How to Use Ringless Voicemail to Elevate Your Direct Mail Campaign
When creating a direct mail campaign, you may focus on the mailer and the message you want to send. However, you shouldn’t forget about other marketing tools that help increase response rates for your direct mail. One of the most effective is ringless voicemail.
Ringless voicemail or RVM works by sending a voice message to the recipient’s phone even though their phone doesn’t ring. Your company records a message which automatically is sent to the phone numbers on your lead list. You only need to record one message and it is sent to everyone on your list. However, you want to make it effective so follow these tips:
Get Your Numbers
If you haven't done ringless voicemail or cold calling before you will need to get phone numbers for your prospects. Start by batch skip tracing your list for numbers and this will help you know how many potential RVM's you can send based on how many numbers you can get.
TIP: If there is an option to use mobile or landline numbers be sure to prioritize the mobile option. Most people have a cell phone but not everyone has a landline.
Manage Your Lead List
If you are pairing RVM with direct mail, you’ll already have a list of people to contact. However, you may want to start with a small list until you see how quickly people respond. You don’t want to overwhelm those who will be answering the calls. One thing to consider is using batch mailing so that you can break your list of 2000 into two batches of 1000 sent each week. Your definition of small will depend on how many people you have fielding calls within that day or the next.
Timing
It’s also important to time your calls based on when you send out direct mail to the prospects on your list. Make sure they have time to receive the campaign but not so much time that they would have forgotten about it mailer all together. Ideally we would time your RVM to hit 2-3 days after your mailer hits.
Create a Personal Message
You’ve heard those robo-calls that are annoying to listen to and immediately feel like spam. You don’t want your message to sound like that. Instead, it should be personal and should not sound like telemarketing.
The message should be simple, friendly and quick to listen to. You might say something like
"Hi there this is John. I sent you a letter about your property a couple of days ago and I wanted to make sure you got it. Please give me a call back at 999-999-9999"
This gives your RVM a really authentic and genuine feel rather than blatantly coming from a robot or being a sales pitch.
Think About Your Drop Rate
With RVM, you can schedule your drops to happen at a certain rate per hour and per day so you aren’t overwhelmed with calls. For example if you have 1000 RVM's going out you can choose to send 100/hour or 500/day and it would take 2 days to run your RVM campaign. Or if you want it to last longer you can do 50/hour or 250/day to have a longer campaign. Make sure you time it so you can better manage your calls and make sure they don’t hit on the weekend. Being able to control the timing will ensure staff have the time to answer questions and convert callers.
TIP: Keep in mind your hours of operation and time zone so that you don't get calls at 4am!
In Conclusion...
If you would like to learn more about using ringless voicemail or would like to set up messages for your current or future direct mail campaigns, contact us at (978) 269-0245 or email us at [email protected].
