Your outgoing voicemail
message can increase your business
by Marty Marsh
You may be overlooking another great marketing tool: your voicemail system.
Savvy business people no longer use “answering machines.” While cheap, they’re short on function, unreliable, and limit your outgoing and incoming message capacity. Go on vacation for a week and you’re likely to have lots of angry customers.
These days, all phone companies offer voicemail capabilities and taking advantage of this inexpensive service gives you the perfect opportunity to promote your business.
Don’t ever let customers or prospects hear a busy signal or get no answer at all. At the very least, your outgoing voicemail message should tell callers what your business hours are, but a more important use of your outgoing message is to present a compelling marketing message.
Don’t waste time telling callers you’re not in, that’s obvious. Instead, use the message to thank them for calling, direct them to your website or tell about your weekly specials or some other offer you’re making.
For example, a bakery might mention their pie specials for the week, a pizza parlor mentions their 2-for-1 special they run on Thursday nights only, or a consultant might direct callers to visit his website for a special report. Or ask a trivia question, preferably something that relates to your business, and then direct callers to find the answer at your website. It gets them to visit and hopefully they’ll spend some time finding out more about your services.
For instance, if you were to call me right now at 951-659-3493 and get my voicemail, you might hear some variation of this (I do change my outgoing message frequently):
“You’ve reached the voicemail for Marty Marsh. Thank you for calling. I’m sorry I’ve missed you. If you’re struggling to attract clients and customers to your business, I’d love to help you. Visit my website at www.martymarsh.com for more information…”
Now, go change your voicemail message right now to something that will work harder to bring you more business.
What would you like to do next?