5 STEPS TO SUCESFULL CALL TRACKING
TABLE OF CONTENT 1
2
THE HISTORY OF PHONE NUMBERS PAGE 3
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS CALL TRACKING? HISTORY................................................................................................................................4 HOW IT WORKS..................................................................................................................4 WHY USE IT? KEY BENEFITS.........................................................................................5
5 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL CALL TRACKING
3
1. START WHERE YOU SPEND........................................................................................6 2. FREE STUFF IS NEVER REALLY FREE.....................................................................6 3. BEYOND JUST PHONE NUMBERS........................................................................ .7 4. MEASURE........................................................................................................... ............ 8 5. MAXIMIZE............................................................................................................ .......... 9
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CONCLUSION
5
FUTURE OF CALL TRACKING
6
ABOUT US
2
THE HISTORY OF
PHONE NUMBERS Central, please connect me to...
1
WHEN
2
telephone numbers were invented, they were short & were given orally to a switchboard operator.
3 Hi John Hello
Originally, phone numbers had one,
1 2 3 two or three digits only.
1879
FIRST USE OF NUMBERS can be attributed to the measles epidemic.
in
Mechanical direct-dialing of numbers became the norm.
TOLL-FREE
LOCAL NUMBER PORTABILITY First FCC mandated Local Number Portability among wireline carriers.
1982
A SONG AND A NUMBER
867-5309/JENNY
Tommy Tutone released the hit song "867-5309/Jenny".
1993
TOLL-FREE PORTABILITY
FCC mandated 800-number portability.
559
2008
Michael Corleone asks an operator to connect him with Long Beach 4-5620, presumably the number for the main house on the Corleone compound.
Exchanges became the first 2 digits of the phone number and were tied to a specific geographic location.
A toll-free service was introduced in the United States by AT&T as an alternative to collect calling and to reduce the need for operators.
1997
DIRECT DIALING
STRICTLY NUMERIC
Previously, most urban areas had “exchanges” of two letters, followed by numbers.
1967
1920
feared the town’s 4 operators would become ill and suggested numbers be assigned to the 200+ telephone subscribers so that temps could be trained more easily.
ll, Lowe husetts c Massa
1960
Dr. moses greenley parker
800
800
Forever ingrained in our hearts and mostly our minds, this song led to many customers who actually had that number receiving a plethora of un- wanted calls.
This meant that toll-free numbers are not associated with a particular telephone carrier such as AT&T or MCI.
HOSTEDNUMBERS WAS LAUNCHED
To sell telephone numbers
EXCLUSIVELY 3
Calls placed to these hosted phone numbers are seamlessly forwarded to any existing number.
INTRODUCTION:
WHAT IS CALL TRACKING? History
How it works
Traditional call tracking was viewed as unreliable because it was mostly anecdotal, but preceded web analytics by more than a few decades.
USING UNIQUE PHONE NUMBERS FOR CALL TRACKING
Thanks for calling Bob’s Chef Supplies... How did you hear about us?
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Purchase a unique call tracking number and place it in your advertisement.
2 I just saw your ad on TV for outdoor grills.
CALL 800-226-8751
3 800-226-8751 BOB´S CHEF SUPPLIES
Blah, blah blah, blah blah, blah...
When a customer dials the number…
DATA CENTER
Great, thanks for being a loyal customer and responding to the coupon we mailed you.
Hosted Numbers captures call data and forwards the call seamlessly.
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CALL 800-226-8751
Introducing hosted numbers Companies now offer local and toll-free numbers that are designed specifically to help marketers capture this valuable tracking information.
View reports that show call volume for that ad.
4
4
Call immediately routed to preferred location.
A PHONE CALL IS FAR MORE VALUABLE THAN CLICK WHY USE IT? KEY BENEFITS Most marketers would agree they would rather hear the phones ringing. Why? Most landing pages convert only 2-10% of total visitors. While phone call conversion rates can approach 80%. Sixty-three percent of people complete their purchase offline following their search activity. Forty-six percent of people who conducted local online searches resulted in a phone call to a business. There are so many other stats to support this assertion. And yet more emphasis is placed on having more sophisticated tracking on web visitors than what is causing the phone to ring.
80% PHONE CALL CONVERSION RATE
PEOPLE THAT COMPLETE THEIR PURCHASE OFFLINE
63%
Call tracking should be integrated into all marketing efforts because it is a critical component of campaign management. Without call tracking, campaign effectiveness data is incomplete and worse… misleading.
