Marketing is the lifeblood of any business, and it’s impossible to attract customers without investing in effective and well-targeted marketing activities. More importantly, in the modern marketing era, businesses need to focus on using every avenue they have available to them, which goes beyond posting blogs or photos on social media.
Over the last few years, so many of businesses seem to shy away from using the phone for the purposes of marketing. This is a highly-valuable asset to any business, especially since phones now play such a prominent role in our daily lives. Here are some compelling reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid of the phone when it comes to marketing.
Business Prospects Prefer Phone Calls
Contrary to consumers, business customers prefer to be directly connected via phone when business deals or services are concerned. This is where cold calling or callbacks come in most handy, as these B2B calls are more likely to be successful than regular consumer cold calls.
The days of cold calling being a great B2B marketing tactic aren’t over just yet either. HubSpot points out that 78% of cold calls or service information calls result in an appointment or the targeted businesses enrolling in an event.
Consumers Prefer Mobile Commerce
As of 2018, there are now more smartphone users worldwide than desktop computer users – for the first time in history. This undeniable ubiquity of the smartphone means businesses need to be optimizing their websites, apps and even brick and mortar stores for mobile commerce, or risk missing out on sales.
Integrating payment options like Apple Pay and credit cards directly into apps and mobile websites are going to increase the likelihood of buyers purchasing a product. Consumers see these payment methods as on-trend and as a result, are more likely to impulse buy using them. USAT even revealed sales increased over 36% in just 24 weeks after Apple Pay was introduced at point-of-sale locations.
Finally, as smartphones take up over 55% of online searches, you should be ensuring everything related to your business has a mobile-friendly option. This isn’t just to make it easier for mobile users to access your sites and products, but also so Google and other search engines can more easily rank your sites for mobile users.
Mobile Apps Help You Grow
In business, mobile apps are one of the most intuitive and rewarding ways you can interact with and provide services to your customers. They don’t just give you a constant presence on a user’s smartphone, but also give you an avenue to create a closed system (for better data analytics). Utilizing your power within your own business app and featuring proprietary payment methods, as well as traditional ones makes it effortless for consumers to purchase through your mobile program.
Not only is investing in app development great for staying top-of-mind, studies have also shown that companies who build their own apps experience growth metrics greater than those of typical web banners and social media ads. If you own and manage your own app, you’ll also be able to gain instant access to sales and user analytics, making it easy to develop campaigns and build user profiles.
Specifically, in retail, apps are exceedingly popular with shoppers and according to Statista, more than 19% of smartphone users had 6 – 10 shopping apps. Focusing on creating an app that is stable, easy to use and also features sales funnels is a great way to utilize the world’s favorite devices to improve your sales and brand recognition.
SMS Acceptance is Growing
Stats from the UK show that in 2017, there were 41 million users opting into receiving SMS marketing. Just one year later that’s grown to over 44 million. The demand is evident, and businesses looking to advance their marketing reach should look toward creating SMS transcripts and alerts for their customers to alert them of deals, new products, and even flash sales.
Previously perceived as irritating, SMS marketing is now being more welcomed by consumers with up to 3% purchasing an item immediately after being alerted and 10% booking an appointment or session related to the SMS.
Phones Connect People
Phones are so much a part of day to day life that consumers have developed a deep reliance on their phones for almost everything, particularly information gathering and shopping. For businesses to take advantage of this, they should have a range of direct and indirect channels to reach prospects. This includes developing call scripts and ways to collect data for direct marketing calls.
Zero Moment of Truth discovered that consumers are consistently needing more and more information about a brand and its products before buying anything. In 2010 the firm found consumers needed 5.4 pieces of info before purchasing. By 2011, this had jumped to 10.4. Thornley Fallis also pointed out that more than 81% of consumers conduct research before buying, indicating high adoption rates.
In order to capture attention and persuade consumers to purchase your products, businesses should invest and focus on creating libraries of information about their products and services for consumers to interact with. These can be blogs, informative cold call scripts and even video.
Marketers, Pick Up Your Phones!
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why it is vital to invest in cold calling as well as more modern phone marketing activities like app development and cashless payment integration. Just because the world seems to be heading to entirely social media and inbound-focused marketing doesn’t mean traditional cold calls and informative connections won’t grow your brand awareness.
{{cta(‘a7c4bb20-1d82-416c-a9a8-f2203315d0e4’)}}
