As a small-business owner, you keep a close eye on the company budget. You don’t have the deep financial pockets that larger firms do, so when you spend money you need to feel comfortable in the return on investment you’ll receive. When it comes to marketing and advertising, this becomes particularly critical. As the popularity of Pay Per Call grows, small businesses need helpful tips to ensure their campaigns provide a reliable, strong ROI.
Why Pay Per Call Matters
In an age of smartphones, tablets, and online submission forms, who needs phone calls? Believe it or not, consumers are still making phone calls, and lots of them. Phone calls to small businesses alone are expected to total 65 billion by next year (2016), and 31% of consumers call businesses when they are looking to complete a transaction. Given the importance of phone calls, here are three steps to help you boost the ROI on your Pay Per Call campaign.
Read More: Here are 5 Reasons You Need Pay Per Call
Dayparting
Proximity based features are popular tools in Pay Per Call because they help your small business take advantage of GPS locators in smartphones to target customers when they are in a specific geographic area. Dayparting builds on the effectiveness of geolocation tools to control the time of day your business receives calls. If you own a hardware store open from 10-8 everyday, it does little good to have your ads running into the late hours of the evening.
By contrast, a small-town movie theater would benefit greatly from running Pay Per Call campaigns starting in the afternoon and running late into the evening as the most popular movie show times occur around 5pm, 7pm, and 9:30pm. In either case, you want your ads to run when someone is there to answer the phones.
Personal Touch
There are some transactions that will simply never be able to be completed online. No matter how far ecommerce advances, many consumers will still prefer to speak to an individual when making a high-value transaction. Anyone can afford to take a risk buying a t-shirt online for $20, and crossing their fingers it fits. Big-ticket items require a personal touch.
Pay Per Call provides your business with a direct link to consumers interested in making a big purchase, and it’s important that you and your staff are capable of providing the personal touch these consumers are looking for. It’s about comfort level for the consumer. They want the assurance of a voice on the other end to provide comfort in their big purchase.
Call-to-Action
Last but not least, include a call-to-action in your Pay Per Call ads. Not only is it important to target the right consumers in the right place at the right time of day, but you want to give those people an incentive to call. This can be as simple as a call-to-click feature that says “Click here to speak directly to a salesperson,” or can be more aggressive and say “Click here to connect to a representative and save 10% on your first purchase.”
Read More: How to Create a True Call to Action