In a recent blog post by Seth Godin he talks about the concept of “Marketing to the organization,” which is really about how you can sell your big ideas internally. Many times, this is no easy task, and takes intentionality and persistence. It can be especially difficult to sell an idea into an organization when it is new, something they haven’t heard of, or runs counter to the anecdotal evidence or stories people tend to hold on to. That’s when you let the numbers, trends, and the facts speak for themselves.
It can be eye-opening (and a bit un-nerving) to find out that something you thought didn’t matter anymore turns out to be something that can change your business. This was my experience when I first interviewed for a role on the marketing team at DialogTech. I didn’t know what call analytics and automation were, why they were important, and what an integral part they should play in a company’s overall strategy.
When it comes to the call (whether it is by phone, skype, webRTC, or any other mode) the prevailing opinion is that the call is dead. People don’t talk on the phone anymore. Everything is done online through chat and forms. This is the culmination of the last 15 years of hard work by thousands of companies who focused on creating efficient customer experiences online while reducing the need for 1:1 human interaction.
This was what I thought 12 months ago, and in previous roles if someone had tried to tell me differently I would have been a bit suspicious. But if they had pushed further, if they had shared the key metrics to bolster their case, I would have been an easy convert. Key metrics like:
- 30 billion inbound sales calls from mobile search were made in the US in 2013 [source: BIA Kelsey 2013]
- 73 billion inbound sales calls from mobile search expected in the US by 2018 [source: BIA Kelsey 2013]
- 61% of mobile searchers say it’s important that businesses give them a number to call [source: Google 2013]
- 70% of mobile searchers have used the call button [source: Google 2013]
- Adding a phone number to a mobile search ad results in an average click through rate increase of 8% [source: Google 2013]
So what does all this mean? It means that you need to be prepared to take your company’s strategy around dealing with (and encouraging) voice dialogs to the next level, and be the internal marketing champion. Whether it be utilizing call tracking technology, interactive voice response (IVR), a call distributor, or a conversation insights tool that lets you mine calls after they happen, you need to be prepared to track, route and analyze the calls that are going to come in. Share the numbers, show the data, and open the eyes of those around you to the call revolution that is here.