Despite its power, before you spend one thin dime on a phone broadcast, you must learn this secret.  Because without it, you might just waste your money. So what could this terrible secret be? It’s really simple - Most folks hate getting telemarketing calls…….

OK, OK, I know that’s really not a secret.  If you’re thinking about using an automatic broadcasting system and you fail to consider this “secret” carefully, it can really hurt your campaign.  Here’s why……

The vast majority (90% or more) of people who get a broadcast call simply hang up.  The next biggest group (a few percent) of folks press “2″ (to be removed from the call list).  The smallest group, around 1-2%, press “1″ (to speak to a live person, or listen to more, or leave a voicemail).

You’re probably thinking…”OK, but I’m only paying for the “press 1’s”, so what’s the problem?”  Here’s the problem.

Just because someone presses “1″, it does’t mean they’re interested in your message.  Some of them only want to tell you to not call them again.  Those responses are worthless to you.  But you still pay for them.  So you should carefully consider how to maximize the positively interested, qualified responses.

Now, whether you’re selling merchant accounts to business prospects, or even selling raffle tickets for your charity event, you’ll hear some folks say “remove me from your list and don’t call again” (or worse)….No surprise there right?  And I promise, even if you’re soliciting donations for sick children, even if you’re calling your own list of past donors, you will STILL receive some negative calls!

The inescapable fact is this - out of 1000 people, there are probably 2 or 3 who get so irritated when they receive a telemarketing call, they will “press 1″ to complain.  To illustrate the effect of response rate on the number of negative calls received, consider two hypothetical broadcast campaigns.

Campaign #1 - selling merchant accounts to businesses - response rate is below average, at 0.6%.  Campaign #2 - asking for donations for sick children - using a donor list - response rate is above average, at 1.5%.

Now, assume that 3 out of 1000 (0.3%) of the folks called are the type who will “press 1 for no good reason”…  If you work through the numbers, the merchant processing campaign gets 50% negative calls, but even the sick children campaign gets 20%!

The fact is, if you are delivering your calls to live answered phones, and taking live transfers, you simply cannot escape negative calls, no matter what your message is about.  And the main way to reduce them is to create a message with a higher response rate.

We’ve described how getting negative calls is a fact of life in this business, and how increasing the response rate will decrease the number of negative calls.  Join me in future installments as we discuss how to handle or avoid negative calls, along with other voice broadcasting tips.

Let me explain with an example.  Warning - this is hypothetical, but this concept is generally valid.

Consider a broadcast to sell virtual offices with a Beverly Hills address to business owners.  The broadcaster writes a message about how great a Beverly Hills address is, having a phone number service to answer your calls there, being to be able to meet your clients in your Beverly Hills conference room, press one for more info……

We’ll assume that this message gets a 0.9% response rate.  And that there are 0.3% of people who’ll “press 1 for no good reason” - the inescapable negative callers.  So this message will produce 1 call out of 3 that is negative, and 2 out of 3 will express some level of interest.  Sound pretty good so far?

Sure, but the message failed to mention that this virtual office costs $200/mo.  And when the 2 of 3 interested folks learn this, only 1 of them will consider paying that much.  So, the broadcaster has found 1 caller in 3 that is both interested and qualified.  These folks are the broadcasters qualified leads.  And if the broadcaster is paying $6 per call, his cost per real lead is $18. Not too bad…..

Now consider this…..the broadcaster records a new message which makes it clear his service starts at $200/mo.  Since 1 prospect in 3 was not interested in paying that much, this is a very important qualifier.  So, what will happen with this new message?  First thing, a lot of folks who aren’t willing to pay that much will not press 1.  So the overall response rate will go down.  Let’s say it goes down to 0.7%.  And we’re still stuck with the 0.3% of those “negative callers”……

Work the numbers and this means that with this new message, instead of receiving 33 negative calls per 100, the broadcaster will get about 43 - yuck! Just like we described in another article, if the response rate goes down, the number of negative calls goes up.  Good grief, he gets ten more negative calls!  How can this be any good at all??

