Author: Storm Bennett CEO

Automotive Marketing: How to Drive More Foot Traffic to Your Business

As a local car dealership, the success of your business relies heavily on how well you’re known throughout the community and what type of reputation you have. Running a legitimate, customer-friendly business isn’t enough by itself anymore. You must get the word out to compete in today’s capitalistic society.

But things have changed. There are new ways to get people’s attention and increase foot traffic to your dealership. Automotive marketing, in some ways, isn’t what it used to be.

Keep reading for our top automotive marketing strategies, from the tried and true ways of the past to the innovative techniques of the future.

Local TV and Radio Ads

Brand awareness and recognition are some of the most important factors when it comes to making it big in your community. Simply put, people have to feel familiar with your name before they’ll have enough faith to buy a car from you. One of the best ways to plant the seed and get your name out there is with local TV and radio ads.

While many people have converted to satellite radio or streaming services for music, there is a large number who still listen to the radio in their car, at work, or even at home. Buying ad space on popular radio channels is a great way to start planting a seed.

Similarly, despite services like Netflix and Hulu, there is still a wide range of people who watch local TV programming, such as the evening news. This would be a prime spot to place commercials for your dealership.

Host an Event With a Local Charity

There’s a negative stigma out there about car dealerships. People always seem wary about them, even when it’s completely unfounded. Hosting a charity event is an automotive marketing strategy that will raise awareness to an important cause, familiarize the community with your dealership, and shed any negative stigmas.

Work with a local charity of your choice and come up with a community event. Art galas, silent auctions, concerts, and 5K races are all popular. Bring in other local businesses to raise your budget for the event, find new affiliates, and bring in more interest.

Make sure you start advertising for the event well in advance and through multiple platforms (social media, newspapers, radio ads, and more). The goal is to get as many guests as possible to attend.

Buyer Incentive Programs

Next, when it comes to buying cars, people are always looking to get the best deal possible. If there’s a way for them to save, they’ll take it.

We recommend offering new buyer incentive programs once a month or once a quarter to keep things interesting. For example, you could offer cash or mail-in rebates on any new car sales, exclusive low financing APRs, major discounts, etc.

Get Popular on Social Media

Your business needs to have at least one social media account. Did you know that nearly 70 percent of American adults have a Facebook account? That means the majority of your target audience is in one convenient location.

Gain more followers by posting engaging and valuable content and encourage your current followers to like, comment, and share. You can also host fun competitions, raffles, and more that offer an exciting prize. This will get more people engaged, helping you extend your reach.

You can also use social media paid advertising, which comes with the ability to select your target audience based on age, gender, hobbies, location, and more. Additionally, this advertising comes with analytics that will track how each ad performs (likes, comments, shares, views, link clicks). It will also show you any trends or patterns of those who engaged with your ads, such as gender, age, time of day, etc.

Use Landing Page Ads

Landing page ads are a great way to grab a user’s attention with a compelling incentive and a powerful call to action. A lot of business owners offer large discounts, exclusive content, free eBooks, and more to get people to click through.

Where they click through to depends on your strategy. You can use it to drive traffic to your website, guide users to your inventory page to check out your newest vehicles in stock, or persuade them to subscribe to your email list.

You can set up landing pages through your website, affiliate websites, and through paid ads.

Make Sure Your Website SEO Is on Point

One of the most important organic automotive marketing strategies is learning how to use SEO. Search engine optimization is an algorithm used by search engines like Google to find the most relevant websites and information based on keyword searches.

For example, if someone searches for “car dealerships near me,” your website’s local SEO will determine whether or not your site comes up in the search results. You can boost your SEO by adding a blog to your website full of keywords and media embedded with metadata. If you’re not familiar with SEO, it may be beneficial to hire a company that can help.

Affiliate With Other Local Businesses

Running a small business of any kind isn’t easy, and you shouldn’t do it alone. However, we’re not talking about bringing on business partners. We’re talking about building affiliate relationships with other local businesses for your automotive marketing.

Networking with other businesses extends your reach to other client bases. Make sure the companies you approach aren’t competitors but are relevant to your dealership. Figure out a referral strategy that will benefit both businesses.

For example, if your dealership doesn’t offer its own financing, you could approach banks and other lenders. You could also contact local insurance agencies.

Looking for More Tips on Automotive Marketing?

If you’re looking to improve your automotive marketing, we can help. Take a look at some of our professional advertising services. We offer SEO help, email automation, audio production and more.

And for a little insight into what we can do for you, contact us today for a free SEO analysis.

10 Ways to Measure Brand Awareness

80% of people crave good stories but wish brands were better at it. Creating a business brand is about telling your story. It’s about customers purchasing something and experiencing your story. Your brand should listen to your customers and communicate with them about their needs. This is why you need to measure brand awareness.

You need to see if you are listening to the needs of your customers. You need to figure out if your customers are feeling that your brand is about them and not you.

Here are 10 ways to measure brand awareness that can help you create or boost your brand to your customers.

1. Surveys

Surveys are an excellent way to measure your brand awareness. You are measuring how familiar people are with your business and what you do.

You are assessing how recognizable your business logos and products are with customers.

Surveys can be done by email, telephone, a website, or you can ask a customer in-person.

The goal is to see how well people recall your brand.

You can also see how videos promote your brand’s message in this blog post.

2. Check Your Website Traffic

You can use Google Search Console to check and optimize your website traffic.

Over a span of months, you can see on Google Search Console how much people are clicking or visiting your website. It gives you other data on what’s working on your website and what’s not.

Your website also gives you an indication if people are positively engaging with your business brand.

You can also check blog traffic and social shares in your website traffic to give you an idea of how people react to your brand.

3. Social Listening

Social listening is about why, where, and how people are talking about your brand.

You can see what people are saying on social media when it comes to your brand. You can also ask questions to generate responses.

Social listening means you are checking social engagement, social media traffic, and how often your leads are converting.

4. Leads

A consistent flow of leads is a good measure of how well your brand is performing.

It gives you an idea of people who are seeing your brand and recognize it. You should, however, assess how many leads are coming in on a week to week basis.

You should figure out how many leads are coming in and how many are converting.

5. Revenue

How many leads convert will reflect what your revenue is.

Seeing how your revenue fluctuates gives you an idea of how many customers you have and how well they recognize your brand.

You should specifically see if you have returning customers or life-long customers, which gives you a better idea of how many customers come back based on your brand and how they feel about it.

6. Video Metrics

If your business has a YouTube channel or has informational videos on your website, it can give you an indication of how well customers recognize your brand.

Video metrics include comments and clicks. You are checking to see if your customers respond to video.

Although video is becoming more popular, you shouldn’t use it as the only metric to evaluate how your customers feel about your brand.

7. Search Volume Data

Similar to website traffic, you can also see how people find your brand organically without paid advertisements.

