With the popularity of social media and chat messaging these days, it makes sense that some people think that phone calls have become obsolete. Now, this type of communication is typically used by those in intimate relationships, such as for parents with children who are far away in college or couples in long-distance relationships.
Phone calls remain to be the most straightforward way of reaching out to others. This factor is particularly valuable for businesses that want to engage with consumers more. One of the most important reasons to get a voicemail service is that you’ll be able to keep your customers and clients coming in for your products or services.
However, you should also be careful about ruthless cold calling as it has become notorious for disrupting the day of consumers, especially if you’re calling them during work hours. Fortunately, there are services like ringless voicemail that allows you to send messages to your target audience without disturbing their workflow.
If you’re planning to send a ringless voicemail message, here are some tips that can make this strategy more effective:
- Know The Essentials
Creating a voicemail campaign isn’t merely about sending a pre-recorded message to potential customers. It’s more about initiating a connection with your target audience. Think of the process as extending a greeting hand and building a relationship with prospects.
With this in mind, you have to prepare your message and make sure that you know the essential factors that make up an effective voicemail, such as:
- Length – It’s tempting to send a long and winding message that includes all of the details of your products or services. However, this can actually be a disadvantage because there’s a chance that your voicemail will end up getting cut off or getting returned. Moreover, customers usually can’t spend a lot of time listening to phone messages, so it’s best to keep your pitch concise.
- Tone – It’s also crucial to have the best tone in voicemail as this will help increase customer retention, boost sales, and reduce cost, especially when you pair your ringless voicemail with a predictive dialer, like the one from Call Cowboy. As the caller or sender, you have full autonomy on the voice that you want to convey in your message. Just make sure that the tone matches your branding to avoid discrepancies in customer perception.
- Simplicity – As much as possible, avoid using jargons and other types of gimmicks in your voicemail. If you do, you run the risk of having your message misinterpreted and causing confusion on the receiver’s end. This will likely result in a missed lead or sales opportunity since the prospect will just let the message go over their head since they don’t know what to do with it.
- Specify Your Purpose
Not all voicemail messages are created equal. Personalization is a crucial factor in capturing and retaining the interest of potential customers, especially when it comes to marketing. You must first determine your objective for a particular campaign before you can go about writing an outline or script.
For instance, you should employ a different strategy when you want to reach out to new customers and another tactic for reestablishing relationships with your current client base. These two types of consumers are in separate levels of the sales funnel, so you should make sure that your message is tailored to suit their needs and preferences to make it more effective.
- Plan Out Your Greeting
The first few lines of your voicemail can determine the success of your outreach campaign. The intro of your message can either keep the interest of the recipient so that they listen intently to what you have to say or cause them to press the fast forward button and skip to the next message in their voicemail inbox.
You can start by addressing them by their names. Afterward, introduce yourself since you’re the one calling them. Make sure to include your company name and other relevant information that can give your prospects an idea of why you’re reaching out to them. The greeting should only take about a minute or so. Then, you can go right ahead to your main point.
Personalized greetings in voicemail messages are one of the most effective ways of communicating with your clients. When used in a proper manner, they can help you build better rapport with your clients and increase their trust in you. This will help you build long-lasting relationships with them, which can lead to higher profits in the long run.
- Write Down What You Want To Say
One of the essential tips for cold calling customers is to create a script before contacting prospects. This way, you won’t be stuttering during a live call and putting potential customers off. This principle also applies to recording voicemail messages for your target audience.
You should prepare a script before recording your message so that you can finish quickly and send them to everyone in your contact list. At the very least, you should have an outline that details the points that you want to make.
Writing your message before you record it can help you review your proposal and revise the parts that don’t sound very convincing. After all, the overarching goal for every voicemail campaign is to bring in customers and have them purchase your products and services.
Another important thing that you need to do when you’re learning how to create an outline for voicemail messages is to craft your message as if you’re talking to a friend. This way, the outline will sound more natural and inviting. This means that you should also write the message in a casual tone of voice as well.
When you’re done writing down the message, you need to make sure that you read it over again until you’re confident with it. You can even have your manager or colleague go over the points to get an objective perspective on the effectiveness of your proposal.
Make sure that you make a script for every single message that you’ll be sending out to your clients or even friends. When you’re satisfied with the outline, you can, then, start recording and sending the voicemail to prospective clients.
