GE 164: Irv Shapiro on Why Using Phone Numbers as Part of Your Ad Campaigns Can Double Conversions & Reduce Ad Spend by 10-30% (podcast)

Hey everybody, today we have Irv Shapiro, CEO of DialogTech which helps companies drive sales through calls.

In today’s interview we’ll be talking about how DialogTech raised over $60 million in funding and has well over 5,000 customers, why the leads with the highest conversion rates are from phone calls, and how they acquired their first 100 customers and built highly qualified links at the same time by using PR services.

Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: Irv Shapiro on Why Using Phone Numbers as Part of Your Ad Campaigns Can Double Conversions and Reduce Ad Spend by 10-30% TRANSCRIPT

Episode highlights:

• [5:34] – The pricing is similar to an old phone bill, flat fee, then additional fees, and they also have annual and monthly contracts
• [6:13] – $60 million invested, 152 employees, 5,000 customers – every month they provide analytics on 40-50 million minutes of phone calls – they target mid-west style of growth
• [6:59] – Being cash responsible, they are in a position that when the market tips, they will have the resources to double or triple down on growth
• [8:44] – They would rather be a tortoise and grow responsibly than grow fast and burn out
• [9:05] – iPhone full-function web browser opened up new way for brands to engage – a slow but steady progression with ads moving from desktop to mobile – tipping point, now more is spent on mobile
• [10:30] – When a consumer visits your site from a mobile phone and taps on a telephone number, they fall into a black hole because no tool (like Marketo, DoubleClick, HubSpot and Google Universal) knows about the phone call—except Google AdWords call extensions. Most businesses aren’t tracking these calls.
• [11:49] – Considered purchases need to be tracked the same way that web conversions are – exclude call tracking and you’ll miss half your conversions
• [15:00] – Phone calls communicate a sense of urgency
• [15:17] Phone numbers front and center – route the number to the right person to take the call – optimized ad spend around ads that drive calls – increase calls and conversions
• [16:18] – First 100 customers – primary advertising public relations and press releases – SEO and PPC to juice SEO – PRWeb
• [17:43] – Hundreds of dollars spent each month on beginning PR – today marketing team and full-time PR person
• [18:11] – Building enterprise presence – 1 to 1 marketing techniques – prospect or personality based – list similar to current customers – find like companies – marketer puts together personalized content relevant to the target
• [19:35] – 411 technique – share 4 pieces of content before ask soft ask download a white paper or attend webinar, hard ask – talk to sales person
• [21:44] – Universal struggle is hiring great people – accept as business grows you will hire people smarter than you – blueprint for the characteristics of hires consistency – smarter than average – emotional intelligence and street smarts – willing to work hard – ambitious – hire people that are referrals

Resources from this interview:

• DialogTech
• Must-read book: Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Call center phone systems for business

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