You are looking at metrics that see how people found your brand based on the products they searched.

This method is also an effective way to see how your brand compares to your competitors. You are seeing if people after they find your site, are clicking and purchasing or going to competitors’ sites.

8. Earned Media

Earned media refers to all the mentions and referrals you get without paid forms.

You are seeing how many people or businesses are mentioning you without your involvement. It’s a testament to how many people recognize your brand and want to mention it to others.

There are some online tools that can measure earned media. These tools can give you an idea of the number of clicks and posts from social media sites.

9. Check Reviews

Another important metric to measure your brand awareness is to check online reviews.

You should check Yelp and Google and see what people are saying about your business. It’s a good measure of what people think of your business and what kind of review they leave.

It also gives you feedback on what you can improve in your business.

More importantly, you can see what people remember most from your business, which also gives you an idea of brand awareness.

10. Employee Brand Advocacy

Lastly, employee brand advocacy is measuring how many employees talk about your business.

An example is using actual employees in advertisments instead of paid actors. By doing this, you are showing how authentic your business is.

Employees understand everything about your business, which is why they are great advocators.

In addition, employees understand your brand, your mission statement, and the story you telling. It’s one of the most authentic ways to spread your brand.

You can measure employee brand advocacy by looking at post engagements, conversions, web traffic, and other metrics.

Overall, this list of 10 ways to measure your brand awareness can give you understanding of what your customers think of your brand. The overall goal is to achieve a postive message and these 10 ways can help you achieve that goal.

Why You Need to Measure Your Brand Awareness

The goal of why you measure brand awareness is to see how well people recall your business, your story. You want people to buy something and feel the story around something they bought.

Brand awareness is checking how people recall your business identity, your business story. You can boost your brand by when you understand how your customer perceives it, how aware of it they are.

For more information on marketing, you can contact us here.

5 Funniest On-Hold Messaging Service Scripts

You know the headache of being on hold with a company for several minutes. The annoying sound of elevator music plays in your ear at an insanely loud volume. Then, you’re stuck. You’re stuck listening to whatever automated script the company chooses to play on their on-hold messaging service. You roll your eyes and suck it up as you have no other option.

However, as a business owner, you have the option to use a script on your own on-hold messaging service that’ll keep your customers intrigued and make them forget they’re even on hold. Being on hold doesn’t have to be a painful experience. It can be fun when done the right way.

Don’t subject your customers to boring elevator music. Continue reading below for the top funniest on-hold messages that prove you can have fun with it!

Importance of Humor in an On-Hold Messaging Service Script

You know the pains involved with being kept on hold. As a business owner, you don’t want to put your own customers through this same pain. Instead, you want to create an on-hold message that’s humorous, fun, entertaining, informational, or just silly.

The best on-hold wait time is one that goes unnoticed because the customer is having so much fun with the message that’s playing. The type of message that you decide to play on your own messaging service is up to you, but here are a few examples to get the inspiration flowing.

1. Lakeland Auto and Marine

“Thanks for choosing Lakeland Auto and Marine. You’ll find us in Port Clinton, Ohio about 4,000 miles west of France and left or right of Lake Erie depending on which way you’re coming from. We’re also directly in line with the sun, so if you’re gonna stop by you might want to bring a hat.”

This on-hold message from Lakeland Auto and Marine is all about being silly. Their location is in their name, so it’s easy for them to have a bit of fun with where they’re located.

While customers are on hold, they’ll be laughing about the silly directions given to them and might even appreciate the suggestion to bring a hat as the sun can get quite brutal as it shines down on an auto lot.

2. Town and Country Hotel

“Thanks for choosing Town and Country the San Diego hotel with free sheets and revolutionary in-room toilets. Friendly dogs are always welcomed at Town and Country. We’ve even set aside a special area for them where they can do doggy things like running, city planning, and solving advanced puzzles that require critical thinking. Book your pet-friendly room when we return.”

This hotel had a lot of fun creating their on-hold message. It’s clear from the message that they’re a dog-friendly hotel and have special areas for dogs to run around in. Yet, instead of saying that, they decided to have some fun with it instead.

You also have to love that hint of sarcasm when explaining that they have free sheets and in-room toilets!

3. Binkelman

“Lots of people fantasize about making love to Continentals Maximizer Prodrive selection analysis software, and we understand why. It helps design a fish and power transmission belt drives for your drive system. You just answer your drive specifications, and Maximizer Pro shows you belt options that will deliver the maximum energy savings for your application. That’s pretty hot, I know, but while Maximizer Pro is all out freaky sexy, it’s also cold and emotionally unavailable, so please don’t fall in love.”

Here’s a company that’s product is software. An otherwise boring topic of discussion, software in this on-hold message is seen in a whole other light. This company uses its message to convince its customers that the software product is desirable.

The message also tells a little bit about the software as well, which works out well for an informational message. The message ends with a silly statement that almost makes the customer feel attached to the product!

4. Walter’s Goodyear

“”Are you afraid of robots? Well, who isn’t? They’re creepy and their internal oils could leak on your couch and your pants, but it’s time to get over our fears so Walter’s Goodyear has hired a robot to answer our phones. Say hello to Vince. “Nice to meet you.” Vince why don’t you tell our friend about our 1795 oil change. “It is an oil change that cost 17 dollars and 95 cents.””

This company uses a fun message with a human voice speaking with a robot that the company hired to tell customers all about their services. The human voice on the recording is funny and uplifting and the robot’s voice sounds more artificial. The robot goes into details about the services offered and this makes it informational, but fun!

5. Rumpf

“Is stress getting the better of you? Then take trombone lessons and eat more horse meat. Romantic trombone music has been clinically proven to reduce the effects of the hormone cortisol and, of course, the unique molecular structure of horse meat stimulates the deeply suppressed urge in humans to gallop, and it’s hard to be stressed when you’re galloping. Take it from us, we’re galloping to the phone right now to take your call and we couldn’t be more relaxed.”

This company decided to address the topic of stress to its customers on hold. How ironic is that? Yet, this makes the message quite interesting.

The message also ends with a funny statement that they’re galloping over to the phones right now to answer the customer’s call! Customers can have a good laugh while waiting for someone to gallop on over.

What’s Your On-Hold Messaging Service Script?

Do you have an on-hold messaging service script? What does yours sound like? Is it fun and uplifting, or is it boring elevator music?

Bring your customers some light-hearted fun while on hold with your business. Click here to receive a quote on on-hold messages and phone greetings!

7 Simple Ways to Make Killer Radio Commercials

The startling fact is that 92% of Americans still listen to AM/FM radio, despite the plethora of digital platforms available. That’s higher than TV viewership (87%), or the use of PCs (54%), smartphones (81%), and tablets (46%). Most people use the radio to listen to the latest music, popular talk shows, or their favorite sports broadcast. From a marketing perspective, radio is still an effective way to reach your target audience. We’ve compiled a list of nine simple ways to make the most of those radio commercials, lasting a mere 10, 15, 30, or 60 seconds. Check it out!

