New Year, New Marketing Strategy: Optimizing with Call Analytics

When we began 2018, we all heard the same clichéd New Year’s resolution: “New Year, new me,” a chance to correct bad habits, reach personal goals, and improve overall quality of life. But why do so many fail to reach the objectives they set for themselves? Whether you’re an individual determined to make 2018 a year for personal growth or a business looking to increase sales, it all starts with a plan.

As marketers, our objective this year is simple: attract more leads for sales to convert into new business (aka revenue!) than we did in 2017. Although this goal may be straightforward, the task is never as easy as it sounds, particularly when marketing spend must be justified and ROI is difficult to track in today’s multi-channel digital world. So what can you do differently this year to achieve this goal? Leverage call analytics in your marketing strategy.

Approaching inbound calls with a data-driven mindset will help you realize stronger marketing ROI, gather critical consumer insights, and ultimately drive sales. By following the steps below, you can transform your marketing approach and fulfill your 2018 resolution:

Step 1: Make it Easy for Consumers to Call

With over 93% of US website traffic coming from mobile, it’s critical to ensure your website is optimized to drive inbound calls, particularly on mobile. And with calls expected to influence over $1 trillion in US consumer spending this year, phone calls cannot be ignored. To improve opportunities for a consumer to initiate a call, it’s important to include your company’s phone number in calls-to-action (CTAs) on paid, social, and display ads.

Step 2: Connect Calls to Your Marketing

In today’s consumer-driven world, as behavior changes, so do marketing best practices. Having insights into how your media ad spend and website generate inbound calls and customers provides a tremendous competitive advantage. Using a call analytics solution that provides trackable phone numbers with dynamic number insertion (DNI) technology, you can automatically capture the channels, ads, search keywords, and website interactions that drove each call to your business.

Step 3: Personalize the Caller Experience

Getting consumers to call you is only half the battle, but it is just as important that they have the right caller experience to convert to a customer. There are several strategies marketers are using to personalize the caller experience.

You can use an interactive voice response (IVR) to automatically assist and qualify callers and ensure they are routed to their desired location. You can also use the data you are capturing in Step 2 as signals to determine how to route each caller in real time. For example, you can route callers differently based on the marketing source of the call, their geographic location, time of the call, caller history, and more. Connecting callers in conversation with the best location or agent right away can be the difference between winning and losing a customer.

Step 4: Analyze What Happens on Your Calls

Was the call answered, what was said on the call, and did it convert? These are all important questions for marketers to have answers to. Having this knowledge gives you power to make informed decisions about advertising choices that are positively affecting your business. It can also help you work with your sales team or business locations to make sure they are converting calls at high rates. The right call analytics solution provides marketers with conversation analytics technology backed by AI that can provide those insights for you.

Step 5: Optimize Your Marketing to Drive Sales

With the insights on inbound calls, you’re able to optimize your marketing strategy for the campaigns, keywords, and caller experiences that generate the biggest impact on your business. It’s a great way to help you reach your marketing resolutions in 2018.