How can IVR help you make more money out of your traditional media advertising?

Traditional media advertising, which relies on the words of a skillful copywriter, still remains the most predominant and widely used media, targeting consumers worldwide. Yes, those billboards you see while driving down the highway, 12 foot back-lit signs in malls and bus shelter ads, are not leaving us any time soon, and neither is the traditional IVR as we know it today or we did yesterday.

It is becoming harder and harder for traditional media to compete for advertisers’ dollars, new media is no longer “new” it has become mainstream, (the web, digital displays, web casts, pod casts, and who knows what else), will be utilized in the future, as they keep on coming.
However, no mater if it’s new or old media (that works), businesses demand advertising channels that are accountable for results. You have probably have heard this saying, your marketing needs to be as accountable as your stock portfolio.

With the Internet, unique visitors can be tracked, conversions can be measured and dollars can be accounted for, but how about all that traditional media, how can it measured to the same standards of accountability – how do you know if someone who is walking by your back-lit sign will do anything about it? This is where another old timer works, and works well, IVR, Interactive Voice Response, has been around for more than 20 years.
Whether the IVR is dressed up as a virtual (audio) tour of the product or service, or you post a toll-free # to quickly connect the consumer – in this your skillful copywriter may play a key roll – to your sales team, you can use IVR to account for more of your dollars spent on traditional media. After all, you are spending money in advertising and marketing to make more money, right? IRV can help you capture more information about the consumer, so you can connect with them over the telephone, or face to face, and make a return on all those dollars you are spending.
If you are working on your first IVR project ,I have published several guides which will help you successfully execute your project (the are FREE)

How To Successfully Execute your IVR Project and Select The Right Vendor for the Job
The Complete Guide To Successfully Implementing Your IVR Survey Project
Using IVR For Lead Generation – How Professionals do it.

To Your Success,Barnard L. Crespi
Datatel Inc/Datatel Communications Inc

IVR For Lead Generation: Advanced Tips, What Response Rates Can you expect.

What Response Rates Can you expect from running your IVR lead generation initiative.

Your response rate will vary depending on your product or service, your unique sales proposition and the type / quality of the list. IVR allows you to turn the calls into leads that you can follow-up on.

Based on a cross-section of the organizations that we work with, you can anticipate response rates of 1% ~ 3% and in some cases even higher.

For example, we have recently worked with a client that was obtaining a 10% response rate from his voice mail drops, initially with 1.5% conversion rate. Eventually, through the utilization of some unique IVR features, the client was able to generate even higher conversion rates 2.7%.

Using Inbound or Outbound IVR - What is the Difference?

In IVR lead generation, there are two approaches,
· Inbound calling, where a prospect is invited through print, or other media to call into your toll-free #.
· Outbound, where prospects are called and invited to take action.

Example 1 (Inbound) Responding to your Mail-Out Campaign:

“Thank you for calling LoanDirect, the safe and secure way to apply for a hassle-free, no obligation loan. We will now provide you with a short and confidential questionnaire so you can apply for your financing. If you have any questions at all, please visit our web site at LoanDirect.com and click on FAQ, for frequently asked questions. You’ll find that most of your questions are answered there.”

Please press 1 to proceed

* You can also add an option to transfer the call to a sales person during regular business hours.

If you are working on your first IVR project ,I have published several guides which will help you successfully execute your project (they are FREE)

How To Successfully Execute your IVR Project and Select The Right Vendor for the Job
The Complete Guide To Successfully Implementing Your IVR Survey Project
Using IVR For Lead Generation – How Professionals do it.

To Your Success,
Barnard Crespi
Datatel Inc/Datatel Communications Inc

Your IVR Project – Why is Voice Talent important?

You are probably asking yourself: “What does Voice Talent have anything to do with the successful execution of my IVR project?”

Selecting Voice Talent for your IVR application is a key consideration, as she/he will be representing your company; she/he will be your spokesperson – this is the “Voice” of your company.

