John Melchinger The Marketing Coach

Market Savvy

John Melchinger--The Marketing Coach™

Making E-Commerce Work For You!

HOW TO USE VOICE MAIL AND E-MAIL EFFECTIVELY
By William L. Willard, CLU

The successful men and women you should be doing business with today are usually busier than fast-food joints at lunchtime. In fact, if you can get your prospects and clients on the phone every time you try, you're probably contacting the wrong people.

Expect to reach voice-mail a lot more often than real people; it's inevitable. It’s not even all that bad, since you can still create opportunities with these calls, and opportunities create advantage! For instance, when prospecting, try getting phone numbers and extensions, along with e-mail addresses. E-mail can be a very effective icebreaker, as well as a great way to transfer non-sensitive information, confirm appointments, keeping you in touch with people you want to business with and steering prospects to your personal Web page.

Try This:

As you make pre-approach calls, you’ll have to decide whether to leave a voice-mail message or call back later. If you call back you may still face the same decision. Turn a deficit into an asset: instead of calling back, why not leave a concept-specific message, like this one to a member of the Baby Boomer market:

Representative: "Hello, my name is ______________ with __________, 555-1111. I don’t believe we’ve met; but I’m calling to introduce myself and to see if you’re as interested in retirement savings ideas as other successful people your age [or, our age] in the area have been.

"Please call me, ___________, at 555-1111 so we can determine if any of these ideas are a good fit for you. Or if you prefer, send me an e-mail message at _________________."
By leaving your name, phone number or e-mail address at the end of your message, people won’t have to listen to your entire message again to return your call.
Don’t try saying too much. It’s better to give too little information than too much. Practice a few simple messages, like the one modeled here, as you would one-liners for sales interviews.
If the prospect doesn't call back, don't give up. The next time you call be ready to leave another message that provides interesting new information, and explain how it will benefit the prospect.

That’s one reason why the more you know about your prospects—their generational cohorts, family and business situations, and the benefits their employers offer—the easier it is to personalize pre-approach contacts.

When you reach prospects by phone, explain the purpose for your call and ask for an interview or, as necessary, request a specific commitment (date and time) for the next contact.

Use the time between phone contacts to establish e-mail relationships. Low-cost and wonderfully efficient, e-mail enables you to continue providing information, building rapport with people and making them aware of your Web presence. And it can help open doors that might otherwise have remained closed. Again, as long as you’re providing useful information and people are willing, there’s no reason to loose contact with potential clients just because they're always busy
Don’t be careless with e-mail. Just because it’s casual communications, don’t treat is casually. Otherwise intelligent people can come across as borderline illiterates if their e-mail messages are riddled with typos and rife with careless thinking.

About Your Outgoing Voice Mail Message

Voice mail technology is improving all the time. Here are suggestions to make your own out-going voice mail messages as user-friendly as possible:

Try This:

Keep your message short and simple. Avoid giving people a lot of choices to remember. If they can’t leave a message for you without suffering through a long list of options, arrange for callers to reach a live person at your office.
Smile and be friendly. Your warm personality can and should come across in the message you leave on your voice mail system. Remember: this is often a prospect’s first impression of you, so sound interested and interesting!
Speak clearly and slowly. Prospects may be hard of hearing or simply need time to process the information you’re giving them. Now is not the time to lose people to an indifferent or poorly articulated message.
Call yourself to see how your message sounds. Better yet, ask someone else to do it and give you a critique. Then, take it to heart. You’ll be glad you did.

Keeping Track; Keeping Score

Create contact cards for your prospects using your automated contact management system or client database, and record voice mail or e-mail messages as well as the results of each of your phone contacts.

Keep track of your overall results each week and month. Adjust your methods and techniques, as needed.

A former insurance agent, William L. Willard, CLU is a financial services writer in Clearwater FL. He is the author of the Guidebook 2000 - Relationship-Based Marketing & Selling, from which this article has been adapted, and Financial Crossroads – Solutions for Successful Retirement. For availability, contact the Diversified Group, (888) 673-6237.

Bill may be reached by e-mail at w.willard3@knology.net