Have you ever had a marketing campaign fail? I know I have, and it sucks. All that time and money invested goes up in smoke.
There are dozens of reasons why campaigns don’t work, and I could write an article going over things like the offer, media choice and more, but I don’t think that’ll be super helpful.
Who is answering your phones?
Instead, I want to focus more on what is happening internally that could be causing your campaigns to fail. My hope is that this will be a new way for you to evaluate campaign success and failures.
A dentist called us recently and told us a new homeowner direct-mail campaign we were doing for their office wasn’t working. I asked why and they didn’t know. So, I asked for permission to call his office.
A few hours later, I grabbed the phone and called. I got their voicemail. I hung up, waited two minutes and tried again. On the fourth call, someone finally answered, and when I asked for an appointment as a new patient, the receptionist couldn’t get me in for three weeks.
No wonder the marketing wasn’t working.
Most businesses live and die by the phones, but do nearly zero training for the employees on phone skills. They also typically don’t pay the people who answer the phones very well, which is one of the reasons they don’t get employees with phone skills. This is a huge mistake.
You must also have scripting for your phones. If you make appointments or sales, you need to pay those people a good wage or commission and give them training, not just throw them to the…
