In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, everybody wants to opt for a shorter and an easier route when given a choice. People don’t want to waste their time in unnecessary processes. And it’s obvious that your customers aren’t an exception to this.
Oh! Hold on. This isn’t a psychology article, so let’s talk about this in marketing context. I’m talking about ‘direct calling v/s lead form’. What does a customer prefer when willing to enquire about your product?
Mostly, a business prospect who comes across your ad, and is interested in knowing about your products or services will prefer calling you directly rather than filling up a registration form and waiting for you to revert. It’s evident that a phone call is the quickest and easiest means for a customer to interact with your business. It requires lesser efforts and saves time.
I’m not advocating against using a lead form ad or an ad that redirects to your website. These ads do have their own significance. But when you’re optimizing your marketing efforts, be it digital or offline, with the primary purpose of lead generation, nothing can beat campaigns that bring in more call leads.
The logic behind this is simple. Aren’t you more likely to convince or persuade someone through a verbal communication rather than a written communication? Ofcourse, yes. Same happens here.
As per a research report, call leads are 10 times more likely to convert as compared to other types of online leads.
Now, having known that call leads have higher chances of getting converted, how exactly do you plan to increase the number of your call leads?
8 hacks to flow in more call leads for your business
1. Use Google Call Extensions
When targeting 21st century audience, who spends a majority of their time on mobile devices, not adding call extensions to your Google ads is like cooking your food without salt.
Google Call Extensions give you the option to add a clickable call button to your mobile search ads. You also have the option of displaying your phone number only at times when your business accepts calls.
So, apart from visiting your website, your target audience also gets the option of calling your business instantly.
2. Utilize Google Call Only ads
Call Only ads appear only on mobile devices or devices capable of calling. They also allow you to specify time during which you want to show your ads to your callers.
Both call extensions, and call only ads let your prospects call your business in a single tap. This minimizes the efforts of your prospects in reaching out to you, or buying your product.
3. Drive phone calls from mobile emails
When your first objective of grabbing prospect’s attention via an email is fulfilled, would you want them to click the back button and drift away? Obviously not.
Adding a click to call button or adding your business contact number, in the email itself, will give your business instant call leads and an easy way for your prospect to enquire about the product.
4. Run your ads around peak call hours
No, here you don’t have to play hit and trial to know your peak call hours. A call management system lets you know when your business receives maximum number of calls.
Running your Google Ad campaigns or even your email campaign during those hours will fetch you more call leads as compared to other hours of the day.
5. Use virtual number in offline advertisement campaigns
Although the world is going digital, offline banner ads haven’t yet lost their charm. A real challenge with such ad campaigns is to generate leads as well as measure RoI of individual campaigns.
Adding a virtual business contact number will drive your audience to call you instantly and will also help your business measure RoI of the campaign. Not only this, IVR service attached with the virtual business number will ensure that none of the calls are being missed.
6. Add phone numbers to social network
If you do have a social media presence, use it for lead generation. For instance, facebook gives you the option to add a ‘call now’ button right at top of your facebook page. So, if a prospect, while scrolling through your facebook page gets intrigued, he’ll simply click the ‘call now’ button to reach out to you.
Social media platforms, in this way, will serve the purpose of user engagement as well as lead generation.
7. Let your contact number be easily visible
What is the easiest way to convert your website visitors into leads? I’d say, making them call you. Why? Because verbal communication can do the magic that maybe signup form on your website couldn’t.No wonder, all businesses have their contact number on their website. But at times, it is hidden somewhere so deep that the customers don’t want to waste their time drilling it out.
Making your contact number clearly visible and placing it at the top of your website won’t let your prospects drift away to your competitors’ website even before they call you.
8. Get an easy to remember contact number
It’s one of the best things to do when you’re targeting your prospects through offline campaigns. Getting a mirror image number like 92129-92129 or a memorable toll-free number like 1-855-COOKIES makes it easier for your customers to recall your business number whenever they want to contact you.
Summing up: Calls are not the only source of lead generation but call leads are definitely the ones with higher conversion rate. Call leads need less nurturing and have relatively shorter sales cycle. To sum up, I’d say “Call leads are the gold mines that can fetch you more revenues in the world lured by digital roads.”