We do search engine marketing campaigns for Hosted Numbers on number porting keywords (taking your phone number with you to another provider). This ad group always generates clicks, but no online conversions. STUDY We considered reducing the bids on these keywords and even eliminating this ad group entirely. Then, we looked at the call volume associated with this ad group (because we assigned a unique phone number for this ad group and used dynamic number replacement to display the same phone number on our website when people clicked through to our site) and were pleasantly surprised at how high it was relative to other ad groups. We quickly realized that number porting was a high touch process and didn't lend itself to online conversions. Customers often called to understand the porting process and were converted in a phone call. That ad group alone was more valuable to the bottom-line than 10 others combined. Thank goodness we dug a little deeper before ending it.
CASE
Hopefully we have laid out a good case for integrating call tracking into all your analytics NOW. But the truth is, it becomes increasingly important as more online marketing shifts to mobile.
MOBILE advertising is growing
MOBILE SUBSCRIBERS
Mobile ad spend ($ billion)
There are currently 6 billion mobile subscribers worldwide. This equals 87% of the world’s population. Mobile ad spend was $3.3 billion in 2011 and projected to be $20.6 billion in 2012.
87%
Mobile search is growing... 1 in 7 searches now originate from a mobile device.
world´s population are mobile subscribers
Mobile advertising drives phone calls: 52% of all mobile advertising leads to a phone call.
3.3
2011
61% of mobile searches lead to a phone call.
BOTTOM LINE
20.6
With the shift to mobile, soon online ads will drive more calls than clicks.
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2012 (estimate)
5 WAYS TO:
5 WAYS TO
SUCESFULL TRACKING SUCESFULL CALL CALL TRACKING
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START WHERE YOU SPEND
EXPERTS SUGGEST
76% of ad spending is wasted on leads that do not convert.
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It sounds simple and it is! Identify where you are spending the majority of your ad budget and start there. If you are not using unique phone numbers in advertisements where you are spending the most, then you are missing out on a huge component of advertising respondents. Even worse, you are probably wasting money on advertising that is not effective. Every paid ad should have a unique phone number. If that isn't feasible based on budget, then assign a unique phone number to each channel or medium (email, banner ads, SEM, etc.). You can't improve what you don't measure!!
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Free stuff is never really free
Things like social media marketing, PR, and affiliate marketing might not show up as a marketing line item, but they take up time and other resources that could be diverted to more fruitful pursuits. Identify additional areas that drive revenue, exposure, or web traffic. Assign unique phone numbers to these things as well. You might be overjoyed to find out that the guest blog you have been posting on an affiliate's site is driving a ton of phone calls to your company.
assign a unique phone number to each medium
places to put unique numbers you might have overlooked:
Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, or other directories
Social media channels
Newsletters
Coupons
www
NAME
Business cards
“By cutting ineffective ads, I saved $1,200 in 2011 and $6,000 so far in 2012. I have been using Hosted Numbers now since 2010 and highly recommend them to anyone who wants to track where their business is coming from in real-time, moni-
E-mails
- 30% SALE!
NEWS
@
Website
Brochures and mailers
Promotional items
tor those calls for true source and effectiveness, and make smarter marketing decisions.� Bryan Jamison, Allstate Agent www.allstateagencies.com/BryanJamison
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Classified/ Craigslist ads
3
Beyond Just Phone Numbers…
powerful features that drive additional insight value
OVER
the past few years, giant strides have been made in honing tracking techniques beyond just unique phone numbers.
DNR Advanced Call Forwarding
Advances in call forwarding allow you to: Set up call forwarding schedules based on time of day or day of week parameters.
Route ad response calls directly to a particular sales rep to avoid a front-end recorded menu tree to reduce call abandonment. Forward calls to ring to several loca- tions (office, then home, then cell) before dropping the caller in voicemail to avoid mis- sing those important ad response calls.
Route calls based on geographic territories.
Queue calls so that if one sales person is on a call, it rolls to next sales agent until the call is answered.
Source Ringtones
Dynamic Number Replacement
Call tracking companies have features to announce the call before it is connected based on the phone number dialed. These features play a short message when the phone is answered but before the call is connected to let your sales team know exactly which ad that caller is responding to. Mike’s Pizzeria ran an offer in Sunday’s coupon section of the newspaper for free breadsticks with an order of their “Gameday Special”. They used a specific phone number on that coupon.
WEBSITE
When someone calls that number and Mike’s Pizzeria answers, they hear “This caller is responding to the Gameday Special Coupon.” I see you are calling about the offer for free breadsticks with the Gameday Special.
Thanks for calling Mike’s Pizzeria
Will this be take out or delivery?
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Dynamic number replacement (DNR) is a recent advancement that allows the phone number displayed on your website to change dynamically based on where a person clicks through from.
