How Call Tracking can Win your Agency More Clients

By now, most of you have heard about call tracking and its many advantages to business. If you haven’t, then you had better start researching it now. You can read about it, ask a colleague, or look it up on the internet. But I’ll save you the trouble.

This is a recent webinar courtesy of Mackay Allen, Content Manager at LogMyCalls. This is part of a webinar series by his company in conjunction with A/B testing software” Convert.com. The complete webinar can be found on this here. The post is aimed at marketing agencies, but marketers can still find it useful since the same logic applies.

One of the topics that were discussed during the recent webinar was how digital marketers can use call tracking to grow their business. According to figures by BIA, $68 billion was spent on advertising to drive phone calls in 2012 alone. That’s how crucial phone calls are in any marketing campaign, as most marketing agencies can already attest.

One point that clearly emerged from the webinar is the importance of phone calls to businesses – even a single phone call. There was evidence to back this up. Allen noted that a single phone call generates three times as much revenue as a single web lead – ‘3x on a 1to1 basis’. That rate is incredible! The sad thing about it though is that most marketers concentrate their efforts on generating web leads and forget the importance of phone leads altogether.

68% of Businesses Realize Calls are Giving Highest Quality Leads

The phone acts as the most popular point of contact between customers and a business, even with most people today connected to, and doing their fact-checking and research, on the Internet. Consumers will increasingly call because they have a phone in their pocket all the time. Even when visiting a business’ website, it is easier to establish contact if there’s a phone number listed. These claims are backed up by 68% of businesses who report that phone calls provide them with the highest quality leads, as opposed to the web. A point no doubt worth noting for the digital marketer.

Speaking of leads…

Allen also noted that LogMyCalls internal research found that calls are 10 times more likely to become customers than web leads. In other words, prospects who call you are 10 times more likely to become actual customers than web prospects. It is evident that most internal marketers as well as marketing agencies aren’t getting credit for the increased number of calls to the business. However, they only have themselves to blame. Reason being? Simply because both sets of marketers aren’t using call analytics – at any level – and if they are, they aren’t applying it effectively.

With the marketing scene becoming more cut-throat in today’s competitive business environment, Allen noted that call analytics is becoming a fundamental business tool. He cited 95% of marketers are increasingly demanding more analytics than they used to a couple of years back. And the objective they wish to meet with this data? To simply know if their marketing campaigns are working, or not.

This is an aspect most businesses across the board are familiar with. No boss wants to just fork out money without realizing the returns brought about by the marketing efforts. Hence, the growing level of scrutiny on in-house marketers and marketing agencies by most businesses – and urgency too – on whether this is just a white elephant or an effort worth pursuing. This has led to clients (the businesses seeking the services of the marketing agencies) demanding actual data itself, and this is where LogMyCalls comes in.

Case in Point…

Allen went on to detail an example of two agencies that basically offer the same services: agencies that have their work cut out for them and a great reputation to boast. However, one offers call analytics through their private call tracking dashboard while the second doesn’t. He observed that if you had to choose between the two, going with the one that offers call analytics is a wiser choice simply because they stand to be accountable.

With 78% of marketers using analytics to arrive at more informed decisions, this sort of agency will attract more business since they are not hoping their approach will work. Rather, they have the figures and data to show for it.

Another example involves marketing that’s backed by experience. Experience here meaning you have done a similar thing before. Take, for example, a marketer that’s worked with plumbers before with a specific budget to spend on PPC, SEO or any other tools. If this marketer is approached by another plumbing business in the future, the agency will be in a better position to tell how many calls the customer’s business can expect, or the plumbing business can rest assured of ‘X’ number of calls (based on previous experience on a similar campaign). This is because the agency or department will know how much will guarantee a certain number of calls, definitely impressive data that will swing the client in your favor.

Tying it all Together

A similar thing occurs when an in-house marketer is approached by the CEO who pledges a certain figure in marketing funds. If the department has done a similar thing before, they can use previous data to forecast how many calls can be expected, and how many prospects a certain amount of marketing budget can be able to pull in (conversion optimization) – all thanks to call tracking.

This is how LogMyCalls helps marketers get more clients – by using call tracking to monitor ROI. As such, call tracking enables agencies and in-house marketers to not only net more clients, but also to secure more funds for marketing.