What does the reality look like? I am currently observing, quite self-critically, two phenomena on the market: the online pros and the frugal.

Let’s start with the frugal, who we usually find in conservative and/or smaller companies. Their website is a bit outdated, their slogans are wooden and only a few people look at the web analysis account now and again.
 

Then we have the online pros. They’re always looking for the latest trends, their website is up to date, they know exactly what their customers are looking at and have already had several meetings about the exact wording of the call to action. Each of these views and approaches has its advantages and disadvantages, which we want to illustrate today with regard to the call channel.

How do they deal with inbound calls?

Now let’s see how these two characters react to inbound calls. The frugal of course have a phone number on their page, which anyone can quickly find – but that’s about it. They don’t know if someone has called, don’t know exactly what they’re spending their advertising budget on and have hardly any contact with their call center.

The online pros, on the other hand, have long since banished the number from the website or hidden it well, because a contact form is easier to track – and they’ve also read somewhere that chat bots perform much better than calls anyway. If their call center does actually receive a call, a discussion breaks out: What generated this interested party? Online marketing? They are convinced that the most important thing is to first secure the lead and then let the call center follow up – even if this means that the call center requires a lot more resources than if it had been called directly.

In order to quickly answer the question in the blog’s headline, we must analyze the damage caused in both cases.

If you would like to learn more about inbound calls, click here for some interesting facts on the subject.

Why is this so detrimental to a company?

For a company, a loss is usually of a financial nature, i.e. a loss of turnover or profit in the past and consequently also in the future – so let’s concentrate on that.

What damage do the frugal do?

If we focus on performance marketing, this will already cause a great deal of damage here: The frugal have no idea which campaigns perform really well and which are simply costing them money without achieving results. Depending on the severity of the frugality, between 10 and more than 50 percent of the total advertising budget is thrown out of the window month after month without any result. They urgently need to catch up on the basics of web tracking and first of all to create transparency. Especially in conservative companies, a call is still considered hard currency, so if the online marketing department can measure and increase it, this will have a positive effect on the entire company, not only on the department.

What damage do the online pros cause?

In many sectors, with exceptions in the low-price/consumer goods sectors, the call is still very important. The online pros lose sight of what the user really wants while trying to integrate the latest trends into their website. The biggest mistake is often hiding the phone number. The calculation is simple: The online pros convince management that no revenue will be lost by losing the call leads, because they will still manage to convert the interested parties. At the same time, a major cost factor, the call center, is eliminated. This may be true in individual cases, but we can observe what studies have already proven: The call is worth it, despite the higher costs! Callers buy more quickly and are more likely to buy.

What can they both do better?

To make a long story short, it would be advisable for the frugal to catch up and perhaps enlist the help of a performance marketing agency that has the courage to regularly and proactively offer them innovative solutions. The online pros shouldn’t ignore what the users prefer and how they use the Internet – it’s good to be up to date, but the target group is not.

Iwen Kuhn

Während seines Studiums zum Wirtschaftsingenieur entdeckte Iwen seine Leidenschaft zum e-commerce. Sein Studium finanzierte sich Iwen durch den Verkauf von Produkten über Internet Plattformen, eigene Webseiten und Social Media Kanäle - es wurde ihm schnell klar, dass er seine Zukunft im Marketing verbringen wird. 2016 fing er im Sales bei der matelso GmbH an. Von Anfang an war er begeistert von der Call Tracking Technologie und den damit verbundenen Vorteilen für das Online Marketing. Iwen ist aktuell außerdem für den Ausbau der Call Tracking Technologie von matelso im italienischen Markt verantwortlich.

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