For example, you have a banner advertisement with a phone number in it. But what if someone clicks through to the site before calling? With DNR, the same phone number in the banner ad will display throughout your site. This way if the website visitor then decides to pick up the phone and call, you can now trace that call back to that specific banner ad based on the number they dialed.
If you are spending money on online advertising, DNR takes your call tracking analytics from a flashlight to a laser beam!
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60%
EXPERTS SUGGEST
Measure: Call Reporting
of online interactions eventually lead to a phone call.
Call tracking gives accurate, real-time campaign effectiveness data.
Call result
Lead source Track leads back to the source by the number they called. Call reports make this task very easy. Name phone numbers to make reports even easier to read. For instance, you use one phone number for all your lead nurturing email campaigns. Name that phone number “Leads Email” so in reports you can see how many calls your lead nurturing email campaigns are driving.
Call duration
Missed calls and hang ups don’t have to mean lost sales opportunities. The percentage of people who leave messages for businesses hangs around 8%. With the call reporting details, it is easy to identify people who contacted your business but hung up or didn’t leave a message for proper follow up.
This is a big indication of lead quality. The average length of a sales call is ~3 minutes. If a campaign is driving a high number of calls that are short in duration, then they are most likely unqualified, low quality leads. Revisit these ads to review content and target market.
MISSING
REWARD $$
Scheduling
Avoid logging in to pull call data. Schedule reports to email the data at regular intervals and begin to make it a part of regular campaign tracking.
Peak call times Get insight into when calls come in. Was there a spike after that new radio spot aired? Is there a large volume of calls during hours you didn’t anticipate? Call times can provide insight into campaign effectiveness and workforce planning to accommodate callers.
Caller info: phone number, city, state Call reports give valuable information on your callers beyond just the number they call from. Use area code and city/state information to find out where callers are concentrated. Hone your geo-targeted marketing to capitalize on areas that are responding to your ads.
Analytics Integration Integrate your call data with your web analytics to view clicks alongside calls. Get the full picture of ad response rates without having to look at two different reports. The average customer experiences 3.8 ‘touches’ from a company before they purchase.
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Maximize: Use Info to Build More Effective Campaigns
Lead Capture & Nurturing
EXPERTS SUGGEST
Our Caller Insight feature provides the following data points on callers when available:
When someone visits your website and does not convert, they are, in essence, “gone for good.” The same goes for calls. Sales people fail to capture contact data 85% of the time. With call tracking in place, many providers give you the ability to access advanced demographic data on callers beyond just their name, phone number, and address. This information can be leveraged for remarketing and expanding your marketing database.
Earlier we mentioned call duration was an indicator of lead quality. Use call duration as a way to indicate which calls to listen to. If a campaign has lower than average call duration, listen to some calls and get a feel for whether the caller actually understands your messaging and is in the target market you are trying to reach.
Dwelling Type (Single/Multi)
Age, Gender, Ethnicity
Length at Residence
Occupation, Education Level
Home Purchase Date & Price
Marital Status, Children
Mortgage Amount & Type
Interests
Lender Name
Estimated Income
Refinance Date, Amount, Loan Type
Own Credit Cards
Refinance Lender’s Name Estimated Current Home Value
If a campaign has higher than average call duration, listen to those to identify if callers are confused by the content and need more explanation.
Integrate call tracking into your core systems so it becomes part of your everyday toolkit. Ensure sales and marketing alignment by integrating call data with your CRM. Easily track sales back to the sources. Give your sales team visibility into lead source so they can see which ads are driving sales.
Yes, I want to know...
Hello, may I help you?
Use call recordings as training aids or a way to identify training opportunities with your sales team. Advertisements might be driving a ton of phone calls that don’t convert. After listening to a few calls, it may become apparent that the sales team is not handling the calls effectively.
Integrate call data with core systems: API Application Programming Interfaces (API ) are a mechanism for providing web-based, programmatic access to data and functions that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Own vs. Rent
Name, Phone Number, Full Address
Call Recording Call recording gives you great insight into the quality of your leads, ad content, intended target market and training opportunities for your sales team.
73%
of companies have no process for reengaging and nurturing leads.
Hello? Hello?
Integrate call data with core processes Say you wanted to download your Hosted Numbers STUDY call data each night and import it into an in-house CRM package. Without an API, there would be no way to access the call data without logging in to your my.hostednumbers.com, downloading your call data to a CSV file, and importing it manually – over and over, every day. With an API, you could write a program to do all this for you automatically.
CASE
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Integrate call tracking data into your core metrics. You are tracking online leads generated from web contact form submissions, content downloads, webinar registrations, etc. This report should include phone leads as well.
