When conducting prospecting or business development calls, it’s certain that many of your potential clients won’t be in the office or available to talk when you first try to reach them. So, voicemail is an important tool to use. To help you maximise this channel and get the best return on your efforts, here are our top tips for how to get the best return on your prospecting voicemails…
Should You Bother with Voicemail in Sales?
So, first things first: is voicemail an effective prospecting tool? These days, email and social media are increasingly used when communicating with clients, but we still rely on the phone when prospecting. Why? Because prospecting phone calls provide a human touch, they allow us to talk directly with prospects, providing us with the ability to have a conversation in real time.
But as we’ve pointed out, a phone call requires the other person to be available at that exact point in time and that’s often not the case. So, voicemail becomes an effective secondary tool to use here and it’s important not to discount it.
A good voicemail message enables your prospects to know who you are and why you’ve called them. It provides that prospect with actionable information and knowledge that can help you to push the sales process along. This means when you manage to talk to them, the groundwork is already in place to make the conversation easier.
Read: How to Decide When a Call or Email is Best in Sales
Know What You Want to Achieve
When leaving prospecting voicemails, the key thing is knowing what you want to achieve. For the most part, recruitment prospecting calls are focused on telling a prospect about a good candidate, trying to get a job on, or setting up a face to face meet. So, make sure your purpose is clear in the voicemail you leave and make it easy for the prospect to know what that purpose is, too.
Know What to Say to Get the Right Response
To get the right response from your prospect, make sure your voicemail leads with information that’s relevant to them. Most recruiters will start a prospecting voicemail with information about who they are and what services they provide. But, to get a better return on your efforts, ditch the sales pitch. Instead, open with information that’s completely relevant to the prospect.
Tailor the Message Specifically to the Prospect
We know that many recruiters have to conduct a high volume of prospecting calls daily. But, of course, every call is different and not every prospect is the same. To get a better return when leaving prospecting voicemails, make sure to leave messages tailored with that prospect in mind. The more relevant the message, the more likely it is for that prospect to get back to you.
It Requires a Human Approach
Leaving a voicemail is completely different to sending an email or writing a social media message. You need to know what you want to say in advance, but you can’t sound like you’re reading from a script. Instead, you need to leave a human message, one that’s friendly and conversational to compel prospects to return your call. Use a normal tone, speak like a normal person, and you’ll elicit a better response from your prospect.
Develop a Strategy
The final piece of advice we have is to add voicemails into your prospecting strategies. We know that not every prospect will manage to answer a call first time, and we know, too, that you’ll have to leave voicemails at times. So, add this into your prospecting process. Perhaps leave a voicemail, then follow up with an email or a LinkedIn InMail. Just make sure it feels natural and make sure you’re adding value at every point and not just hounding the prospect.
So, those are some of our top tips on how to leave better prospecting voicemails. If you’d like to know more about some marketing strategies that could help you when prospecting, click below for a copy of our eBook titled ‘Why You Need to Become a Recruiter and a Marketer’.