Well, hang on…  From a previous article, we learned that 0.3% of people are both interested, and willing to pay the $200 rate.  So that means the broadcaster will also get about 43 positively interested AND qualified prospects per 100 calls.   That accounts for 86 calls of 100, who are the other 14 calls?  They are from folks who are interested but not willing to pay $200 - so why would they still press 1?  ‘Cause they’re people, and people don’t always hear everything, or act rationally even if they do.  Some of the unqualified parties will also always press 1, no matter how much qualification is in the message….

Anyhow, let’s work the numbers again - if the broadcaster was paying $6 per transfer in this scenario, he is now obtaining his “qualified leads” at an effective cost of $14.  So….if the broadcaster is willing to endure a higher number of negative calls, he will also enjoy a lower overall lead cost.  Paradoxical, but true!

Anytime you have a major qualifying item - it is critical that you put it clearly in your message, for just this reason.

The single worst mistake in answering is… “Hi, this is Amy, thanks for calling Wonderful Web Widgets, how can I help you?”

Now, you may be thinking “what’s the big deal, that sounds courteous and professional”.   Well, you’re right, it is, but that’s not the problem.  The problem is, just because Amy’s phone rang, it was not really an inbound call! And it shouldn’t be answered as such. Amy’s response is a mistake, because;

The caller is responding to Amy’s outbound call (whether she realizes it or not, the broadcast message is just like Amy calling outbound).  And the message included a direct offer - “to speak to a consultant about web widgets for your business, press 1 now”.

Don’t see it yet?  Sometimes it’s not obvious.  To understand, you need to put yourself in the place of the prospect.  Remember that most folks receive your call and hang up, or press “2″, to be removed from the call list.  And of the folks who press “1″ to speak to Amy, some are negative callers who will only ask to be removed - so for them, Amy’s mistake really doesn’t matter - there’s no way they’ll be interested in your web widgets, ever.

The folks you should be focused on are the ones who pressed “1″, and who have a positive interest.   Remember, your message just interrupted their day, and sure, they are interested, but since this is a cold call, many of them will have a pretty high level of doubt, suspicion, or wariness.  So, consider the prospect’s mindset as you look in on the scenario……

Prospect hears: “to speak to a consultant about the benefits of web widgets for your business, press 1 now” … A few seconds pass as the respondent listens to hold music … Amy connects and says: “Hi, this is Amy, thanks for calling Wonderful Web Widgets, how can I help you?”

Now do you see the problem?  Amy made two mistakes in one, in this example.

1. She said “thanks for calling”, but the respondent will think “I didn’t call you, you called me”…
2. She asked how she could help, but the respondent pressed 1 “to speak to a consultant about the benefits of web widgets” - and Amy knows that, or should…

If you consider a prospect who has a certain level of wariness along with interest, Amy’s response will do nothing to increase interest, and may reduce it.  Worse, her response will probably increase the respondent’s wariness or suspicion.  Which is obviously not the best start to a phone conversation with a prospect!

So what’s the answer? Amy needs to acknowledge two things:  1 - that she called the respondent, and knows that they responded.  2 - that she knows why they responded. So, a much better response could be:

“Hi, this is Amy with Wonderful Web Widgets, thanks for responding to our call…Would you like to speak to a web consultant?

For the prospect who is positively interested, the second response flows smoothly and naturally from the recorded message, allowing the conversation to proceed without raising the prospects doubts.  Like I wrote earlier, this mistake seems so trivial, you’d be surprised to listen to how many broadcasters ignore this advice.  But, since this is a numbers game, isn’t it best to begin all of the conversations the smoothest way you know?

But power alone does NOT lead to success.  Here’s how you can judge the possibilities for your own idea. The crucial elements to any campaign’s success, or failure are:

1. The cost of a “good” lead
2. The proportion of good leads that “buy”
3. The profit of each buy

This article will center around item #1 - the cost of a good lead.