1. Create Attention-Grabbing Radio Commercials

With a 60-second commercial, you’ve got 15 seconds at most to grab the attention of your audience. Your ad needs to answer the following listener questions quickly:

What’s in it for me?
How will this product/service make my life or the life of someone I know easier, happier, or better?

Remember that most people are not interested in the detail of innovative products. They simply want to know if it is better in some way than what came before. Once they get that message, you’re half-way to winning them over as a buyer, because they will listen more attentively to the rest of the ad.

2. Good Sound Quality

Unlike television or online ads, radio has no visuals. This means that it’s critical to get the sound production right. Poor sound quality, annoying voices, and other glitches will not endear the audience to your product or service! While the wording of your advert is important, how it is heard is paramount.

The best adverts are those with a clever script that sounds good too. Employing professional sound technicians, and voice-over professionals, is well worth the investment. It could be the difference between an ad campaign bombing out or being a run-away success.

3. Invest In a Good Jingle

Jingles are one area where opinion is divided. That’s because we have all heard bad, corny jingles.

The hallmark of a good, catchy jingle is that it can easily be sung by a wide range of people. Besides that, the lyrics of the jingle need to be clearly enunciated and include the name of your brand or product. Jingles can also include useful information, such as a telephone number or web address.

It is a well-known fact that people find it easier to remember songs than plain old prose. If you want your product ad to feature a brand jingle that millions of people will remember for decades, then invest in a good jingle.

Just as with the rest of your advertising copy, your jingle should include a call to action. Both the jingle and your copy provide ample opportunity for creativity. Use it!

4. Get The Right Time Slots

Most radio stations have a scale of fees depending on the time slots you choose for the airing of your radio commercials. Don’t fall for the trap of selecting the cheapest time slots. They are the cheapest because very few people are listening during those hours.

You need to tailor your time slot to your target audience. For example, if you manufacture breakfast cereals for children, the best time to air the radio commercial is at breakfast time, when kids will be listening. They will nag their parents to purchase the cereal in question they next time they are at the supermarket!

Similarly, advertising sportswear is best done in the commercial breaks during a sports broadcast. Advertising sportswear at breakfast time, or breakfast cereals during the live broadcast of an evening basketball match just doesn’t make sense.

As well as tailoring your time slot to the most appropriate target audience, you also need to tailor your budget to produce a full-length ad campaign.

5. Get Your Ad Frequency Right

You need to build recognition of your brand or product. It is said that someone has to hear an ad three times before they recognize it. Most advertising agencies will recommend that your ad is aired 21 times per week for 52 weeks in succession so that you gain optimum frequency and recognition.

Too many ads in one time period and your listeners will get sick of hearing your ad and zone out. Too infrequent an airing and no one will even remember you advertised in the first place.

Rely on your public relations and marketing consultants to interpret your marketing data for you, and recommend the best way forward on the frequency of your radio commercials.

6. Keep Them Nibbling At Those Sound Bites

Everything is a process. Once your listening audience gets used to hearing (and liking) your radio advertisements, you need to start an ancillary or follow-up campaign.

Big-brand advertising is very careful about phasing out the old ad and introducing the new one. You don’t want to upset the listeners too much by suddenly depriving them of their favorite ad!

7. Get the Right Radio Station

Consider the location of your business and the reach of your product based on reliable target audience data. For instance, there is no point in creating a radio advertisement that’s played exclusively on East Coast radio stations when your business and most of your customers are on the West Coast. There are three things you can do to find what you need.

Search for US radio stations by State. Alternatively, check out surveys to find out which are the most popular radio stations.

The third option, and perhaps most viable if you want to link your radio commercials to your other online platforms, is to choose to sponsor a local online radio station.

Online radio broadcasting has the advantage of being both national and global in its reach and can be a particularly good choice for those of you who have niche products or services.

Engage Marketing Consultants

A PR company like Killer Spots Agency knows what they are doing. We have made it our business to develop in-depth knowledge of all aspects of audio production.

As an award-winning marketing company, we invite you to listen to the countless samples of radio commercials that we have produced Contact us via live chat or get a quick quote via virtually any page on our website. We can certainly point you in the right direction, and soon have you coming out sounding like a symphony!

5 Tips for Writing a Jingle That Will Get Stuck in People’s Heads

Are you struggling to keep your company top of mind for customers? Wish there was a way to better communicate your brand and its unique offerings, and captivate audiences everywhere? Then you may want to write a jingle!

Not sure what a jingle is, or how you should approach writing one? Intimidated by the idea of embarking on such a creative venture? We’re here to help!

In this article, we’re sharing the ins-and-outs of creating a killer jingle. So, you can write a catchy tune that sticks with customers long after they’ve listened.

What Is a Jingle?

When you hear of a certain brand, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps it’s the song in the commercial, the catchy one that speaks to what the brand is and what they do. Like carpet cleaning company Stanley Steemer commercial tune: “Call 1—800 STANLEY-STEEMER, Stanley Steemer keeps your home cleaner!”

That song is a jingle, which is a radio or TV advertisement set to a memorable melody or tune. A jingle is usually explicitly written about a brand and its products or services. And its sole purpose is to tell customers about a brand in a way they’ll remember.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to what to include in a jingle. The jingle lyrics can include a slogan, a phone number, a business name, or even a description of the services they offer. Anything is fair game.

What Are the Benefits of Having a Jingle?

Now that you know what a jingle is, you’re probably wondering why you’d invest in creating one. Here are some of the major benefits of using a jingle for your advertising efforts.

They’re Easy to Remember

With so many companies and services out there today, it can be hard to stay top of mind for customers. But with a good jingle, you can stick in their head all day and have people consciously (and subconsciously) speak about your business.

Jingles can help you communicate your brand and value in a fun, memorable way. With one, you can be the first company customers think of when they’re in need of a particular product or service.

They Build Up Your Brand

A great jingle does more than make your brand memorable—it makes it fun and accessible. Jingles make brands approachable and can help communicate your brand voice and tone in a more effective way than print advertising. A lighthearted jingle can make customers feel good, and in turn, may make them want to engage with you and your brand.

They’re Cost-Effective

Advertising can be expensive—especially if your products or services are ever-expanding or changing. Jingles can help you establish a brand baseline that you can build upon for all your advertising efforts. So, when changes are necessary, you can simply tweak a line or two to reflect your new offering without losing what makes your jingle special.

Tips on Writing a Jingle

Jingles can be incredibly effective —when done right. Unfortunately, it’s easy to write a jingle that turns off customers or makes them think poorly of your brand. Fortunately, if you follow these tips you can ensure your jingle is fun, memorable, and making a positive impact on your business.

