One of the most important things for some businesses is not only knowing where their lead call-ins are coming from, but also how their phones are being answered. This morning I was introduced to our new capability which we can offer our REACH magazine clients, call tracking of their ads.

With the service we can determine if the phone is being answered, how long each call lasts, what was said in the conversation, number of hang-ups, and how the prospective client was treated on the phone by the front office or phone staff.

What is being communicated by your staff?

For the chiropractor who thought his ad was not working we found that when a call came in and the client explained they were having back problems, the office staff was presenting no empathy by asking first “what insurance do you have?” Almost every time the prospect presented a long pause as they considered the lack of concern about their problem…”hmm, they only care about the money” was what was being communicated. The calls were coming in, but the doctor was not seeing results because the office staff was killing the leads before he even had a chance to consult with them. As this information and sample calls were being played, the doctor called his entire staff in to hear the conversations and discuss how these prospects were being treated.

Outgoing answering machine message was toooooo long

Later when we were trying to figure out some of the hang-ups we found that this same office had a 3.5 minute outgoing message. There was no opportunity for the prospect or client to say anything for THREE ENTIRE minutes. As we looked at the call duration for these calls, the phones were disconnected after about one minute and 10 seconds. In today’s face paced world we found that this doctor’s outgoing message was just too long for most prospective clients to handle. Upon creating a much shorter outgoing message, prospects began leaving a name and phone number for follow up as instructed.

This doctor was able to correct problems in the front office, critical problems that were affecting his business in a detrimental way, and was then able to see that our advertising was bring many prosepects/clients to his practice. Even apart from the advertising, these front office changes were improving his business in an overall way as you can imagine.

Where are leads coming from?

With call tracking we can demonstrate that REACH works better than the other magazines in the Dayton market. For one of my clients we provided tracking phone numbers not only for REACH, but also for the other magazines that the client wanted to compare. Amazed at the resulting call volume this client found that REACH was the clear leader in lead generation. They found that even though REACH costs a little more, that the difference was so drastic that the lower cost magazines were actually costing them more per lead than REACH magazine. Based on a cost per lead, REACH was a far better investment of the available advertising dollars.

Biased information gathering can steer you in the wrong direction

In another case, we found that because of front room bias calls that came from REACH were being attributed to other sources. Because the front office got some gift certificates from a media source, calls were being attributed to that source rather than the real source of the call in lead. With REAL data, this client was able to make better informed decisions about where to best invest his advertising dollars.

If you are running a business and trying to reach consumers in the Dayton market, feel free to give me a call to discuss how we can help your business grow and help you determine which ads are most effective for your business.

Do you know how your incoming advertising generated phone calls are being handled?

Do you know how many calls are coming from your newspaper advertising?

Do you know how many calls are coming from your TV advertising?

Do you know how many calls are coming from your Web Site advertising

Do you know which coupon magazine is performing and which is not?

Peter DeMott

REACH Magazine & the Big Deal

937-478-6222