As we’ve described in previous lessons, you will always receive some negative calls, along with call transfers that are interested but not qualified.  In either case, those calls are worth $0 to you.

The rest of the calls can be considered good leads. The cost of a good lead depends entirely upon what percentage of calls are good leads. The following table shows the effective cost per good lead, based upon a cost of $6 per call transfer:

% of    Cost per
Good   Good
Leads  Lead
10%    $60
15%    $40
20%    $30
25%    $24
30%    $20
35%    $17
40%    $15

So, if your cost is $30, and 10% of the good leads buy, that means the cost per sale is $300.  If your profit for each sale is only $200, that’s no good.  If your profit is say, $2000, that’s much better.

One problem with this discussion is that we can’t help you with the second and third elements (percentage of buyers, and value of a sale) - these are up to you, and the market you’re in.

So we’ll stick to the first element, the cost per “good lead”. This is going to be determined by the following;

• The appeal of your message within the market  (most important).
• Your ability to use effective qualifiers.

If your message does not have much appeal in the market, more of your calls will be negative, and your effective “good lead” cost will rise.

Consider these scenarios:

1. You’re selling web services to all businesses.
2. You’re selling web services to a list of realtors.

The broadcast to all businesses will have a lower response rate, and higher lead cost, than the second broadcast, because “web services” hold more appeal among realtors, than among a list of all businesses.

We could go on and on with various scenarios, but I think you get the point. You need to think very carefully about the appeal of your message, what market it should be delivered to, along with your ability to make sales, and the value of each sale.

First, we need to consider the purpose of your message.  It is not to “sell” the prospect.  C’mon, it’s a recording, it can’t possibly do that!  But what it can do is deliver to you a positively interested, qualified prospect.  That prospect may have questions, but you can answer those later, once you’ve created a relationship.  Also, please remember that your message is short, 45 seconds maximum.  It has a lot to do very quickly.

So…the first crucial component is not really a component of the script, but it needs to be a component of your mindset as you create your script.

This component is the most important.

And that is to always remember, there must be a reason for every word.  Most recorded messages consist of 160 words or less, so use them wisely.

The second crucial component is to always remember that people love to listen to WII-FM - you know, “What’s In It For Me“.

As you consider every word, every sentence, make sure you present your ideas from the prospect’s standpoint - “you” language is much better than talking about “me”, or “our company”…

Focus on the benefits to the listener, or on the problem that your service solves.

Folks care much more about how they can benefit, than about how experienced or smart your staff is, or how solid your firm is.

(These types of “credibility” statements are fine if used sparingly.  Most credibility issues cannot possibly be answered by a recording in a few seconds!  But once you’re speaking with a prospect, you will be able to describe these aspects of your offer, or company, much more effectively.

A “credibility” builder in a recorded message need not take up much time at all.  It could be something as short and sweet as “we’ve helped thousands of businesses financing without a bank for 30 years”.  (And you’ll note that 5 of these 12 words are actually also a benefit - “by financing without a bank”.)

The bottom line regarding “credibility statements” is that they rarely will do much to get a qualified and interested party to transfer to you, so consider their use carefully.

Exception - The issue of “credibility” is ultimately really about believability, And one of the most powerful builders of believability is - a bold Guarantee!

If you can work a solid guarantee into your script, it will be a potent addition, once you’ve done a good job of describing the problem that you can solve.

And the third crucial component is to include a qualifying statement, as it applies to your market.

As we’ve shown in another article, there are many instances in which a strong qualifying statement placed in the script will significantly lower the broadcaster’s “good lead” cost, despite causing a lower response rate.

In order to obtain the most qualified responses, the savvy broadcaster will include a qualifying message in the pre-recorded script,  which will help to reduce the amount of unqualified leads the broadcaster receives. We’re often asked how to choose exactly what qualification should be used in the message, and how to craft the statement.

