Best Tips for Creating Your First Voice API Campaign

In terms of marketing and communication strategies, SMS campaigns are often lauded as the best way to connect with customers. But there is another, similar strategy that is often overlooked: voice API campaigns. Voice API is a powerful, customizable, and scalable tool that lets you send thousands of automated calls in seconds, giving you the best possible chances of standing out against the competition.

Keep in mind, voice API isn’t a magic bullet; you will need to carefully craft your voice campaigns in order to break through the noise of the digital age and get your customers to not only pay attention to, but actually act on your messages. Naturally, this creates a heavy sense of pressure that can be daunting when it comes time to craft and send your first voice API campaign.

Thankfully, there are a few quick tips that can help smooth out this process and ensure you create an effective, impactful campaign. Keep reading to go over what you need to do to create a great campaign every time (and especially the first time).

Creating Your First Voice API Campaign

There are a few basic steps to crafting a voice API campaign: load a contact list, record a message, and send the message. But it’s not quick so simple as that: you’ll face several choices as you go through this process, such as which customers to send the campaign to, whether you should record your own message, what to say in the message, and when to send the campaign.

In the coming sections, we’ll cover each of these steps and various questions you might have.

Collecting Contact Information To Grow Your Voice API Campaign List

Building a comprehensive contact list for customers is the first step to creating effective campaigns. The more customers you have access to, the more targeted you can make your messaging. This is beneficial for both your campaign subscribers and your company, as it increases value for them and potential return on investment (ROI) for you.

There are a number of different ways to collect contact information, ranging from more traditional methods, such as using signs, to more modern methods, such as offering online specials for new subscribers. You can also offer customers the option to opt-in during checkout, include opt-in methods on your website, promote your campaigns via social media, and offer subscriber-exclusive perks.

Ultimately, the methods that will work best are those that are a more natural extension of your company. If you’re a brick-and-mortar retailer, then traditional methods are likely to be successful. Alternatively, online companies will need to depend more heavily on modern technology.

Recording Your Voice Message Vs. Using Text To Speech

There are two different ways to record a voice message for an API campaign: manually record your message using a live person or use text-to-speech (TTS). Both have benefits and drawbacks.

What To Say In Your Voice Message Advertisements

The dialogue in your voice API advertising should be kept as brief as possible without sacrificing value or clarity. Tell subscribers why you are calling, what you are offering, and why they should call you back or take advantage of the offer.

The longer your message it, the less likely it is that a customer will listen to the end. Therefore, it’s important that you get to the point quickly and don’t include unnecessary information.

In terms of what you actually say, the possibilities are nearly unlimited. However, there are a few rules about what not to say: don’t advertise anything illegal or salacious, don’t reveal sensitive information, and don’t send spam. Including any of these in your campaigns can get you (rightfully) reported.

How To Create Value

Value refers to the perceived benefits customers take away from your voice API campaigns. When customers engage with your campaigns, they are offering their time and attention. In return, they expect something of equal (or greater) value. The amount of value you generate will determine your engagement rate and overall success rate.

Remember in earlier sections when we talked about increasing benefits for customers and telling them why they should call you back or take advantage of your offer? Both of those are references to creating value. And the more value you generate, the more likely it is that a customer will connect with you.

Here are a few examples of value customers could get from your campaigns: a limited-time offer, first notice of a new service, an update on their package or order, a notification when their prescription is ready for pickup, or an update on area school closures due to inclement weather.

Scheduling Your Voice Campaign

After you create your voice campaign, you can choose to send it out immediately or schedule it to send at a future date and time. Usually, the latter is the preferable option because it allows you to better target your campaigns and generates more value for your customers. Campaigns should be scheduled for whenever is most convenient for the intended customers, so that customers will be more likely to respond.

Let’s move forward with an example from the earlier section: an update on area school closures due to inclement weather. This is a time-sensitive notification and will need to go out before your customers’ children are boarding the buses or, worse, already on their way to school. Therefore, you might choose to send it at 6:00 AM the day of the closure or by 5:00 PM the day before the closure.

Include A Call To Action

A call to action (CTA) refers to the instructions you give to customers in your campaign that they must follow in order to gain the offered value. That is, the CTA tells customers how they can interact with your campaign and what the next steps are. This might be calling back, texting a keyword, or another action entirely.

CTAs are essential because, without them, campaigns are useless. If you don’t include a CTA, customers won’t know how to further interact with you and will not be able to take advantage of the sale, service, etc. you are offering.

Campaign Examples

By this point, you should have a pretty good idea of how to create a powerful voice API campaign and what you will need to decide for your first campaign. Below, we’ve included a few campaign examples so that you can see what the end product looks like:

• “Hi there! This is Sharon calling from Excellent Eyewear. Your new glasses will be ready for pickup this Thursday afternoon. Please let us know what time you’d like to come in and try them on.”
• “My name is Sean and I’m calling on behalf of New Home Lending Agency. We recently received your application and look forward to working with you. To continue the application process, please log onto your account and choose a time and date to discuss next steps with one of our consultants.”
• “Joe, this is Paula from Art Supplies Unlimited, just giving you a call to let you know what your order has been delayed. We’re sorry about the inconvenience and would like to offer you a free painting session. We sent the voucher to your email, so feel free to bring it in anytime through the end of the month.”

We look forward to seeing what you create!