- Be Upfront About Your Intention
Avoid wasting you and your prospect’s time with small talk. After greeting and introducing yourself to them, you can go straight to the purpose of your voicemail. Be clear about your intention and don’t beat around the bush. Most consumers would rather listen to a straightforward message rather than a vague sales proposal.
Of course, you should still craft your script in a way that will make your products and services enticing for a potential customer. You don’t tell them outright that you’re selling them something since it’s already implied. The best course of action is to emphasize the value that it will provide the prospect and how it can improve their quality of life.
- Tell The Receiver What They Should Do
More than stating your intention to your target audience, you should also guide them on what they should do after listening to your voicemail. A call-to-action (CTA) is a marketing tool that maximizes words and phrases to prompt a response from consumers. Incorporating this into your voicemail script can increase the chances of converting your leads into paying customers. A CTA is crucial in encouraging the recipients of your message to take that final leap and try what you’re offering.
You need to learn how to create a convincing CTA because a sales opportunity is too crucial to leave to the hands of customers, who might not know what you expect them to do after listening to your voicemail.
Here are some tips on how to write a high-converting CTA:
- Use Strong Action Words – It’s ideal to start your CTA with commanding verbs. This way, the natural instinct would be to obey as opposed to phrasing your voicemail as a request.
- Evoke Emotions – You can also tap into the emotions of your prospects. For instance, if you’re a real estate company, you may focus on the message of encouraging potential clients to finally purchase their dream home.
- Provide A Compelling Reason – Again, you should state what’s in it for your target audience when they follow your CTA. For example, inform them that they’ll receive a discount when they call you back within 24 hours of receiving your proposal.
- Put Some Time Pressure – The fear of missing out (FOMO) can be an excellent motivator, especially if you’re promoting something with a deadline, such as an event. You can provide exclusive perks to customers who respond to your voicemail immediately.
- Be Creative – Consumers are constantly bombarded with CTAs nowadays. You need to be creative with your proposal, particularly since you can’t rely on visual media to boost its persuasiveness. If you’re unsure about whether a particular CTA will be well-received by your prospects, you can conduct an A/B test to check which format works best for your target audience.
- State Your Callback Details
You also have to make sure to include information on how your prospects can contact you after listening to your voicemail. Ideally, you should mention your callback details when you introduce yourself and reiterate it after you’ve delivered your proposal. This makes it more convenient for receivers to jot down your contact number once you’ve captured their interest.
Customers will naturally want to contact you after learning about your value proposition. You shouldn’t forget something as crucial as your callback details so that they won’t need to think twice about following your CTA.
You have to make everything as convenient as possible for potential customers. Remember, your relationship with them begins the moment you contacted them and initiated a conversation about your offerings.
- Test Your Recording
As with any campaign, you have to ensure that all the technicalities are in order to avoid putting off potential customers. Factors such as the sound quality and even the length of your voicemail should be meticulously picked apart to make sure that they work best for your target audience.
These are a few aspects that you should check with your voicemail:
- Sound – The recording must have the right volume. Audio that’s too loud can startle and annoy customers. On the other hand, a message that’s hardly audible is useless since the receiver can’t understand your CTA. That’s why you must test your recordings and evaluate the final output.
- Length – As mentioned above, the length of your audio is a crucial factor in creating a voicemail. You have to find the sweet spot between being able to state the complete details of your proposal and retaining the attention span of your prospects. You don’t want to provide them with vague instructions, but you also shouldn’t bore them to death with a long and winding message. Plus, the latter is more expensive, too, because you have to pay for each minute of your voicemail.
- Data Accuracy – Make sure that the information you’ll be sharing to receivers is accurate and relevant. Pay close attention to your contact details as well. A mistake with just a single digit in your phone number can render your entire voicemail campaign useless since interested customers won’t have a way to call you back.
- Speak With Confidence And Conviction
Lastly, an effective voicemail is one wherein the speaker is confident about their message. Your tone can reveal a lot about how well you know your products and services. That’s why planning for this campaign focuses on writing a script or outline so that you have a guide on the points that you want to convey, as well as the angle that you’ll be putting forward for your value proposition.
Conclusion
A ringless voicemail message is the best alternative to cold-calling since it allows you to share your proposal to potential customers straightforwardly, without disrupting their day. You can boost the effectiveness of this strategy by planning out the campaign from start to finish.
