While B2B marketers typically track their email campaigns through metrics such as opens, clicks and leads generated, there’s a powerful new metric they should be adding to their measurement arsenal – phone calls. In fact, as more emails are viewed on mobile devices, pressing a “click-to-call” button is immediate and convenient for the recipient, and that’s why phone calls are a growing call-to-action for B2B email campaigns.

A new report by DialogTech confirms that consumers are responding to email, search, ads and social content by directly calling the businesses in which they are interested, and using a click-to-call button is often the fastest, most direct way to instantly connect with a company. The report says that these calls are the most valuable conversion for most businesses because when a prospect calls, they likely have high purchasing intent. In addition, a live conversation is much more likely to lead to a closed sale, especially compared to a completed web form.

For many businesses in the automotive, hospitality, insurance and financial services sectors, phone calls remain the primary channel for customer communication, and the emergence of smart phones has been a boon to digital marketers in those industries. For example, 40% of insurance purchases and over a third (35%) of hotel bookings are made via phone. The report concludes that inbound calls are rated the best lead type by sales managers, as calls convert to business an astonishing 10 to 15 times more than standard web leads.

Results like this demonstrate why it is imperative for B2B email marketers to take advantage of this trend and feature phone numbers prominently within email campaigns to encourage engagement via phone calls. And while your inside sales department would seem to be the natural location to direct incoming calls, this may or may not be a requirement for all businesses. For the more complex technology sale, perhaps a direct line to sales engineers who are more adept at technology environments and requirements would be the appropriate location – especially if someone who calls is presumably more interested than the average prospect. In any case, when including a phone number in email campaigns, B2B marketers should – at minimum – prepare their sales teams and other internal groups in advance so they aren’t blindsided by any inbound calls.

Implementation Strategies

While mobile phones typically automatically recognize phone numbers in email (click on the number and your smart phone offers to dial it), this can get more involved when it comes to accessing phone numbers via email newsletters or via web clients like Gmail, which can launch Google voice in response to a phone number click. Be sure to confirm with your email programmer that you’ve set everything up correctly, and of course, test your messages on multiple platforms to ensure everything works as planned.

B2B marketers will want to highlight their click-to-call button so that it can be easily seen. And, because some of the best prospects will avoid the traditional CTA and make the instant call instead, it’s also important to have a way to measure these calls and their impact on other email metrics. Call attribution software is an emerging offering that can track callers from the exact source that drove the call – email, website, digital ad, etc. – and provide marketers with additional data about the caller, the outcomes of the calls and their impact on revenue.

The predominance of smartphones and their capability to easily enable a call make this an opportunity all marketers should dial into as part of their email campaigns – and all digital marketing channels for that matter. Getting your phones ringing will be the sound of money for your sales team, and music to the ears of your company executives.

###

Outward Media’s accurate, targeted email data can help you achieve better email marketing ROI, and convert more prospects into customers. Ask us how. Also, take a look at our complimentary new e-book on building a successful B2B email marketing database.