1. Know Your Product

To write a great jingle, you need to know what your product is, and what makes it unique. Before you start to write, jot down a list of everything you think a customer needs to know about your products. Be sure to lead with all of its unique or special attributes as these are the things that will resonate most with customers.

2. Know Your Competitors

Another thing you’ll want to do before writing is to study your competitors. Do any of them have jingles? How do they differentiate themselves from others or position their unique selling points?

It’s important to know these things if you want to create a jingle that’s distinctly yours. The last thing you want is an advertisement that brings your competitors to mind. So, do your homework in advance and create a jingle that can stand above your competitors.

3. Make It Simple

The best jingles are simple and easy to remember. They use repetition and rhyme and keep the language simple. Remember that recall is the most important part of a jingle—so focus on simplicity first and foremost and avoid using flowery words or jargon.

Figures of speech can be a fun and effective way to make your jargon simple and snappy. Try to incorporate puns, hyperbole, and even similes to make your song unique and effective.

Keep in mind: your jingle should be simple enough that anyone can recite and understand what it’s communicating. Be sure to choose your words wisely and err on the side of simplicity. And make sure it ties into your overarching brand story.

4. Listen to Famous Jingles

It sounds simple, but you can’t write a great jingle without knowing what one sounds like. Take some time to scour the Internet and listen to as many as jingles you can. Think about which ones work and which ones don’t, and why that may be the case.

Analyze some of the most famous jingles—ones like Fanta and Kit Kat. What makes them a success? What do they say about the brand, and how does the jingle effectively communicate their brand offering? By knowing what works about these jingles, you can better write your own.

5. Choose the Right Music

When it comes to a jingle, the music is just as important as the lyrics. The music and tempo have to be appropriate so the jingle can easily be sung by the voiceover artist (and whoever is listening along). And it should be in whatever music genre that would gel most with your target audience.

Additionally, if you plan to use an existing tune, be sure to make sure you’re legally able to do so. No one wants a nasty legal battle because of a jingle.

Ready to Write a Jingle?

Writing a jingle can seem intimidating, especially if you’ve never written one before. But it’s not impossible if you work at it! By following the tips in this article, you can write a memorable jingle that customers will remember for years to come.

Looking for more help? Check out our jingle production services!

E-VO-lution: Why Brands Have Moved Away from “Announcer Voice”

For years, the “announcer voice” was the go-to for commercials, televised events, radio ads, and of course movie trailers. You know the voice: deep, clear, almost inhuman, but authoritative. When an announcer voice showed up you knew to pay attention because, well, you didn’t have much of a choice with that booming voice going on.

Now, you don’t hear the announcer voice too much. It’s fallen to the wayside in favor of other types of voiceovers, particularly the conversational tone. If you’ve ever wondered why that might be, keep reading to find out!

How Did Announcer Voice Start?

Announcer voice makes a lot of sense on paper. If you’re trying to be heard, talking in a loud and overpowering voice ensures that people will listen and put some sort of priority on your voice. If we go way back to the days of town criers, newspaper boys, and circus announcers, the voice makes a lot of sense as the speaker is trying to get their message out over the sounds of a crowd.

The exact origins of announcer voice aren’t well known, but the trend seems to go a long way back. The Mid-Atlantic accent is one place to look. It is a blended English and American accent used by actors in the early 20th century for its mixture of poshness and accessibility.

This made up accent became the norm in many films, used by people such as Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. From there it became desirable and was taught to aspiring actors in schools. Now, it seems the industry wants nothing to do with it.

Move Aside, Announcer Voice

One problem with the announcer voice is its tone, often described as “parent-child” read. When someone talks in an announcer voice they’re placing themselves above you, telling you what you should think about something, and demanding that you listen to them. This worked fine in the beginning, but now it comes off as condescending and untrustable.

Nobody likes to be talked at, which is the main reason that announcer voice has died. Another reason is that the announcer voice saps all humanity out of the speaker.

If you’ve heard any number of movie trailers from the 90s and before, you’ll notice that all the announcers sound nearly identical. The voice ends up being cast in our minds as being “corporate” and “cold”, like some sort of company robot. Humans identify more with other human voices and respond better to a more conversational tone rather than one that’s not only telling us how to think but telling us how to think in a strange voice.

Some companies still choose to go with a more conventional narrator, such as car commercials, and even a lot of radio ads for things like furniture stores. These companies may be following an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality or may be paying homage to these old-school narrators that once dominated the field. There’s a certain nostalgic quality to hearing a booming narrator now that will work for some people.

The Rise of Conversational Speech

Nowadays, people want an announcer or narrator that they can relate to. People don’t want someone whose voice is stiff, overly-rehearsed, and booming like those radio announcers of old. Instead, they want someone they can imagine having a conversation with, and maybe a little jingle to top it all off.

These more approachable and conversational announcers are sometimes known as non-announcer announcers. They’re a lot easier for a listener to connect with, and much more approachable. When the announcer speaks like an actual human, it makes the listener feel less like they’re being advertised to or told what to do, and more like they’re being informed or spoken to by a person rather than some machine.

The two things a company should strive for in advertising is trustability and relatability, and a non-announcer voice makes this much easier.

How to Talk Conversationally

While the announcer voice is commonly referred to as parent-child read, the more conversational side can be referred to as peer-to-peer. The perfect voice-over actor will sound like they’re speaking to a peer and telling them about something. Keep the voice and tone relaxed, don’t use words that are too fancy or “industry deep”, and above all else don’t come across as condescending.

The conversational announcer is still able to speak loud and clear without sacrificing the conversational tone. They can use simple, relatable language and allow subjectivity into their delivery. As a voice-over actor, don’t tell the listener what they should be thinking, rather tell them what you think about a product you’re announcing, as if you’ve tried it yourself.

Put some emotion in your speech and try to relate with the listener, don’t try and sell to them so explicitly.

The last thing people want now is an announcer that sounds like they’re reading from a script. This is unavoidable at times, but the more the voice sounds like real human speech — being made up on the go — the more the listener will be able to relate. Script-read announcing just brings people back to the corporate robot and makes them all-too-aware they’re being advertised to.

Get Conversational

The announcer voice is dead, and it probably won’t be coming back any time soon. Times change and so do peoples’ preferences. Nobody wants to be talked at by their television sets or radios anymore.

People want deeper connections and trustable announcers behind their products. Using a conversational tone is the best way to achieve this.

If you’re looking to hire a voice actor, check out our product page and find out how you can do just that. Feel free to contact us with any comments or concerns.

How to Make Brand Videos That Enhance Your Company’s Message

While developing their marketing strategies for 2020, more companies have decided to add brand videos to the mix. In fact, marketers who use video in their branding grow revenue 49% faster than non-video branding. However, you need to make sure your videos properly portray your brand first.

