on leads.
You may have a full-blown outbound telemarketing program set up in a call center that you either run yourself or contract.
One way or the other, though, every marketer makes some calls to customers and prospects and must be prepared for the reality that outbound telemarketing yields plenty of rejections. In fact, I don’t generally recommend outbound telemarketing for cold call lists, or lists of strangers who’ve never done business with you before. You can buy such lists from list brokers easily, but expect lower response rates than from lists you build yourself.
The next sections explain in more depth how you can use a phone to garner business while keeping legal.
Developing a good call list
You can improve the success rate of outbound telemarketing dramatically by developing a good list before you start calling. Preferably, this list is of people who’ve had some contact with you before (they’ve purchased, returned an inquiry card, tried a sample, or responded to an ad). With a good list, you can afford to put competent salespeople on the phones so that your company puts its best face forward.
I don’t know why most telemarketers haven’t figured out that the first contact between their company and a prospective customer shouldn’t be in the hands of a temp worker who can’t even pronounce the name of the product correctly. To avoid such problems, you need to develop good call lists and a script that gives your callers at least a 10-percent success rate — about ten times the average for typical bottom-feeder consumer telemarketing operations.
Writing a winning telemarketing script
Before you call someone, you absolutely must make sure you know what you’re going to say — and that means crafting a script. Always write, role-play, revise, and test a script before asking anyone to make an outbound telemarketing call. Keep your script upbeat, simple, short, and clear. Demonstrate the script to your telemarketers by making a few calls yourself and remind them to stay friendly and positive (by smiling into the phone) no matter what happens.
Here’s a seven-element template for writing a simple and effective telemarketing script with sample text for a magazine subscription offer (but substitute your own offer and text to make this script work for your marketing program):
1. Introduce yourself.
For example, “Hello, I’m [full name], and I’m calling from [company name] . . .”
2. Give the caller a very brief explanation about why you’re calling.
For example, “. . . to offer you a chance to extend your subscription at a 50-percent discount.”
3. Request permission.
“May I tell you about our special offer? It will only take 30 seconds.”
4. If the person on the phone gives you permission, provide a longer yet succinct explanation about why you’re calling.
“When your subscription expires next [month], we will extend it for another year at half the price of a regular subscription, if you will confirm now by phone. This offer is only good for orders placed by phone, because it is more economical for us to process subscriptions this way.”
If she doesn’t give you permission, thank her for her time and be professional.
5. Pause for questions and answer them with simple facts, using as polite of manners as possible and remembering to smile when speaking.
For example, “Yes, the regular subscription is $40 per year, and our special offer costs you only $20.”
6. Close the deal.
“Very well, then shall I sign you up for another year’s subscription to [name of magazine]?”
7. Confirm the details.
“Good. We’re almost done. Now I just need to confirm your name, address, and credit card information.”
When crafting your script, be careful to avoid anything deceptive or misleading. Failing to do so is just opening yourself up for trouble.
Keeping legal
Make sure you’re honest and accurate about who’s calling and avoid using deceptive scripts. Deceptive telemarketing is all too common, and it sours the market for honest telemarketers. I’m sure you’ve hung up on inappropriate callers many times. I have too.
Unfortunately, many telemarketing scripts are improper and may lead to legal complications. Why? Because the pressure is on. Selling anything over the phone is much harder than it used to be, whether it’s a magazine or a long-distance telephone service. People are getting sick of these sales calls and adding their names to “don’t call lists” by the millions, and businesses are setting up impenetrable phone systems to duck telemarketing calls. Conse-quently, marketers are experimenting with stealth techniques, and these techniques lead them into dangerous ethical and legal territory. The next section offers some sensible alternatives to persisting with deceptive calls when you find it too hard to close the deal with normal lists and scripts.
Looking at new telemarketing strategies
Telemarketers need to find new strategies for their increasingly mature medium. Some of these strategies include
Using the phone to follow up on leads, not to find them: Whenever possible, use your Web marketing activities (see Chapter 10), events (check out Chapter 12), and advertising (see “Beating the Odds with Direct Marketing,” earlier in this chapter, plus all of Part III in this book), to generate telephone or personal sales call leads. When you generate inquiries about your product or service, you have permission to call. The prospect takes your call gladly in 99 percent of these cases, and you close a sale in many of them.
Not overusing the phone: Save calls for issues that really deserve personal contact from the prospect’s perspective and try to call people who actually know you or your firm or will welcome the call for some other good reason. If you have something truly important to talk about, then you don’t need a misleading hook to keep people on the phone. Remember that every marketing program should use a balanced mix of media and methods. You can’t do all jobs with one tool. Also remember that even when telephoning is appropriate, your customers and prospects don’t want you to call constantly. Give them a little breathing room.
Scripting a message to leave on voice mail: Write a short (less than 30 seconds) script for a voice mail message in which you introduce yourself, provide a brief explanation of the offer, and then give the person two or three options for follow-up (your return number, your e-mail, and a Web address to a page with details of the offer).
Being respectful: Remember that you’re interrupting anyone you reach by phone. If someone clearly doesn’t want to talk with you, don’t be a jerk. Get off the phone politely, thanking her for her time, so that you at least leave behind a positive impression of your firm or brand.
Compensating telemarketers for building relationships, not frying them: If telemarketers are paid only by the kill (commission on sales), then they can get frustrated and start berating and hanging up on your prospects and customers. Note that this rule means you shouldn’t use subcontractors (specialized companies that telemarket for you) if they pay by the kill — and most of them do.
Guarding existing customers from bad telemarketing: Deceptive, high-pressure, or irritating phone sales tactics may produce a good-looking end-of-day sales report, but they’re guaranteed to increase customer turnover. Why? Because they bring in deal-prone customers who can be taken away by the next telemarketer, and they irritate rather than reward your loyal customers. At the very least, use two different strategies and scripts: one for existing customers and one for deal-prone prospects. At best, focus your telemarketing on building existing customer loyalty; for example, by calling to see whether you can improve the product or service quality.