Are your connect rates lower than you’d like them to be?
Getting connect rates to where you want them to be is an ever-present challenge to many marketers. Even if your customers have requested a follow-up themselves, they can still be difficult to get ahold of.
There are many reasons why connect rates can be low. This article covers why that is, and how you can take steps to increase your connect rates.
1. Not All Leads are Made Equal
Your campaign performance begins with the quality of the leads you contact. If your database isn’t clean, it may be difficult to get your campaign performance off the ground.
Now you may be saying “But I generate/buy good quality data!”
While you may be paying a pretty penny to obtain your leads, low-quality leads can still easily slip through the cracks. As a point of reference, on average Pipes.ai filters out up to 50% of the leads that our clients feed into our system. That’s a significant amount of leads to otherwise spend money and time trying to contact!
Top reasons why leads are deemed low-quality include:
- Invalid phone number
- Invalid email
- Aged data
- Duplicate lead
- Failed TCPA
- Already DNC
Especially if you’re attempting to contact purchased leads you didn’t generate directly, there’s a fair chance that a portion of them would be considered nonqualified. Even if your buyers are promising high-quality leads, you may be surprised at the number of uncontactable, low-quality leads that often manage to slip in. Sometimes due to lack of honesty on the part of a lead seller, sometimes due to honest mistake – but nonetheless, as the buyer, this results in dead-end leads and lost time and money on your part.
A lead validation tool such as Pipes.ai enables you to spend your money on the right leads and improve your bottom line…and your connect rates.
By filtering out low-quality, unqualified leads, you can begin your contact efforts with clean data.
Clean data = real and interested leads = higher connect rates.
2. Test your Scripts
Low connect rates can be a result of something many marketers completely overlook. When was the last time you asked yourself how effective your scripts and IVRs are?
If you’re like most marketers, chances are you’ve taken the “set it and forget it” approach. Why fix something that isn’t broken, right?
Here’s why: even something as small as your IVR script can determine the success of your campaigns. From the wording of your scripts to tone, inflection, or whether your IVR voice is male or female, all of these are factors that have a real, tangible impact on your connect rates – even if you’re not aware of it.
Don’t believe us? Here’s an example of how a different script can affect campaign performance.
A/B split testing can have a tangible impact on your campaign success and your connect rates!
Pipes.ai enables easy script and IVR testing. Compare two or more different scripts and see what resonates with your audience – the results may surprise you!
3. Speed’s the Name of the Game
How quickly are you dialing out and following up on your leads? If you’re sitting on them for too long, you risk seeing the law of diminishing returns.
Speed to lead is the key to lead conversion; the faster you dial out your leads, the greater your chances are of connecting with and converting them.
In the call space, your call center workflows determine the efficacy of how quickly you act on your leads. An autodialer can help bridge the gap between a large volume of leads and a limited number of call center agents.
However, a traditional autodialer doesn’t come without downsides, namely the propensity for human error in setting dialing cadences.
Pipes.ai avoids the pitfalls of an autodialer while doing the heavy lifting of outbound calls and lead follow-up. Win the speed to lead competition with intelligent outbound call automation while leveraging the potential of each lead that passes through your call center.
4. Reporting
In order to boost your connect rates, you first must know where and why your leads are falling off. After all, any impactful campaign optimization must first start with accurate attribution through reporting and data insights.
Well, duh. And that may seem like simple common sense. However, a surprising amount of marketers operate on limited reporting functionality, blindly tweaking their campaigns and call center operations without true understanding of why their leads aren’t converting, and where they’re falling off.
Pipes.ai’s automated outbound lead engagement platform makes self-serve a breeze. With reporting functions that provide total visibility over your campaigns in near real-time, it’s easy to oversee your campaign performance and even pinpoint where your leads are dropping off.
5. Multi-Channel
Are you using multi-channel marketing to the full extent? It’s possible to be over-reliant on calls. While dialing may be your primary mode of outbound marketing, SMS, email, and direct mail can also be tremendously impactful in helping you connect to leads.
A strong marketing campaign often uses a mix of dialing, SMS, and email marketing in order to drive connect rates and boost conversions.
Pre-qualifying SMS messages, for example, can be used to schedule calls, increase lead engagement, and give leads advance notice to expect a call coming their way. (In fact, our Scheduler feature has been used to help our clients turn often fruitless outbound dials into warm inbound calls since its release.)
Boost your Connect Rates with AI
Let intelligent lead engagement help you increase contact rates and streamline your campaigns.
Boost your connect rates within just days through automated lead outreach and follow-up, AI-optimized dialing patterns, campaign split testing, and much more.