Don’t rush it. Instead, make a plan and stick to it!

Here are eight tips to help you improve your brand videos this year. With these tips, videos can communicate your brand and help you connect with customers.

Ready to give your brand a boost? Get started with these eight essential tips for the best brand videos!

1. Determine Your Goals

The first step to creating the best brand videos is to determine what you’re hoping to achieve in the first place.

For example, are you trying to increase brand awareness for your company or a new product? Maybe you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Either way, video marketing can help you get there!

Knowing your goals will help you determine what type of content to include.

If you want to expand your brand, create videos that are entertaining or inspiring. Make your videos so engaging that viewers can’t help but share them.

If you want to establish yourself as a thought leader, consider sharing your expertise. For example, you can create an educational how-to video or provide product demonstrations. You can also create a complication of facts and stats that are relevant to your industry.

Maybe you want to inspire people to visit your website. If that’s the case, create a teaser to pique your audience’s interest. Then, you’ll entice them to click over to your website for the full content.

Brand videos can help you drive sales as well. For example, you can use videos to demonstrate new products or provide customers with helpful tips. You can also create branding videos that include a limited-time offer to encourage purchases.

Determining a goal for your branding videos can keep your videos focus.

Then, you’re more likely to achieve your goals!

2. Know Your Audience

In order to create videos that resonate with your audience, you need to know your audience first.

What problems do your customers face each day? What solutions can your product or service provide them? What videos will pique their interest?

Consider creating buyer personas for your customers. Separate them by:

Age
Gender
Marital status
Location
Income
Shopping behavior
Interests

Then, determine what your audience is already searching for. You can explore the videos your competitors have already created to see what works—and what doesn’t. What video elements do viewers respond to the most?

Maybe you’re addressing an audience that doesn’t know a lot about your industry. In that case, you’ll need to create branded videos that explain the basics. If you’re talking to experienced customers, on the other hand, you can focus on providing them with additional value.

Your messaging will differ based on your target audience. By catering your content to a specific audience, you’re more likely to attract them to your brand.

3. Use Your Voice

Your company brand consists of different elements, including your voice, tone, personality, color scheme, and logo. Since your brand videos are an extension of your company brand, they need to include some of these elements. This includes your voice and tone.

Take a look at your website copy. How do you speak to your customers? What words and phrases do you often use?

Keeping a consistent voice in your brand videos will show people your brand is consistent, too.

As a result, customers are more likely to recognize your content on different channels.

4. Visualize Your Brand

Remember, your brand is composed of visual elements as well. Try adding your brand colors to your videos. This tip can help people recognize your company’s content.

You can incorporate your company colors in the background of your video. If your office walls are painted with your company colors, try filming there! You can add photos, text, or other visual elements to your videos as well.

Adding elements that match your overall brand will help you tie various brand materials together.

Don’t forget to add your logo as well! Some companies include their logo as a watermark in the corner of their video. This can help improve brand recognition even as people continue watching your video.

5. Choose a Style

There are many video styles you can choose from. These include:

Culture
Interviews
Events
Product reviews
Tutorials
Presentations
Vlogs
Webinars
Testimonials/reviews
Animations
Behind-the-scenes
Live streaming

Consider your target audience and goals. Then, choose the type of video style that will best help you achieve those goals.

6. Shoot & Edit

Once you have a plan in place, start shooting! Consider creating a script beforehand so you can make sure to keep on track.

Don’t forget to end your video on a strong call-to-action (CTA). A compelling CTA can help you increase conversions and sales. According to this report:

Mobile video consumption grows by 100% each year
90% of customers report videos help them making purchasing decisions
87% of online marketers are using video content
Adding a video to marketing emails can increase clickthrough rates by 200 to 300%
Embedding videos on your landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80%

After creating your video, edit it thoroughly. Take this time to create a transcript, which can improve your search engine optimization. That way, more people find you and your brand videos!

7. Get It Out There

Once it’s perfect, start sharing your new video. Consider where your customers spend their time. This can include social media platforms, YouTube, or your own blog.

Don’t forget to optimize your videos with target keywords to expand your reach.

8. Analyze & Optimize

After a while, review your data. Which videos are your viewers responding to? Study each video’s analytics, including views, shares, and other metrics.

Then, use this data to optimize your future videos! That way, you can expand your viewership each time you film.

Enhance Your Company’s Image: 8 Tips for Making Brand Videos

Expand your brand! With these eight tips, you can make brand videos that resonate with your customers.

Ready to stand out from the competition? Contact us today to get started!

10 Commandments for Crafting Compelling Radio Ads

Radio is an old-fashioned medium that has both retained and grown its reach. Public station revenue has leaped from 624 million to 900 million in the last ten years. The popularity of online streaming means the numbers will only increase.

The radio audience is a devoted one, listening for an average of 106 minutes a day, but the vast majority of this time is spent during commutes.

How can a business make sure that no one changes the channel while their ad is on? A carefully crafted message is all it takes.

Discover the 10 commandments for crafting compelling radio ads below. Obey them to create something listeners will never be able to forget.

First Commandment: Thou Shalt Choose the Right Person for Thy Radio Ads

Unlike television, radio doesn’t have the benefit of visual elements to add interest. It’s all about the audio, which makes choosing the correct people to voice the ad an essential part of the planning process.

It is common for a company leader to provide the voice talent, and doing so has numerous benefits. It creates a sense of authority while increasing trust.

At the same time, it can be dangerous not to hire a professional. There is a risk of ending up with dialogue that sounds artificial or fails to portray a character effectively.

In the end, deciding who should voice a radio ad is one of the most important choices to make. It is also dependent on other elements such as content and audience.

Second Commandment: Thou Shalt Record Thy Audio Well

The best radio ad in the world will be ineffective if the sound quality is subpar. A poorly recorded ad will quickly make listeners change the channel.

Using effective equipment and taking your time are two ways to ensure the ad sounds great. Check out our article on best audio recording practices for more tips.

Third Commandment: Thou Shalt Use Appropriate Timing

Time is at a premium in the oversaturated world of radio advertising. This doesn’t just mean to keep ads short; it’s also important to consider when to air it.

Radio stations measure success in terms of listener numbers like television stations measure viewers. However, a radio listener must listen for at least 5 minutes in a quarter-hour period for their contribution to count. An effective radio ad must air during a time when the station’s audience will be listening. It must also keep them from changing the channel for as long as possible.

Fourth Commandment: Thou Shalt Elicit the Necessary Emotion

Many of the most effective ads in any format work so well because they manage to make their audience feel something. Touching the heart of an audience is wonderful, but it is also important to create the correct emotion. Determine what listeners should feel before creating the ad or risk sending the wrong message.

Fifth Commandment: Thou Shalt Cater to Thy Audience

Increasing listener numbers is great, but it is also important to ensure that the right people are tuning in. Getting someone with no interest in the product or service being advertised to listen is not a great way to encourage sales.