Professional Voice Talent, with IVR experience, know the right pace, pronunciation, and intonation required to keep the caller engaged.

Before you select Voice Talent, ask to listen to a sample, and remember, just because she/he may have broadcast experience that doesn’t necessarily mean they will know how to engage a caller. Listen to a sample survey recording, first and foremost, you want someone who makes the application flow, and is easy to understand.

To hear a professional in action you can call 800.455.8033 (when asked – enter Access Code: 15115).

If you are working on your first IVR project ,I have published several guides which will help you successfully execute your project (they are FREE)

• How To Successfully Execute your IVR Project and Select The Right Vendor for the Job
• The Complete Guide To Successfully Implementing Your IVR Survey Project
• Using IVR For Lead Generation – How Professionals do it.

To Your Success,
Barnard Crespi
Datatel Inc/Datatel Communications Inc

Your IVR Survey Project – How you can to get more people to participate

If you are running a survey using IVR, or planning on doing so, here are a few things you can be doing to increase the number of people who want to participate in your IVR survey?”What I have found is, that organizations who experience the highest completion rates are those who can effectively incorporate and answer the following questions to potential participants in both the “Invitation to participate” (this would be your printed material/or what an agent tells the caller) and “The Survey Introduction” (when they call in).a) Why am I doing this?
b) How long is this going to take from my busy day?
c) What are you using this information for?
d) Are my responses confidential?
e) What is there in it for me? – I am not encouraging reward based participation, although this might work, however, I am saying that providing an incentive, or a valid reason, to the caller, may encourage them to participate and stay engaged.

You may use your own creativity to engage the caller; as long as you can answer these questions you will increase your chances of higher response rate.

You can download the complete guide for FREE at:http://www.datatel-systems.com/whitepapers/IVRSurvey_Request.htm

To Your Success,
Barnard Crespi
Datatel

How IVR Can Help You Generate More Sales Leads

Every day, millions of people are calling in to toll-free #’s to obtain information about a product or service.

• One organization that we work with, mails 1,900,000 pieces of mail per month, to let people know that they can pre-qualify for a loan, by calling an “800” number, with a real-time response conversion rate of 1.2%.
• Another company makes 1000 + calls a day activated by a web opt-in mechanism, resulting in a 2.5% response conversion rate. What do they have in common? They both use IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to generate interest, acquire sales leads and provide continuous deal flow to their sales force.

How Can you use IVR to help you generate more leads?
A key benefit of using IVR for a lead generation strategy is that it can work for you 24/7.
The ability to activate your pre-approved auto loan certificate or apply for a mortgage pre-approval, are just some examples.

• Say you are an Auto Dealer, and you want to generate more prospect-flow. You can easily rent a targeted consumer list from dozens of sources and write a compelling sales letter – which invites your target to apply for a pre-approved auto loan, 1000’s of dealers are doing this across the country.

• The same can be done if you are a mortgage broker, and you provide a quick telephone mortgage application. By renting your list from a credit service, such as Equifax, you can target your audience, and make your offer even more compelling.
  IVR allows you to engage with consumers and process your leads 24/7 over the telephone, and leads are delivered to you in real-time.

What Response Rates Can you expect?
Your response rate will vary depending on your product or service, your unique sales proposition and the type / quality of the list. IVR allows you to turn the calls into leads that you can follow-up on.
Based on a cross-section of the organizations that we work with, you can anticipate response rates of 1% ~ 3% and in some cases even higher.
For example, we have recently worked with a client that was obtaining a 10% response rate from his voice mail drops, initially with 1.5% conversion rate. Eventually, through the utilization of some unique message optimization, the client was able to generate even higher conversion rates (2.7%.)
Do you still want to know more?
You can download the complete guide for free – including templates that you can use right way for your business.

http://www.datatel-systems.com/whitepapers/IVR_Lead_Gen_Request.htm

To Your Success,
Barnard Crespi
http://www.datatel-systems.com/