It’s easy to advertise on the Internet. But it’s not enough just to simply advertise anymore. Taking out a Google AdWords campaign will drive traffic to your website, sure. You could sign up with an advertising network that will distribute your banner ad to (hopefullly) relevant sites and pages. And, yes, that too, will drive more traffic to your website
But traffic to your website isn’t the actual goal, is it? More leads, more business - that’s the goal. What is the other option? Click-to-call advertising. Instead of directing prospects to your website, direct them to your sales staff.
Put yourself in the place of a web surfer. You see an ad, and decide to click through - that’s the first call to action. Then you hit a landing page with more information. If the page is built well, there will be enough information to nudge to you learn more. But still, there are obstacles before you can capture them as a lead.
At a minimum, they have a second call to action - make a phone call, place an order, fill out a webform, etc. How many things can go wrong inbetween the time they clicked on the ad and the time they have to initiate the second call to action?
- They could decide to do more research and leave your site
- They could simply lose interest
- They could just get distracted and walk away (in my house, this would be children arguing and/or running into walls)
Let’s say they want more information and and fill out a contact form. I talk to people all the time that complain about lost business because they can’t get back in touch with people after they leave information on a website. That’s money that you as the advertiser are leaving on the table.
Consider that banner ad as a click-to-call instead of a link to your site. They enter in their phone number, and their phone rings. Now they are connected to the sales staff immediately. It is a single call to action. That’s a big deal. On top of that, you have them on the phone, and you know their phone number is valid - because the provider just called them on that number and reached them.
Of course, this approach isn’t for every campaign. If you are selling Swatch Watches, then you don’t want to talk to every single lead. Talking to people who might generate $5 in revenue will actually cost you money.
But if you’re selling a higher ticket item (cars, appliances, insurance, many types of services for example), then every lead is much more valuable to you. You need to make sure you talk to as many leads as possible, becuase that’s how you are going to close the business.
The big benefits to this approach are that you drastically cut down on abandonment by making it a single call to action, and that you can close the prospect when you have their attention.
On top of all of this, you can do a couple of interesting things using readily available technology like route calls to a local store based on the callers location, or route the callers to a qualification IVR (in this case a series of quick questions) - and route only qualified calls to your sales staff.
So in summary, click-to-call advertising can be a superior advertising method as long as the campaign is for high ticket items.