The first step of catering any message is to determine who the audience is. This is done by analyzing their demographics, habits, and other identifying factors. The next is to find out what they want or need, which is as simple as sending out a survey or poll. Lastly, figure out how to make an ad that speaks to both these elements and is relevant to the right people.

Sixth Commandment: Thou Shalt Mention the Product (But Not Too Often)

A commercial that doesn’t showcase a product or service won’t translate into profit. It’s important to clearly indicate what is being offered but not overwhelm listeners with branding.

A study on radio commercial retention showed that while mentioning a brand does help listeners remember an ad, doing so too often can have the opposite effect. Work the product naturally into the message of the ad to achieve the right balance.

Seventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Maintain Attention

There are thousands of radio stations available to listeners today. Keeping them from tuning to another channel while a radio ad is on is a matter of holding their attention.

There are numerous effective methods to keep listeners. An attention-grabbing opening line, relevant message, appropriate emotional appeal, limited-time offer, and other hallmarks of effective content will help ensure potential customers don’t touch that dial.

Eighth Commandment: Thou Shalt Provide an Enticing Offer

Radio commercials usually only have 15-30 seconds to grab a listener’s attention and prevent them from turning the channel. It’s essential to get to the point quickly and show listeners why they should care about the message being conveyed.

A sale or special promotion is a great time to run radio ads, as they entice customers to buy before the offer goes away. However, there are other ways to turn listeners into customers, such as appealing to their emotions or telling an entertaining story in the ad.

Ninth Commandment: Thou Shalt Use the Correct Format

Researchers found that, while the old-fashioned announcer-style ad is the most common, a more relatable, slice-of-life story is usually more effective. Just like a picture looks better in a beautiful frame, a radio ad becomes more effective when it uses the appropriate format.

Tenth Commandment: Thou Shalt Write Effective Scripts

All the commandments come together when it is time to create a script for a radio ad. A script serves as the blueprint for a story, and if it doesn’t convey the right message, the ad will fail.

See an example of how to format radio commercial scripts and more tips on how to write them effectively here.

Are You Ready to Start?

Has learning how to make a radio ad inspired you to use this effective outreach method in your own business? Ready to air radio ads that increase your profit and customer base?

Then check out our radio advertising services and contact us to request a quote today!

Landing Page SEO Checklist: 9 Things You Can’t Forget

So, you’re looking to make some improvements to your business website’s SEO strategy. More specifically, you want to make sure your landing page is SEO optimized.

The basic concepts behind SEO don’t change much, regardless of what page on your site you’re working on. With that being said, there are a few things to keep in mind when dealing with landing page SEO that differs from other pages on your site.

But how do you make SEO improvements to your website’s landing page? And what are some things you can do today to make your landing page more SEO-friendly? If you’re asking yourself these kinds of questions, wonder no longer, because we’re here to help!

In this article, we’ll give you 9 SEO tips and tricks that you can use to help you make your landing page rank higher on search engines. Now then, let’s get started!

1. Simplify Your Navigation

One of the best ways to make sure your landing page is SEO-friendly is to keep your site’s navigation simple and easy to use. The last thing you want to do is to make it hard for users to find whatever it is they’re looking for on your site.

A good rule of thumb is if it takes more than three clicks to find something on your website, it’s too complex.

2. Check Your Page Speed

One of the biggest things that search engines are looking for is websites with short loading times.

Remember, the last thing a site like Google wants to do is recommend a user to a site that takes forever to load. It makes them look bad and can lead to them losing users, which isn’t what they want. So make sure your site loads fast without any delays.

Not sure if your site is fast enough?

Google offers a neat speed checker tool that is easy to use and will tell you if your site is up to par. And if you get a bad grade, don’t worry. Google will even give you a few tips on how you can speed up your site!

3. Go with a Single Column Layout

Remember, poor user experience is going to lead to users closing your site and going to another fast. And if that happens too often, Google will flag your site, which means you can’t rank as high for your desired keywords.

Next to website speed, layout issues are the next most common reason as to why folks close out of a site after a few seconds. So keep it simple, and go with a single-column layout so users can find what they’re looking for in seconds.

4. Make Sure You’re Mobile-Friendly

Did you know that over 50% of all web traffic in 2018 came from mobile devices? That’s a stat that is expected to rise over the next five years as people continue to use mobile devices more. Because of this, search engines will no longer rank sites that aren’t mobile-friendly.

Not sure if you’re site’s mobile-friendly? Use Google’s mobile-friendliness checker to see if you check that important box!

5. Don’t Go Overboard with Media

One of the quickest ways to slow your site down is to overload it with media like pictures and videos. And again, if your site doesn’t load fast, search engines aren’t going to rank it near the top search results.

So keep it simple and use media when necessary, like to break up large walls of text. Make sure that all images and videos you use are cropped and compressed for optimal loading speeds.

6. Use Whitespace Design

Legibility is a huge part of having an SEO-friendly website. One of the best ways to keep all of the content on your website easy to read is to use whitespace design.

Whitespace design is less about color choice and more about making sure there’s plenty of negative space between page elements. This helps the content flow well and is easy on your user’s eyes, which is what you want.

7. Format Your Text Properly

Another way to make your site more legible and easy to read is to format bodies of text properly.

A few tips on how to do this? Use paragraphs, break up your text with media and don’t write too much, especially on your landing page. It may also help to emphasize important information with a large, bold print.

8. Use Legible Fonts

When it comes to legibility, the last tip worth remembering revolves around fonts. While it may be tempting to try and be different from everybody else with your fonts, it’s important to pick fonts that are easy to read.

This will help keep users around for longer, which is again, something search engines care about. So whether it’s various headings or your base content, pick fonts that are easy to read.

9. Use Your Keywords the Right Way

When it comes to SEO on your site’s landing page, keywords play a huge part in helping you reach your goals. By placing your keywords in the right spots, you can boost your rankings for those keywords.

So where do you need to put your keywords? In the content on your landing page, in alt tags for your images, and in your website’s description. That way search engines can identify your site and that landing page with those right keywords.

Keyword stuffing is bad, however, and should be avoided. Only use the same keyword a few times, and try to make things sound natural. Search engines are smart and will flag you for keyword stuffing.

Landing Page SEO Strategies and Techniques

There you have it—a few landing page SEO strategies and techniques that you should keep in mind for your business website!

As you can see, user experience is a huge emphasis. So try to put yourself in your user’s shoes and make decisions that you think will improve their experience on your site.

A good place to start is to make sure your site’s navigation is simple and easy to use and confirm that your site is both fast and mobile-friendly.

Use a single-column layout, white space design, and legible fonts. Also, format your text well and break things up with media, but don’t go overboard with the media, either.

