subject: Three Tactics For Leaving Voicemail In Sales [print this page] With prospects screening calls now more than ever, we are faced with the frequent dilemma of leaving voicemail and figuring out how to best do that. With that being the case, here are some clear sales tactics that we can use to improve effectiveness.
1. Make it a Commercial
If we understand that there is a very good chance that the prospect is not going to return our call, we can shift our goal and message from trying to trigger a call back to one that is more focused on building an impression on the prospect's side. In other words, we can use the 20 to 30 second space of airtime to educate the prospect by leaving some sort of commercial.
If we are a cold caller and the prospect does not know who we are, we may want to educate the prospect on who we are and why we are calling. The goal with leaving voicemail in this way would be to plant a seed on the prospect's side so that when we call them again and finally do reach them, they have a little knowledge of who we are and we will not be starting from the complete beginning.
2. Clearly Share Contact Info
Whether using the commercial approach when leaving voicemail or not, we always need to share our contact info in the message and there are some key things that we can do to make it easier for the prospect to get our information. And the absolute worst scenario would be for a prospect to be interested in returning a call but they have difficulty extracting the contact info from the message.
At a minimum, you will want to share your name, the company you represent, and your best call back number. Some people advise to share email address or web address in a voicemail but that could add significant length to the message and this could have negative impacts on both the prospect's side and yours in terms of being most efficient.
It is also important to picture somebody writing down your contact info as you are sharing it. With keeping that in mind, it is critical to speak slowly when leaving phone numbers and to repeat all of the contact info twice. By repeating twice, you can eliminate the need for the listener to rewind the message and this step alone could be the difference between a prospect getting the number and calling back.
3. Always Follow with an Email
After leaving voicemail, always follow with an email to the prospect if you have their email address. This can be powerful tactic as you are basically hitting the prospect twice with two different methods which can increase your chances of getting noticed and getting your message heard.
It can also be good to let the prospect know at the end of the voicemail messages that you will also be sending them an email. When they hear this, they can then know that they do not need to write down all of your details since there will be an email on the way and there could be a chance that they will be appreciative that your thoroughness is saving them energy and time.
