And these 11,808 phone calls happened in less then an hour?

HOW IN THE WORLD DID I PULL THIS OFF ?

• I am Superman (I can wish and wear the Underoos) 
• Or I hired a call center with hundreds of people

Or I used a "Phone Call Autoresponder" - its not the best definition but its the easiest to grasp.

This is a REALLY COOL service, probably the coolest thing I have played with in a while - VoiceShot

(This is NOT an affiliate link - I make nothing if you use this service, minus that you can come back here and leave a comment to thank me!)

And its really simple too as these guys got their user interface right (which is nice for a change!) 

• You upload a list of your customer's phone numbers (I will cover HOW to acquire phone numbers and expand the value of your list in a future post)
• You record your message, either by dialing into their service or by recording a WAV file on your computer / mic (I choose the WAV as I was able to edit it in Audicity - great FREE audio editor).  I actually choose to upload two messages - one for a "real person answering the phone" and one for answering machines.
• You schedule the "voice blast" - just like you would an autoresponder broadcast and POOF the calls are blasted out.

 So why do I think this is SO COOL? 

1. Email deliverability SUCKS - actually SUCKS is too nice of a word but this is a family blog
2. Email deliverability SUCKS (sorry I guess I said that already)
3. You are demonstrating to your customers / leads that you are a real person / real company - not some faceless / voiceless website in cyberspace.  And as you will see below below respond and they take action.
4. You are reinforcing your marketing message / brand by "reaching out" to your customers / leads in a new medium / way.
5. And oh yeah - email deliverabilty SUCKS!!!

 My statistics from my FIRST campaign on VoiceShot - I am a stats junkie:

• I used a really tiny section / sample of my customer list (11,808 records / phone numbers)
• 38.6% (4,563 calls) were answered by 'live people' - which is kind of funny, as the system waits for someone to say "hello" and then it plays the recorded call message - I can't even imagine how many people today were trying to 'talk back' and ask questions
• 39.4% (4,651 calls) went straight to voice mail (again I used a different recorded message for these)
• 21.9% (2,594 calls) were 'unsuccessful' - which basically means it was a non working number, someone entered their number incorrectly (by accident) or they entered a crap number to get past my lead capture form.
• Cost: $1,105.68 = .12 cents a call and you only pay for the successul calls (live answer or voicemail) which is cool.

Results / ROI (all that really matters)
If you are NOT tracking every marketing campaign then you are wasting money!
So how did this campaign perform for me?

• My inbound call center RANG OFF THE HOOK - volume was 10X + a normal weekday afternoon
• I received a TON of email replies - some were - why are you calling me?  who are you?  normal B.S. that you have to have customer service address.  Most were legit questions about the service that was being marketed.
• I reinforced my company brand to EVERY single delivered call.  They now know that we are "real" and a serious company that is worth doing business with / spending money with.
• And at the end of the day the only thing that really matters - my merchant account was ON FIRE - it is not my style to throw out dollar amounts but I will say we did 4X our normal hourly transaction volume this afternoon (the calls hit about 4 hours ago so this is ALL real-time data).
• And without bragging about numbers, I easily saw a MULTIPLE TIMES RETURN on my investment within the SAME day . . .

Summary
This was a NON IM (Internet Marketing) niche!  Yep, believe it or not there are OTHER niches that are profitable out there . . .

As you can tell by this post, I am really jazzed about the immediate response to the voice broadcast and my offer.  It was a great experience and I would happily recommend VoiceShot (they even have a real account manager who called me back with answers to my questions).

So what can you do with this information?  TAKE ACTION - if you don't have phone numbers from your customers / leads - you need to START ASKING for them!  (I will blog about "real" lead generation in the near future)

And remember how I said that email sucks!  That is why you need to subscribe to my RSS Feed right now

I look forward to your comments.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing Marketing VoiceShot Searchingdot Searchingdotcom Autoresponder Email Blog Voicemail Voice Broadcast ROI

"The Greatest SEO Artist In The World"
is  . . . .
 . . . .
   . . . . . . . . .