Looking for more website design tips and tricks? Check out our blog!

Social Media Calendar Planning: 7 Tips to Stay Organized

According to recent findings, over 3.5 million people use the internet, and roughly two-thirds of those people spend some of their online time logged in to social media. It’s crucial that your business takes advantage of these established online communities by making their presence known across platforms. Why? So that social media users take the time to navigate away from Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and over to your business’s website – which is why calendar planning is important.

As a business owner, you may feel that you don’t have any time to spare to run multiple accounts. However, with a little bit of calendar planning, it doesn’t have to cost you much in time!

We’re here to give you some pointers on how to utilize social media calendar planning to keep your online presence streamlined, organized, and geared for success. Read on for 7 tips that will change the way you think about social media!

1. Post Consistently

For your social media presence to be effective, you need to have followers and continue to grow that fanbase. But when social media users come across accounts that rarely post, they have a tendency to move on.

Dumping a ton of content periodically won’t work, either. In fact, this will likely come across as spam for the followers you do have.

Use your calendar planning time to decide how frequently you want to post and on what days you want your new content to go live. This doesn’t have to be every day, but it should be a few times a week if you want to draw attention!

2. Have Fun with Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to tap into the social media hivemind and find out what’s trending. Plus, having fun with trending content is a great way to humanize your business and show that you have a silly side!

One way to take advantage of hashtags is to tap into the always-growing National Days phenomenon. We’ve seen everything from National Dogs Day to National Broadcast Traffic Professional’s Day. Take a glance at the official National Days website and map out a few that you can create some fun and relevant content for—and don’t forget the hashtag!

3. Think Beyond the Business

Of course, you want to drive up your sales with your social media, but not every post needs to link to a product or service directly. Find topics that generally relate to your business and create content surrounding those topics. The goal is to attract attention, show off your expertise, and avoid boring people with a constant stream of strictly promotional content.

Optimize your results with these kinds of posts by hiring SEO professionals to help you generate ideas. They can uncover the most sought after information within your niche so that you answer the internet’s most burning questions!

4. Know Your Creatives

As you’re planning your social media content calendar and taking notes from social media professionals, you’ll notice that social media content tends to be very diverse. We mentioned SEO-fueled articles, which will be best handled by a content writer. There are also high-quality pictures, videos, infographics, and more.

Don’t expect that one person in your office will be able to perfect all of these content styles. Take stock of your employees’ strengths and delegate types of content accordingly.

5. Know Your Platforms

Don’t expect that you can upload the same content across all of your social media platforms. Social media experts will tell you that different types of content perform better on some platforms than others, and you should cater your content to each platform.

For example, longer videos tend to do well on Facebook, in part because they won’t get cut off in the middle and require viewers to navigate elsewhere to watch the rest (which they probably won’t). Stylized photos and short clips do well on Instagram. Twitter is designed for short-form blurbs, especially of the humorous variety.

Don’t start your calendar planning before you know what works best and where!

6. Hold on to Old Calendars

One of the best things about social media content calendars is that they can prevent you from repeating old content. However, with consistent and frequent posting over a number of months or even years, you’re bound to forget that you already made a certain joke or posted about a certain topic awhile back.

When it’s time to draft up a new content calendar, break out the old ones to cross-reference. It’s okay for posts to bear some similarities, but you don’t want to post content that appears stale to your longtime followers.

7. Adjust When Necessary

Calendar planning isn’t meant to be rigid. It saves you the headache of coming up with new ideas on the fly every few days, but be prepared to adjust your plans when it seems necessary.

Let’s say you roll out a hashtag that you’ve planned to incorporate into the rest of your posts for the foreseeable future. After the first few months, it isn’t gaining steam. Or perhaps you’ve decided on a series of online contests, but people don’t seem to engage with them and it’s not worth the money you’re investing in the prizes.

Allow yourself the flexibility to change directions, even if you’ve planned heavily around a certain style of content. Social media can be a very trial-and-error-based process, especially when you’re in the early stages!

Boost Your Business with Calendar Planning

Social media calendar planning is a great way to set your business up for success. It gives you the opportunity to do a bit of research and find new ways to reach new customers in the digital age. It also saves you the time and stress of coming up with things on the fly, which can lead to inconsistency and incoherency.

If you’ve read through these tips on calendar planning and still don’t feel up to the task, don’t hesitate to invest in a professional social media team. At Killer Spots Agency, our social media team is ready to come up with a strategy for you and even manage your social media interactions!

Contact us for help with your marketing and outreach strategies, whether you want to take them the internet, the television, or even the radio!

9 Video Advertising Trends of 2019

Television commercials and traditional advertisements are becoming a thing of the past.

As the next generation of tech-focused consumers saturates the marketplace, keeping up with these advertising trends is important. You either adjust your strategies or you risk having to close your doors for good.

So, where are consumers getting their information these days?

90% have said that they discover new brands through YouTube ads. 80% of shoppers say that they tend to switch between online search and video when deciding what to buy.

Set yourself and your brand up for success by plugging into the “show don’t tell” mindset. Keep up with current trends in advertising and generate quality video for the greatest potential of return on ad spend.

Here are 9 advertising trends for 2019 to get you started!

1. Web-Based Video Content

Focusing on optimizing your advertisements for web users gives you great potential for organic traffic.

More than ever, people are leaving behind paid television programming to switch to web-based streaming entertainment.

Reach them here by providing high-level, professional videos that give the best view of your products or services.

2. Full-Funnel YouTube Advertising

One of the best features of video advertising is that it offers you the chance to cater to the full advertising funnel.

Reach your target customers at the brand awareness level with lighthearted, catchy videos.
Generate interest by showing them how much better or easier their lives will be with your product or service.
Compare your product with similar products to help answer questions they may have in the evaluation phase.
Get them committed to your product by offering incentives, guarantees, or support.
Finally, reel them in by offering special sales and deals at the purchase level.

By offering specialized content at each level, you will be optimizing this marketing strategy in full force.

Bonus: Take advantage of this structure by shooting all of your material at once. Tell your whole story and then chop it up and distribute it where it fits in the buyer’s journey.

3. Over-The-Top and In-Stream Advertising

OTT advertisements refer to those short, 5-15 second ads that play on streaming platforms that a viewer can’t skip.

This style of advertising allows you to lump viewers together into different groups so that you can target them based on their user profiles.

More and more people are switching to streaming alternatives for entertainment. Every platform requires the viewer to create an account or profile. This gives you access to their personalized data information like their region, age range, and viewing trends.

With over 70% of in-stream ad impressions on Facebook viewed to completion with the sound on, this is a valuable way to get your information out.

Additionally, you can control what sort of content shouldn’t be appearing alongside your ads. For example, if you’re running an ad to help people quit smoking, you won’t want a cigarette brand’s ad running alongside it.

