Imagine you’re driving home from work. You hit a little traffic and decide to turn on your favorite satellite channel to ride it out. You let your mind wind down from the day, maybe mull over a few ideas you’d like to implement. And then, an ad comes on for just the product or service you need to turn your idea into greatness. Your exhaustion turns to excitement as you use the pause of the bumper-to-bumper traffic to dial the number given in the ad. You wait with baited breath, questions beginning to run through your head as you imagine all the possibilities this product or service can offer your business.

And you wait.

And you wait.

Your hope dissolves to anguish as you sit in an endless loop of ringing. The possibilities fade away as you put down the phone, turn off the radio and return your focus to the evening commute.

Too many times, primed customer leads fall into the abyss because of poor funnel execution. Simply providing a method for prospects to contact doesn’t mean instant conversion. When customer service is the name of the game, you need to invest in each step of the sales process to ensure you’re maximizing your investment.

Step 1: Harness the Power of the Phone

The value of the phone has often been overlooked, despite overwhelming evidence showing the power the medium continues to hold. 81% of customers still prefer to pick up the phone and call a business versus using email or online forms, particularly with the popularity of click-to-call technology on mobile search engines. Plus, inbound calls are 10-15 times more likely to convert than form leads—proving you get more bang for your buck choosing a phone number as your call-to-action over a custom URL in your satellite ads.

And just like custom URLs, dedicated phone lines for specific campaigns are a crucial part of measuring ROI of your satellite ads. In my years of experience, I have found having separate phone numbers for all campaigns—not just satellite—was extremely helpful in solving the attribution challenge so many small businesses face.

Key Takeaway: Including dedicated phone numbers as the CTA in your satellite ads ensure you not only capture more customer leads, you’re able to accurately attribute the campaigns bringing them in.

Step 2: Capture More Business With Live Answering

The holy grail of any marketing campaign—including satellite—is getting potential new customers to call you. Having these spur of the moment calls go to voicemail, or worse, an endless ring is a sure fire way to drastically reduce the effectiveness of your campaigns. 67% of customers reported hanging up in frustration when they could not reach a real person and 1 in 5 mobile calls are abandoned due to a hold-time or lack of an answer. That’s a lot of potential business being lost—fortunately, there is an easy fix.

As the head of marketing at Ruby, I had the benefit of a team of experienced receptionists answering every single call, ensuring our satellite leads were instantly connected to the information they needed. There is no doubt that reaching a live person right away was one of the key reasons all of our out-bound marketing efforts were so successful.

Key Takeaway: When you are investing so much into running a marketing campaign like satellite don’t jeopardize its success by not fully committing to having the phones manned and ready.

Step 3: Save Money By Outsourcing Your Customer Service Team

As a small business, I understand you have to be strategic about where you spend your marketing dollars. You may not be ready to invest in a hiring and training an internal customer service team—but that doesn’t mean you can’t reap the benefits of satellite campaigns now. Brick Moon Media has partnered with Ruby Receptionists to provide you with an exclusive monthly discount that gives you access to their team of highly-skilled customer service experts who serve thousands of small businesses across the country.

Ruby is well-known for their delightful receptionists and above and beyond service, repeatedly earning top marks for their amazing culture and speaking on the value of creating a customer-focused company all over the world. Plus, Ruby can provide you with toll-free numbers to include in your ads, making it easy to track each ad’s performance.

You can check out the details here—or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help you set up an account with Ruby.

Key Takeaway: You can optimize your lead funnel now by outsourcing your live answering with Brick Moon’s exclusive partnership with Ruby’s remote receptionist service.

I know it is hard enough determining where to spend your marketing dollars—believe me, I’ve been there. When you combine Brick Moon’s expertise in building, executing, and measuring successful satellite radio campaigns with Ruby’s world class live answering service, it makes investing in satellite the easiest marketing investment you’ll ever make.