In recent years, more businesses have begun to incorporate ringless voicemail in their sales strategies primarily due to the ease of non-intrusive communication and efficiency and the increased sales and revenue opportunities.
In this short guide, we’ll be discussing what exactly ringless voicemail drops entail, why you should be incorporating them, along with proven strategies and tips for setting up and effectively running ringless voicemail campaigns.
What is Ringless Voicemail?
The most effective way to receive a surge of inbound calls is through targeted voicemails that provide information to a current or prospective customer.
New technologies, such as Ringless Voicemail, allows businesses to do exactly what the name suggests, have the opportunity to leave voicemails without an actual call or ring beforehand. These types of messages are often referred to as voicemail “drops”, as you’re simply just dropping the information into the customer’s voicemail rather than talking to them initially.
Ringless Voicemail comes at a great time when customers are getting fed up with countless sales calls from businesses at all hours of the day, interrupting their normal routine. Ringless voicemails have proven to be much more effective in recent times as customers can listen to your message on their own time and call back to discuss more when it’s convenient for them.
Why use ringless voicemail?
Beyond simply having another outlet to share information and messages with current clients or prospective customers, ringless voicemails can make your business more money through strategic campaigns designed to get more value out of current clients and generate more inbound leads from prospective customers.
The Benefits
- Never interrupting the customer
- Customers receive messages through their standard voicemail system
- Ringless voicemail systems are very affordable with small operating costs
- Improves customer relationships and lifetime value
- Can be utilized as an effective reminder system
The benefits of ringless voicemail alone has convinced many companies lately to start incorporating the tool into their customer sales cycle strategy. Along with automated email marketing, and SMS campaigns, ringless voicemails provides more quality touch points with your customers, driving more opportunities to close sales and further nurture leads if needed.
Getting Started With Ringless Voicemail
Similar to implementing other marketing strategies, ringless voicemail campaigns need to be planned and organized ahead of time in order to be effective. Unlike other marketing tools, however, ringless voicemail campaigns are very easy to set up.
The very first step is to collect your phone number contacts. If you’re planning on sending campaigns mostly to your current customers, collecting phone numbers can be as easy as sending out an email promotion offering a discount on their next purchase in exchange for joining your calling list.
Similarly, if you’re planning on using ringless voicemail for collecting new leads, simply attach a phone number collection form to a valuable lead magnet on your website or social media.
Once you have a software that allows you to schedule and plan your campaigns, sending out waves of voicemail messages is as easy as sending out an email blast to your targeted clients.
Segmentation
Like with email marketing and SMS campaigns, the very next step after collecting your contacts is organizing them. When we segment contacts, we first analyze data such as their demographic information (location, age range, etc) and their purchase behavior to determine the best types of messages to send them.
For example, you wouldn’t want to leave messages offering a limited-time promotion in Los Angeles to your clients in Houston. On the other hand, if you know that a customer has recently made a purchase, it would be a great strategy to send a message thanking them for their initial purchase and offering a special discount rate on their next purchase.
Once you’ve properly segmented your contacts based on the data that you have, you can easily “tag” these contacts and group them into lists the same way you would do with email or SMS campaigns.
Compliance is Key
While some companies avoid trying ringless voicemail drops due to the fact that they think they are unethical or even illegal, rest assured that using this tool is a completely legal practice.
Keeping that in mind, with all types of marketing that reaches customers at a personal level, like SMS or phone calls, you need to pay close attention to make sure you’re following all legal communication guidelines.
To adhere to the FTC guidelines, you need to make sure that your contacts are compliant with the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list. They also recommend regularly checking your contacts and scrubbing those that do not comply with the guidelines established and leave messages only during typical business hours (8 AM — 6 PM).
For example, it’s not the best idea to leave messages to your customers at 2 AM on a Sunday. You wouldn’t want to receive calls from a business at this hour, and your customers don’t either, regardless of the legality.
Additionally, all ringless voicemail messages must clearly identify the business leaving the message, along with the clear purpose for the call.
Best Ways to Utilize Ringless Voicemail
Whether you’re planning on implementing ringless voicemail to your current established sales strategy, or want to experiment with using it as a standalone marketing tool, ringless voicemail is a great option that delivers above-average performance.
The following are the best use cases for ringless voicemail to increase revenue and retention for your business:
- Reminder messages
- Providing updates on shipments, orders, and status of services
- Offer upsells and cross-sells following a recent purchase
- Reach out to newly acquired leads to generate inbound calls
- Generating FOMO to customers who haven’t purchased in a while through exclusive promotions and offers
- Drive callbacks to close sales or generate new leads
- Sharing important company information to active clients
- Incentivizing referrals and reviews after a customer has made a purchase
When you’re able to consistently reach your customers in a non-intrusive way that provides value to them, they’re appreciation and loyalty for your company increases.
Along with the increased touch points for sales that ringless voicemail provides, a major benefit of this strategy is increasing the relationships with your customers for larger lifetime value.
Keep Messages Concise & Natural
Spammy, robotic voice messages are guaranteed to not get quality callbacks. When leaving messages to your customers, be sure to keep them natural and to the point. Little things like mentioning their name and business, and relating the purpose of your call back to their pain points will go a long in effectively utilizing this tool.
Establish a Follow Up Process
Depending on the size of your voicemail campaign, you will need a process in place for handling and directing the inbound calls that will follow. This typically includes assigning one or more team members to be dedicated call representatives, passing on calls to the person that handles their account.
Additionally, your follow up strategy should be implemented with your other tools. For example, after calling your business, a customer will receive an automated email thanking for them call and guiding them through the next steps.
Conclusion
When utilized correctly, ringless voicemail is a fantastic opportunity to increase revenue opportunities for your business, and build stronger customer relationships that last and expand.
To briefly recap the contents of this guide, it’s crucial to correctly organize your contacts, adhere to FTC guidelines, keep messages organic and helpful, and have a solid process in place for handling inbound calls.