Oh the anticipation . . .

Jerry West!

I had the opportunity to interview Jerry on "What Really Matters in SEO"

I wrote up a long introduction for Jerry and the interview but I threw it out as I really want you to JUST LISTEN!
(After you listen to the full interview, the link that I mentioned in the audio recording is below)

Click below to listen to the interview now:

MP3 - The Greatest SEO Artist In The World" - Interview with Jerry West

Click below to grab the RSS feed of our Podcasts.
 

OK - here is the deal with the link that I mentioned in the audio.  I have been a paying member of Jerry's membership site SEO Revolution for well over a year (yes I actually pay for this).  Jerry's site is currently closed but he opened up a link for my readers / listeners (which is you).  This is NOT an affiliate link, its actually the OPPOSITE - I am taking the commission I would have been paid every month and paying for part of YOUR membership.  That is how strongly I feel about the site and how much respect I have for Jerry.

Here is my NON-affiliate link that helps pay your way into SEO Revolution

See wasn't that easy
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone disclosed their affiliate links and called out what they are really doing? Here is what I am going to do on THIS blog - if I ever use an affiliate link I will clearly label it AND also provide a NON affiliate link for you. This way you can use whatever link you like - if you feel I added value in your research you can use my affiliate link, if I didn't - buy direct! Transparency and honesty is nice isn't it . . .

If you enjoyed this expert interview with Jerry West, then please subscribe to my feed or my email

 Please leave your feedback / comment on both the Interview and my approach to affiliate links.

Technorati Tags: SEO Search Engine Optimization Jerry West Searchingdot Searchingdotcom Podcast Interview Blog Marketing Internet marketing Online marketing

I have received a ton of comments and questions from my interview with Seth Godin on the "Squidoo Slap"

1. How did I score an interview with Seth?
2. How can I get an interview for my blog?
3. What do I need to do to interview an expert in my niche?

First off, interviews in my opinion are some of the best content that you can produce:

1. Expert verbiage, industry jargon, synonyms, related terms - basically all of the keyword / theme stuff that Google and friends are looking for - you just can't "fake" or auto-generate this level of content - TRUST ME I HAVE TRIED :)  Also ghostwriters, freelancers will never hit the mark either as they are not "living the niche"   
   (more on Theming / LSI in a future post)
2. Other bloggers TALK about and LINK to interview content - check out the blog reactions on technorati
3. It is an excuse to contact other bloggers directly who did not find their interview on your own - and a great reason to leave a comment on their blog with a LINK back to your interview / post.  This is not spammy at all and I haven't seen any bloggers delete my comments / links related to an interview!
4. Media attention - it's a great excuse to do a press release - which also gets you more LINKS
5. Rich media - if you can score an audio / phone interview you can turn this into podcasts, or you can do a series of video follow ups / case studies

So how do YOU get an interview with an expert in your niche?
It is actually REALLY simple.  YOU JUST ASK
Yep you ASK.  Most people think "who am I - why would this expert, authority, guru ever want to speak with ME"?
If you don't ask you will never receive . . . .

You would be shocked at how many experts really enjoy interviews - it gives them exposure, increases their reach, branding, and its an ego thing too . . . .

So step 1 is ASK.  Step 2 is plan out the subject line of the email you are sending (you need to get your email opened).  Step 3 be really nice - people love compliments they also love when someone wants to hear what they think . . .

Wasn't that easy?  No go and make a list of the top 5 experts in your niche that you feel your audience / customers would love to hear from and JUST ASK!

Please post your comments / feedback / questions below

Speaking of expert interviews - check back here TOMORROW as I am interviewing the:
Greatest SEO Artist on the Planet . . . (how's that for link bait) and a reason for you to subscribe to my feed or email

Technorati Tags: Interview Expert Expert Interview Searchingdot Searchingdotcom Web2 Web2.0 Blogger Blog Marketing Internet marketing Online marketing