4. Mobile-First Advertising Trends

Customers are more likely to shop online with their phones over any other means. It is vital that video advertising (and online shopping platforms) be compatible with this format.

Keep social media formatting in mind when producing video content. Many shoppers rely on clickable and shop-able social media ads. If you are showing them content, make sure they can click through to make their purchase, otherwise, you run the risk of losing them.

5. Customer-Made Content

Customers are more likely to trust the information or opinions of their peers on the Internet over those of a mega-corporation.

Take advantage of this by encouraging opinionated customers to share their experiences. This can be an actual video testimonial or a rave review they left on your site.

6. Influencer Content

Are you a new company or perhaps an established one looking to generate some positive feedback? Buy into social media influencers!

Depending on your product, this can be a powerful way to get your brand in front of a lot of people in a short amount of time.

For a current customer, you can offer them a gift card or free merchandise to introduce new products. Encourage them to focus on their continued business with you!

For new customers, focus on your brand and key products or services. Offer the influencer free product or services that they can review and explain.

Generally, it’s best to establish an agreement for how long your product review needs to stay on their platform. It’s also important to make sure they know you may use their images and video in your advertising campaigns.

7. Graphic or Animated Videos

Blend graphics, text, or animated characters in your video ads. This can be an easy way to tell a story for anew or online exclusive brand people may not have heard of yet.

Bring your blueprints or digital layouts to life in anticipation of a grand opening, use text or customer reviews to tell a story, or animate with generic characters to give viewers a chance to imagine themselves in their place. This creates a much more inclusive branding statement.

8. Cinemagraph Advertisements

Cinemagraphs are cool photo and video hybrid advertisements. Set the tone in your static advertisements by catching the viewer’s eye with some motion.

Some examples are a few strands of hair blowing in the wind, a single blinking streetlight, waves crashing on the sand, or sparks from a campfire.

Generally, a viewer will spend more time looking at a Cinemagraph ad than a photo because they want to see what else is moving. This means greater absorption of your messaging and higher potential for ROAS.

This advertising trend brings life and variety into your messaging, without distracting away from it.

9. Television Commercials

That’s right, television should still be on your radar folks! Don’t alienate or ignore your more traditional customers by forgetting to occasionally advertise on TV.

Think about the types of ads you are working on for the digital market and play to those trends for TV as well. Delight your viewer with ads that they won’t want to leave the room for or fast-forward through. Hit them right away with exciting content so they stick around for your messaging.

Where to Start

For newer, smaller, or more traditional companies, video advertising trends like these may be daunting.

But depending on your customers’ age, lifestyle, region, and shopping habits, video production could be a game-changer for your business! Learn more about your customers and decide what would be the most beneficial avenue to get them your information.

If you’re ready to get started on your video marketing strategy, contact us today.

7 Simple Tips to Create the Perfect On Hold Message

Everyone hates being placed on-hold. Especially when time is short and your customers are busy. If you run a popular company but you care about your employees, you know the importance of an excellent on-hold message.

Your on-hold message can be the difference between a hang-up and a customer that stays in it for the long haul. What’s more, on-hold customers present you a unique opportunity in today’s world– a highly engaged audience.

Marketing experts fork out millions every year to target engaged audiences. But you’ve got an entire queue-full for free. That’s why we’re here to make sure you don’t mess up this incredible opportunity by presenting out top tips for engaging on-hold messages.

Want to know how to keep customers on the line, satisfied, and excited to engage with your business? Keep reading for the 7 things you need to create the perfect on-hold message every time.

1. Start With a Greeting

To set the stage for your customer’s on-hold experience, you need the perfect greeting. Any good business greeting should include the business name. And if you have the right call-in software, you may also prefer personalizing the greeting to include the customer’s name.

But many companies also enjoy creating short slogans to highlight their business expertise.

For example, companies that are a local staple might mention how long they’ve been in business. Similarly, if your company has won awards for your products or services, you can mention it in your greeting.

2. Set Your Customers’ Expectations

Once you’ve greeted your incoming caller, it’s time to let them know what to expect from the call-in experience. Are queues full and will there be wait time? If so, make sure to tell the customer how long they can expect to wait or even what number they are in line.

Does the customer have other options aside from speaking with a representative? Then it’s time to list those other options now. And one of those options should always be the next tip on our list: an FAQ on-hold message.

3. Offer FAQs to Save Time

One of the most useful options in your on-hold message is a list of frequently asked questions. Your customer’s question may be on this list, saving them from having to wait in a long queue just to discover the answer is more simple than they might’ve thought.

Common FAQs include:

Company business hours
Business location or address
Your website

Including directions to your website is an excellent idea for companies that offer services that can also be done online. Is your customer calling to schedule an appointment? Direct them toward your website where they can set up a time online.

4. Make Wait Times Worthwhile

Once a customer is well-informed about their options, you may want to offer something useful to them. After all, the number 1 reason people hang up while on-hold is because they have better things to do than wait. Make their wait time worth it to avoid premature hang-ups.

Include details on upcoming promotions, sales, or exclusive offers. This may also be a good time to plug new services or products your customer may not be aware of. That way, your call-in customer will feel less like they’re wasting time and more like they’re getting something in return for waiting patiently.

5. Educate While They Wait

While on-hold messages can be an excellent time to up-sell, don’t make your customers think it’s all about your business. Take the time to remind your customer you care with short educational content in your on-hold message.

Gone are the days of playing boring and monotonous elevator music while they wait. Instead, customers want to be educated through your on-hold message.

One of the best ways to do this is by offering little tips and tricks that pertain to your business or industry. For example, a credit card company might offer advice on how to improve credit scores or find the best deals on interest rates.

6. Remind Customers to Leave a Review, Like, or Comment

In today’s totally online world, a review can be one of the most valuable customer interactions for a business. Not to mention getting customers to engage with you online. These things build your social proof with prospective customers and go a long way to help improve your business’ visibility in the community you operate in.

But don’t just plug your social media pages and ask for a review full stop. Make sure to let customers know that you value their opinion. Use this time to also let them know if they’ve had a negative experience in the past, you’re more than happy to speak with them about it and resolve your negative feelings.

And when possible, offer customers something in return for leaving a review or following your social media accounts. For example, many companies offer future discounts or free items in exchange for a review on Google or another popular review platform. This will not only incentivize the process but it will also show your customers you really do value their opinion.

7. Be Gracious– Say Thank You

Just as you should never begin an on-hold message without a warm greeting, you should never end a customer’s experience with anything but profuse gratitude. No one likes wasting time on hold. But when you let your customers know you recognize their time sacrifice, they’re more likely to feel like waiting is worth it.

Get a Custom On-Hold Message For Your Business

Searching for an affordable, custom on-hold message to start engaging customers at your business? Killerspots is here to help. Check out our On-hold Message Services and find out you can start improving customer satisfaction while on-hold today!