6 Ways to Improve the Performance of Your Direct Marketing

You should know this term, especially if you’ve worked with the AHAA Marketing team, it’s Call to Action.

We are relentless in our push to not only include a call to action (CTA) but to ensure it’s the strongest possible message you can tolerate. Creating a compelling call to action, one that cannot be ignored, prompts customers to act.

Customers (OK, call them patients if you must) need to be prompted into doing something. That is to say, namely, the dependable “order now” and “go online” or “call today” prompts are a fine start. But, you need to do more. And, it’s not easy. In today’s marketing climate—with so many choices, technological devices and brand messages bombarding the senses—it’s more difficult than ever to get customers to do anything, let alone what you want them to do.

Customers are savvy. If the call to action isn’t bold and relevant, customers will read right through it without doing anything. If it isn’t authentic and relevant, they may dismiss it outright. That can’t happen. Here are six steps to developing a strong call to action that will resonate and push customers to take the next step to engagement.

1. Build a Hierarchy

What do you want them to do first? Second? Third? Is it an invitation? Do you want them to order? Plan your message hierarchy accordingly to move customers through the piece and drive them to act.

When you think about your call to action and what it will look like or what it will say, think about what you need it to do. Understand what exactly you’re asking readers to do, but always begin with the goal in mind. For example, if getting them to call for an appointment is the goal, don’t confuse them by prominently featuring your website.

2. Do Your Homework

Spend time in the mind of your customers. Know what compels them and what moves them. Find the “higher order benefit,” the emotional reason they need to do business with you. What are they seeking? Connections with other people? Discreet solutions that aren’t an age tell? A reliable source of information? It’s not just a hearing instrument or your clinical services they’re buying, but solving their emotional need.

Once you know what motivates them, crafting a message allows you to reach them more effectively and will encourage action. Additionally, an emotional appeal moves the cost/price issues out of the way until that discussion is more relevant. (After all, do you really want to compete on price alone?)

3. Make the Call to Action a Call to Arms

The key word is “action.” Ask for what you want, but more importantly, tell customers what’s in it for them. Be direct. Be specific. Look at the difference it makes when you take a few carefully chosen words and aim them straight at your customer’s sense of self-interest:

• “Want to see how remarkable a nearly invisible device can be? Come in today, we’ll make it easy for you to decide for yourself”
• “Ready to involve yourself in life’s best moments again? Call to tell us what you’ve been missing!”

In addition to the verbiage of your call to action, incorporate a response mechanism to facilitate follow-through. For the majority of our audience at this point in time, it is critical to emphasize your phone number. Including a web address may add credibility to your business, but too many action options make it unclear what action is expected.

4. Keep It Simple

Make what you’re asking customers to do easy. If the next step to get them engaged is too complicated or not readily apparent, you risk losing them before they can act. Want to use a cool new QR Code? Understand that many people still do not know what they are or how to use them, let alone the lack of smartphones within our typical audience demographic (65+). Same thing for the web. Do you want to take an action-ready customer and send them to your website instead of having them make an appointment? Simplicity rules.

5. Follow Through

Once you’ve asked customers to do something, what’s next? How are you going to move the activity along to get a sale or create another engagement opportunity? If you have an invitation, allow them to RSVP. Do they need to call for more information? Be ready in the office, marketing is a team effort. Once you’ve gotten them to act, what are you doing to move these customers forward to the next level? Once you get them, don’t lose them!

6. Test, Measure, Adapt

Test and measure, if possible. We’ve found the most effective way to track results is by using a unique phone number on each marketing piece. Using a call tracking provider to manage those phone numbers helps in this process, and as an extra benefit gives you access to recorded calls that can be used to assess and train the team that fields your responses.

If something doesn’t work right away, continue playing with the components. Some “mechanisms” may not work now, but as technology and acceptance grows, other tactics will improve. See what works and apply it to the next effort. Repeat the steps above and tweak as needed to get customers engaged, and formulate an even more effective call to action.

Source: Target Marketing

Social Media 101

Welcome to a crash course in social media!  This post is an exercise in defining social media and some of the popular outlets playing together in the cyber sandbox.  Let’s begin with some definitions:

Social media includes web- and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals.

Simply stated, it helps people (and businesses) stay in touch with each other via interactive mediums.

 So what’s even out there?

There are many existing social mediums with more popping up every day.  Not all are appropriate for business purposes, but it’s good to keep an eye on what’s available to the public and how it impacts consumers in your current and future target audiences:

Facebook: [www.facebook.com] is a social network service and website with more than 500 million active users, which is about one person for every fourteen in the world.  Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized by workplace, school, or college, or other characteristics.

Twitter: [www.twitter.com] is a website which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page.  Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

You Tube: [www.youtube.com] is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos.

LinkedIn: [www.linkedin.com] is a social networking website for people in professional occupations.  LinkedIn reports more than 150 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.

foursquare: [www.foursquare.com] is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users “check in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby.  Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”.

Instagram: [www.instagram.com] is a free photo sharing program that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter to it and then share it on a variety of social networking services, including Instagram’s own site. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images.

