If you’re an affiliate marketer, you’re likely looking for new ways to present your offers to people and make more revenue.
By using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone system, you can create responsive, fully automated offer experiences that can convert well.
But what are some specific ways you can use IVR for affiliate marketing? Here are just some of them.
IVR Phone Marketing: Automate, Measure, and Optimize
The beauty of an IVR is that it can do countless tasks automatically. You can set up advanced call flows that put the customer in control, and optimize the experience to their behavior. A well-tuned IVR will let customers check the availability and price of items, let them answer questions for a customized offer, and then take their orders directly.
Measure your results with the tracking methods your IVR system offers— this is crucial. Once you see patterns of what is converting within your IVR menu flow, you can optimize and improve your offers.
Well-made IVR software will give you the flexibility to easily create new menus and offer flows. Take note of what offers were declined, and which were accepted so you can fine-tune your menus and make educated forecasts about new offers you can try.
Don’t be afraid to try totally new offers and change ones that aren’t working. Testing and fine-tuning is the key to making sure your affiliate marketing offers are converting from your IVR menus. A tweak here or there could make a surprising difference, but you have to work at it continually and make sure it’s driven by data.
Also, pay attention to where you’re presenting different offers within your call flow. With a solid IVR system, you can present your customers with options to buy in a variety of places easily within the flow. Sometimes your chances of making a sale increase simply based on when the customer hears an offer.
You can use your IVR system to incredibly great effect if you work at a good automation flow, measure the results carefully, and continue to optimize your menus. If you understand the kinds of offers you’re presenting to customers, and what kind of intent they have when calling, IVR can be a powerful tool to make effortless sales and continue to improve revenue.
Hyper-Customized Caller Experiences
You can use IVR to segment your incoming calls meaningfully to maximize revenue. Customers expect and prefer a personalized experience. When set up properly, IVR will allow you to identify a number through caller ID, and treat it dynamically.
Having identified the customer, your IVR can route and prioritize your incoming calls automatically, sending them to the offer (or live agent) that is most likely to convert them into a customer. This means almost limitless opportunities for customized greetings and call flows (which help increase sales).
Let’s say you have an offer that converts well and makes you a high commission, but typically requires a conversation to take place. You can also have those calls routed to a live person, while you filter other offers to different menus.
Repeat callers are a whole new world. You can personalize a greeting to something like “we appreciate you calling back,” and depending on how much information you gather from them, you can even wish them a happy anniversary or remind them it’s time to refill their order. You can set up your IVR to identify a past customer’s purchases and offer them something new they might like based on a previous sale.
Have an offer that isn’t valid in a particular state or region? By setting that up in the call menu, you won’t accidentally share an offer with a potential customer that they can’t take advantage of. This can also be leveraged for local marketing opportunities as well, routing all calls from certain area codes to someone who may be able to speak and meet with them in person if needed.
All of these things can bring your affiliate marketing to a whole new level with an unparalleled caller experience– all automatically. We’ll talk some more about when and how to do this in the next section by covering some different types of offers you can try.
Use a Variety of Offers
Using IVR, you’ll be able to set up various types of affiliate offers and scale it easily because of the automation available through your call menus. You can be running countless offers simultaneously and let your IVR handle the heavy lifting. Here are some examples of some offer types you can try and when they might be the best option.
Offer Walls
These are a great way to let the customer choose what they’re interested in. An audio offer wall can be presented at the beginning of your call menu with a simple prompt that gives the customer various options based on why they’re calling in.
For example, if someone is calling for insurance, you can use an offer wall like: “If you’re interested in auto insurance, press 1, if you need home owner’s insurance, press 2, to hear another personalized insurance offer, press 3.”
Bypass
As you get sales, you’ll gather information about your customers, and you’ll see which offers to convert. This will help you identify which customers are perfect for certain offers based on their profile and your data. When you have someone call in, if at any point in the offer their inputs identify them as a “hot lead” you can have the call menu route that person directly to an agent.
For example, let’s say you present an offer for a financial institution that can help people refinance their homes. Then the person in the call menu indicates they have a high credit score. Now you can automatically route that call directly to an agent who’s ready to help this qualified customer.
On Hold Offer
Sometimes, no matter how convenient your IVR makes things, you’ll have people that insist on talking to a live person. That doesn’t mean that your opportunity to sell them an affiliate offer through your call menu has passed completely, though.
When the customer asks to be routed to a live agent, it’s likely they’ll be on hold for some amount of time. This is the perfect opportunity to give them a recorded pitch that’s in alignment with what they’re calling in about. If you ensure that the pitch has a high value to cost ratio, you just might get a conversion.
Tripwire Offer
When is a customer most likely to buy from you? Some say it’s when they just bought from you. Using a “tripwire” offer is essentially presenting something very inexpensive (and often low-risk) to the customer for an easier sale. Once that sale is complete, you present them with another offer that attempts to upsell them.
On your tripwire menu, you can say something like: “We appreciate your business. Thank you for purchasing our amazing new course on how to build a successful online business. We have a special, one-time offer for you because you invested in that course. If you press 1 now, you can get over $3,000 worth of bonus materials for almost 89% off.” The idea is to instill “fear of loss” and capitalize on the momentum of their purchase moments before, and make the offer seem too good to pass up.
Reach Call Menu Was Built for Affiliate Marketing
We understand how to use an IVR for affiliate marketing because we built Reach Call Menu for affiliate marketing.
We understand what features and options affiliate marketers want to give them the flexibility to build amazing menus that convert.
Start converting more of your incoming IVR calls by using the most robust, affordable call menu on the planet.
Get started by talking to our team of specialists– they’ve made a shortlist of questions they want to share to help you.
Get in touch now.