Pick Up the Phone! It Can Boost Your Digital Marketing

“Phone?” you ask, “What’s that? Oh, you mean the pocket-sized device I check email, Facebook and text people with?”

Well, yes… but you know, its original usage involved voice-based conversations.

And returning to voice-based conversations can, in fact, be surprisingly beneficial for digital marketing.

Imagine that you’re the editor of a successful blog. So successful that every day your inbox gets barraged from people wanting to guest post.  Some of the emails are really low quality:

“To Whom it May Concern:

You know that guest posts are an effective way to build links and raise websites in Google. I would like to offer you a guest post with quality content that has not been published anywhere else on the internet. I will put two links in the text going to our site.
Please respond if you are interested.”

Needless to say, it goes in the proverbial round file.

But even the emails that are well-written or personalized: there are so many of them; you don’t have much time. Very few end up being seen, opened, let alone leading to a response.

And then comes the phone call. Your phone rings and you jump to pick it up.

“Hi,” comes a voice on the other end. “This is Jane Brown. I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with your blog.”

After a minute or two of chatting, Jane tells you that she has an idea for a post and thinks it would be perfect for your audience.
Tell me… how much better is Jane’s shot at getting a guest spot than the 2nd, 10th, 30th email of the day?

People respond to people. When you send an email, you are not a person. When you call, and they hear your voice, and you have some semblance of a real conversation – presto chango – you become a real person.

Now, it’s ironic that I’m instructing in this way, because I personally detest cold calling. I will do a lot to avoid cold calling, including rationalizing about how really sending an email is better, more efficient, and how – oh, no! It’s too late to call; I’ll have to call tomorrow.

But I have seen time and time again that when I finally get up the courage and call – it’s worth it. The response is better than had I sent an email. Even when the answer is no, the response is better; had it been an email, you probably wouldn’t even have gotten a no. You would be stuck wondering forever if your email had gotten lost in internet limbo.

So next time you’re about to reach out and touch someone’s inbox with an email, and you have the sneaking suspicion that your email may never be seen, do yourself a favor. Find their phone number (hint: it’s usually above the email on the contact page), and pick up the phone.

Submitted by Aviva