Pinterest: [www.pinterest.com] is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting” via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing.

How do I connect with my customers?

So now that you can pass a social media quiz, how will you integrate the appropriate mediums into your current or future marketing mix?  Since there are so many social media sites available, which ones are best suited to reach your target audience?  For the audiological industry, 35% of your target audiences of 65+ are already using social media, but to interact with their friends and family, not necessarily businesses – just yet.  As a business owner, this gives you time to research and develop a targeted strategy.

Remember, traditional direct response channels (direct mail, newspaper and telemarketing) are still producing positive ROI, so the majority of your marketing budget should be earmarked for these efforts.  The next step, if you haven’t already begun, is to develop/refine your digital marketing strategy, including a strong website presence with SEO/SEM integrated.  While moving forward with your current marketing tactics and working on your website, start thinking ahead about how social media can benefit your business!

Have questions or interested in learning if integrating social media into your marketing mix is right for you?  Contact Keara M. Piekanski, AHAA Marketing Manager at kpiekanski@ahaanet.com.

Calling All Smart Marketers (who dig data and like saving money)!

As a consumer, I want to know that I’m getting the best “bang for my buck.”  Before any big purchase, you can be sure I’ll turn to consumer reports and reviews on the Internet and do some homework on what fits my needs, lifestyle and budget.  On a much bigger scale, business owners need to be equally as savvy when it comes to their bottom line.  One big, yearly investment successful businesses face is their marketing and advertising program.  Yet how can you be sure that your investment is working?  Do you know exactly how much business are you generating from the newspapers ads, direct mailers, birthday cards, telemarketing, radio, TV, website, social media (and the list goes on) that you’ve been doing for 10+ years?

Our recommendation, utilize call tracking across all of your marketing initiatives.  It seems like a simple solution to a complex challenge. Well, it is simple.  All you have to do as a business owner or director of operations is sign up with a call tracking company in order to KNOW the following:

1)     Where your calls are coming from – i.e. which marketing initiatives are making the phone ring

2)     How many missed, dropped, or busy calls you’ve received – a perfect follow up tool for your telemarketer or front office person!

3)     How your front office staff handles live calls (all calls are recorded) – and the follow up training needed

These are straightforward and solid reasons to invest in call tracking, so how much will it set you back to figure out your ROI?  The cost is relatively inexpensive compared to your overall marketing budget (by the way, how do you determine your budget? Well, that’s a question for another post).  Sample pricing for call tracking will look something like this:

• Assume ~$50/line per month:
• 1 line for newspaper, 1 line for direct mail and 1 line for web
• 3 lines x $50 per month = $150 x 12 months = $1,800 annual investment

Also, there is typically a one time set up fee around $200.  All numbers are routed through to your office number, so your regular front office person can still answer all calls without skipping a beat!  We recommend contacting one or more vendors to determine the best program and pricing for your specific marketing and tracking needs. And, be sure to check with AHAA Marketing to see if we have any additional vendor deals available.

So why doesn’t everyone use call tracking? 

 Here are some popular objections I come across when speaking with businesses about using call tracking – and yes, I have answers for all of them!

• “I’m afraid my older patients will be afraid to call an 800 number.” – Call tracking numbers are offered as both 800 numbers as well as local numbers.  If you live in a more suburban or rural area, your potential patients may feel more comfortable calling a local number.

• “I’ve spent a lot of money on advertising over the past 10 years.  What if people see a different phone number on my ads?” –  Interested patients or potential patients will call the number in front of them, not cross reference with the phone book.

• “My front office person is really great at asking every person how they heard about us, so why do I need call tracking?” – No question that your front office person is great, but the person on the other end of the phone may be holding your newspaper ad or direct mailer in his/her hand and tell your front office person that they drive past your office every day; this may be true, but it’s not the reason they picked up the phone and called.  You want to measure the most effective sources of your marketing leads, not depend on casual interpretations.

• “I don’t need call tracking because I think I get about 10 calls for each ad placed.” – This response is especially difficult when looking at ROI.  What makes you more secure as a business owner, the statements ‘I think my marketing is working for me’ or ‘I feel that I get a bunch of calls’ or a report that shows definitively that you’ve received 45 calls on your direct mailer and 3 on your newspaper ad? 

Why call tracking? 

I’ve worked with businesses across various industries and they all want to know the same thing: is my marketing working for me?  The best way to determine whether your marketing is working for you is by measuring:

1)     How many potential customers respond to your marketing

2)     How many come in to your office

3)     How many of these people make purchases.

In essence, what’s the ROI on your marketing efforts.  The first item, “how many potential customers respond to your marketing” can be determined quickly, easily, and accurately just by utilizing automated call tracking numbers. The other two are addressed with your practice management software or internal processes. Lastly, it’s important to evaluate quarterly whether your marketing dollars need to be reallocated — call tracking helps you make this decision quickly and effectively.

Interested in learning more about call tracking?  Ready to investigate how call tracking can fit into your marketing strategy?  Email Keara M. Piekanski, AHAA Marketing Manager at kpiekanski@ahaanet.com.