Sometimes I get calls from a client that I have designed an ad for, and they say that they are getting a lot of calls, but not a lot of new patients. That’s when I know that they have a conversion to sale problem on the incoming call.
It is important to designate a key person to answer the incoming call and tell them that the incoming call is a priority. Sometimes office personnel are told to do filing or some other task and they perceive that to be more important than the incoming call, so they do everything they can to end the call quickly. This is an expensive mistake!
When you analyze what it costs you to get the phone to ring, you’ll quickly see that it should be a top priority. Ideally, you should designate your top person to be you incoming call expert. They should be advised that the incoming call is their #1 priority. The world stops when the phone rings.
Then it is advisable to create an incoming call script. Basically what you want to do is answer the callers questions, then move to asking alternative choice questions until you have booked the appointment.
I know what it is like to be busy running your business, and then the phone rings. It is difficult to shift gears and be in “salesperson” mode immediately when the phone rings. So what I did in my business is make an incoming call script for my last business that I carried in my shirt pocket. That way I could shift into salesperson mode just by pulling out my incoming call script from my pocket. When I implemented an incoming call script, my conversion to sale went from 33% (which is average) to 79%!
Only 84% of incoming callers buy, so my 79% conversion to sale turned all but 5% of incoming calls into a sale. I found that about 5% were not reading the clues in my ad that I was not the cheapest choice, but called me looking for the cheapest price. Once I identified this type of caller, I would tell them that I was not the cheapest choice and refer my competition that was the cheapest choice.
But by increasing my conversion to sale from 33-79%, I more than DOUBLED the profits from my existing advertising. If you are not converting at least 50% of your incoming calls you have one of two possible problems. Either your ad has language which attracts price shoppers, and/or you do not have a good system or script to turn the incoming call to a sale.
Once you fix this problem, ALL your advertising will be more profitable and you will have a competitive advantage over your competition who probably does not understand the value of implementing an incoming call script to increase profits from their advertising.
Tags: advertising, conversion to sale, Larry Conn, marketing agency, marketing strategy, small business marketing, Yellow Page ad design
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