Because the duration of the pre-recorded message is only 45 sec., and probably 10 sec. of that time is taken up with the invitation to “press 1″ or “press 2″, there is very little time to stress more than a single qualifier. To attempt to do more in such a short time risks confusing the prospect. The best advice we have for picking a single qualifier is for the business person to think about a typical conversation with a new prospect. In such a “first conversation”, what is the first thing that you want to find out (qualify) about the prospect?  Your own business’s answer to that question will usually lead you to the most important qualifier.

Let’s take the fictional example of the web design firm “Wonderful Web Widgets” (WWW). The folks at WWW have a special web design deal for $2000. They’ve learned that a lot of prospects don’t want to spend over $1000. So in this case, the qualifier could be the price.  Literally, the folks at WWW would like to say “don’t call unless you’re willing to spend $2000.” But of course we’re not suggesting that they do!

Their message will describe the benefits of having a website for a business, and probably describe WWW’s abilities and experience and happy customers.  A great way to insert the negative qualifier in a positive fashion would be to simply state the price, like “for only $2000″. Now, for the prospect who doesn’t want to spend this much, that is a negative. But for the prospect who knows that a website can easily cost much more, and is willing to pay it, this is an interesting feature. So a statement like this will work to discourage the unqualified from responding, while at the same time, encouraging the qualified.

The more important your main qualifier is in your marketplace, the more you will want to state it in your message.  Some broadcasters have found it beneficial to state their qualifier as many as four times in a 45 sec. message. You will learn what works best for your business over time, as you monitor the quality of responses to your voice broadcast campaign.

With just a bit of planning this can be easily done.  Simply assign the task of raw call screening to a staff member, and have all the calls arrive at their phone.  Train the screener to answer the calls in a very specific manner. Their answering script should contain only two parts;

1 - a greeting thanking the caller for responding
2 - a question asking if the caller would like to be transferred for the purpose of the call

This will be easier to envision with a hypothetical situation. Our fictional broadcaster, Wonderful Web Widgets (WWW), is sending out a broadcast to businesses advertising their web design service. The listeners are prompted to “press 1″ to speak with someone about web design.  Here’s one way the call screener might answer the raw calls - “Hi, this is Amy, thanks for responding.  Would you like to be transferred to a web consultant?”

Note that Amy first acknowledges that the caller is responding to a call made by WWW, since it’s important for the positively interested prospect to know that Amy understands what’s going on.  Next, Amy asks if the prospect would like to be transferred to talk about web design.  Again, to the positively interested prospect, this is a perfectly natural question, to which they will normally answer “yes”. (Sometimes, they might ask a question about the service, but in such a case Amy will simply tell them that the consultant can answer them, and transfer them along to the sales team.)  However, to the negatively interested party, who has responded merely to ask to be removed from the list and/or complain about being called, Amy’s second question will usually result in a “no”, followed by the party’s real concern.

Using this technique will almost completely eliminate the “negative callers” speaking with your sales staff.  By shielding them from the negative emotions of some respondents, your sales staff will be happier and will be able to be more productive in answering live transferred voice broadcast calls.

Many broadcasters will do this by employing a live call screening person with a very specific and short script by which to eliminate the negative calls before transferring them to the sales staff.  But other broadcasters set up the voice broadcasting system itself to do this.

This “automatic” call screening process involves the use of an “intermittent” messages. The initial recorded message that the prospect hears gives them an option to press 1 for more information. With an intermittent message, the “press 1″ action results in the playing of a second recorded message instead of a live transfer to a representative.

This “intermittent message” will frequently last 30-45 sec., and often the first thing that it does is to again invite the prospect to “press 2″ - to be removed from the call list. Then it will go on to provide more information about the service or offer being made, often stressing important qualification information, and will then invite the prospect to again “press 1″.

