I don’t want to bother people that don’t want to receive our calls…..

Deciding to remind members and customers by phone about late dues, conference reminders or sales promotions should be based on the importance of your call. 

If you have an important message - delivering a message by phone is a timely, relevant and simple way to communicate.  

Not everyone reads their email - many times the subject line alone can cause the reader to delete your message.  Yet, organizations continue to email information about future events, day after day.  

Break through the clutter - everyone listens to all or some of every voicemail message.

Using message delivery by phone is fast and memorable.  Because each message is played to either a live answered call or delivered to a voicemail, your message always gets through. 

Email can be blocked, sent to a spam folder or easily deleted by the reader. 

Sometimes trying something different is the solution.

If you are worried about bothering customers with phone calls - lets face it - anything can bother a customer.  Too much mail, too much email, personal phone calls or even smoke signals.

Our opt-out feature is so easy for your members to use- members just need to press a key on their phone to permanently opt out of future calls.  

So, when planning your next event or announcement, write down your message, use our call in recording line to make your message and give us the time and date your call needs to be sent.

We’ll do the rest.

Communicating with customers and prospects can be achieved in many ways.   When promoting a sale or a conference, companies must find a way to communicate with their target audience that grabs attention.  Sure, simple to say.  Not always so easy to do. 

Marketers want to communicate - share valuable info about time and date, where to buy, who to call for information but they want to do it as affordably as possible and get the attention their marketing dollars deserve.   Once you’ve done your mailing, sent an email - what’s left?   You can send another email - another mailer - or make a phone call. 

Using the phone is a good way to spread the word- get back in touch with customers we’ve not spoken to in months or even years.  It does take a lot of time though and how many calls can we really make every hour?   Many of our calls are going to end up in voicemail anyway.  We will then read the voicemail message - and make the next call.   This is probably not the best use of your time - although - it might be worth considering if there were an easy way to complete this task.

Have you considered a voice drop?  That is - recording a message - and delivering the message to customers by phone?  Calls appear to come from your office - calls are pretty affordable compared to USPS mail - voice drop calls have the extra added value of immediacy and finally the calls have a level of familiarity since the recording is made in the voice of someone customers already know.

So, if you could call your customers for about a nickel per call vs. 40 cents per postcard - is it worth it? 

Consider making that call today- you will most likely be surprised at the strength of the results.  

Clients frequently ask about what to include in their recorded message - when announcing meetings, conferences or even sales.  “What do I need to include” in my message has been asked so often - that we have created a checklist that can be used for all clients:

1 - Start your message with an introduction of the name of the association, event, tradeshow name or the retail store location.

2 - If you’ve sent other notifications by email or mail about the event - start your call with - “An urgent reminder…from” - people always want to listen when it’s urgent!

a.  “Greetings form the American Information Technology Association”- this is Dave Yenta, the Director of Marketing calling to announce our National Conference has been scheduled for…..”

b.  “An urgent reminder from the Engineering Society of American, the special $100 discount ESA offers you on your early registration for our Congress session, ends May 5th” 

c.  “Hi, this is Eric from Weathervane for Men, the preferred clothing store in Santa Monica for the well dressed man”

Because people screen calls - many times your message ends up on an answering machine - so announce who you’re calling from up front - because people will listen to the first few seconds before deciding whether to listen to the rest.

3. Provide info about why you are calling - “early registration discounts are available though May 5th” - give them a reason to take a next step NOW.

4. Don’t forget to mention your web address in your message - spell it out if necessary - and always leave your phone number.

5 - Always offer an opt-out -“to opt out of future reminder calls - please press 2 now” - (this will add the dialed number to your permanent do not call list that Audio PostCard maintains for your business.

Following our 5 steps to successful message creation will boost your results and create the right kind of buzz.