YOU
measure cost-per-click, cost-per-acquisition, revenue-per-lead, etc. Why not cost-per-call
CONCLUSION
START NOW WALUABLE CALL DATA IS WAITING TO BE MINED TO INCREASE CAMAIGN EFFECTIVNESS AND OVERALL ADVERTISING ROI
APPLY Start by looking at your budget and assigning unique phone numbers to major line items. Then, take a look at your (and your teams’) time and identify areas where significant effort is devoted and ensure phone numbers are assigned to these initiatives as well. Once you have completed these steps, look at additional features that might drive more insight into campaign effectiveness. These features, when configured at the beginning of your campaigns, can derive significant value. Dynamic Number Replacement is key to properly tracking online advertising. Scheduling calls to forward on schedules that match your business needs from the beginning can streamline your communications. Setting ringtones so sales and customer service teams know immediately which ads are driving calls can create alignment in sales and marketing goals.
ASSESS Now that you are all set up for success, take the time to look at the information this rich, new source is collecting. Call reports give real-time campaign effectiveness data that can guide your content creation, lead nurturing, remarketing, staffing, etc. Schedule reports to come to you at regular interval, and block time on your calendar to review them.
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ADJUST Put this new data to good use right away! Integrate it into your systems and processes so it becomes an everyday part of your toolkit and metrics. Use tools like caller demographic data and call recording to further enhance your lead capture and nurturing efforts.
FUTURE OF:
CALL TRACKING
ADVANCED SCREEN POPS WITH INFORMATION ON THE SPECIFIC AD A PERSON IS RESPONDING TO
Hello, may I help you with our Friday´s Special Offer?
Advances in CRM, campaign tracking, and call tracking integration will allow for a screen to pop as the phone is ringing. This screen will display the specific advertisement a person is responding to so the sales rep answering the call can respond to the callers’ interest specifically.
CALLER INSIGHT INFO IN REAL TIME AS CALL IS IN PROCESS Soon demographic information on callers will be available in real-time so as a sales person is on a call with a prospect they can have insight into that person’s education, income, interests, household size, etc., while conducting the call.
I see you recently purchased a home, are you interested in adding a line of credit ?
DISPOSABLE NUMBERS Need a phone number for an hour, a day, or a month? Temporary numbers are growing in demand due to privacy concerns. With implementation of local number portability, people are keeping the same numbers longer. Ordering a phone number for a Craigslist ad, to talk to someone you just met at a conference, to enter a contest, for an upcoming event you are hosting, etc. is going to become the norm. Protect your mobile number and prevent unwanted future calls after your interest wanes.
CALL TAGGING AND KEYWORD SPOTTING FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE Voice communications should be as integrated, searchable, and accessible as written. With advances in speech recognition and speech-to-text transcriptions, tagging calls with product info, stage of buying cycle, sentiment, etc. can make call reporting and lead nurturing much more effective. One step beyond manual tagging is keyword spotting where you can search call transcriptions for purchase indicators like “sign up” or product information like “local phone number in NYC.” HOT LEAD! Sending promo with discount offer now.
LEAD SCORING AND REMARKETING Manual post-call surveys to determine buyer readiness and lead quality are already in existence. Imagine a program that handles this automatically. A program run by artificial intelligence that can score the lead and schedule appropriate lead nurturing according to the actual call.
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ABOUT US
HOSTED NUMBERS IS A PROVIDER OF TOLL-FREE, LOCAL, AND VANITY PHONE NUMBERS, CALL FORWARDING AND AD TRACKHosted Numbers SERVICES ARE EASILY CONFIGURED, THERE ARE NO CONTRACTS, AND YOU CAN MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT ONLINE OR CALL CUSTOMER SUPPORT 24/7.
automated systems deliver the latest technology like advanced call forwarding, call recording, Reporting, dynamic number replacement, voicemail, and so much more.
FOR MARKETING FIRMS INTERESTED IN FULLY INTEGRATING CALL TRACKING INTO THE SERVICES THEY OFFER CLIENTS, Hosted Numbers OFFERS THE ABILITY TO WHITE LABEL OUR services.
(800) CAN-TRK1 CONTACT INFORMATION:
WWW.HOSTEDNUMBERS.COM marketing@hostednumbers.com
RESOURCES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_telephone_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll-free_telephone_number http://www.contactpoint.com/resources/library http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2006/03/Online_Impact_of_Offline_Buying http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/2006/12/identifying-solving-client-pains-part_17.html http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-2012-mobile-growth-statistics/ http://www.ingenuitydigital.co.uk/News/google-61-of-mobile-searches-end-in-a-phone-call-1804.aspx http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2066193/Consumers-Head-Online-for-Local-Business-Information http://atlassolutions.com/insights http://www.marketingsherpa.com/data/public/reports/special-reports/OPEN-SR-12-Email-Summit-2011.pdf
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