This final “press 1″ action can be used either to transfer the prospect to a live representative, or to a voicemail system where the prospect can leave a message.

The result of this process is that the great majority of “negative callers” will either press 2 or hang up during the intermittent message.  When the final transfer is to a voicemail recording system, the few negative messages that are received simply aren’t turned over to the sales team.

Using either of these automated screening processes means that the sales staff receives a greatly reduced number of calls for a given broadcast.  And for this reason many voice broadcasters ignore the value of this approach, perhaps making the mistake of equating more activity with more profit. However, others believe that in most cases, the transferred calls that are “lost” by this screening method are simply not profitable, and should be avoided.

Every word counts. Here are the three worst mistakes we run into, quite often. We’re going to use as an example a hypothetical company, Wonderful Web Widgets (WWW) - who wants to sell a web based service to businesses that enables businesses to create and communicate with a list of prospects on the web automatically.

#1 - Use of the company name. Almost always a big mistake. When the message says “Wonderful Web Widgets” the prospect who’s listening doesn’t know that name at all, and they are not impressed or further qualified by hearing it. It is just a waste of time to state it. EXCEPTION - if your name is well known, or if you’re calling to a list of your customers, including your name is very important, as it quickly identifies you as a known entity to the listener.

#2 - Features instead of benefits. Prospects respond to benefits much more than the features of your product or service.

A feature rich message might say “our system uses a pre-programmed autoresponder sequence, with easy online management, with a simple javascript code placed on your website to generate the signup form.”

And a benefit rich message might say “our system produces sales for you by delivering a series of messages that you create to your prospects, completely automatically”.

Most prospects will find the benefit rich message much more interesting.

Discussing the features with a qualified lead may be necessary for a sale, but in the limited time available in your pre-recorded messages, describing features is a waste of time, and may also lose the interest of good prospects.

#3 - No qualifier. If you don’t include a qualifying statement, you will spend a lot of time and money speaking with unqualified prospects. This is obvious, yet many broadcasters neglect to include any qualifiers in their messages. For example, the WWW service described above might cost only $99 per month, but there is also a $1999 setup fee. The folks at WWW have learned that many prospects don’t buy when they hear about the setup fee.

In that instance WWW might put this into their message - “after a one-time $1999 setup cost, the service is available for only $99/month”. This message might sharply reduce the number of leads that WWW obtains from their voice broadcast campaign, but the quality of their leads will be higher, since they’ve heard the qualifier.

As you craft your own voice broadcasting message, don’t make these common mistakes. Avoid your company name, think hard about the primary benefit of your product, the primary qualifier for your prospects and stress those in your message.

These numbers will vary widely among industries, and are affected by both the message as well as the target audience. For example, the hypothetical firm “Wonderful Web Widgets”, wanting to sell website services to small business, would be ill advised to send a broadcast to an “all businesses” list, because such a list would include large businesses (which they’re not targetting), as well as many small businesses that have not found a need to have websites.

Why send a message to beauty parlors and accountants if these industries aren’t normally interested in websites? This just increases the cost of the lower number of good leads that are obtained.

Another thing to consider is the mode of the broadcast campaign. The example above was about a live delivered message. What about answer machine / voicemail campaigns?

For most industries, the response rate for the live delivery - live transfer campaign is between 0.6% and 1.0%. Meaning that for every 100 calls delivered to a live answered line, there is less than 1 transfer.

For a campaign that leaves messages on answer machine / voicemail, the numbers will be significantly lower, because the prospect will have to have enough interest to write the callback number down, and then call it back, taking much more effort than simply “pressing 1″ during a live message. These numbers are impossible for us to track, since the calls back to the broadcaster don’t utilize our broadcast system, but broadcasters who use this method have indicated to us that the call back ratio is probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the live transfer rate for a similar message.

For a businessperson considering voice broadcasting as a lead generation system, the message is important, the calling list is important, and the basic business metrics are probably the most important factor to consider when planning a campaign.