Telemarketing Media Targets Answering Machines, Voicemail.

The hottest new marketing medium allows your organization's most skilled representative to make perfectly delivered calls to your very best prospects at the rate of a million calls a day.

It's called voice mail broadcasting and it specifically targets home or business answering machines and voice mails during off hours. The new telemarketing technology leaves a digitally recorded message that sounds as warm and personal to the recipient as a call from a close friend.

Unlike traditional telemarketing, which invariably interrupts dinner, this new and effective technology provides a non-intrusive means of pitching prospects and actually getting them to call you back.

"Users include the newest dot-com company to the more traditional mortgage lenders, retailers, banks, insurers, charities, even political candidates," reports Jesse Crowe, president of Voice Mail Broadcasting Corporation, the nation's largest voice mail broadcaster. Industry experts report that companies, especially those looking to drive traffic to their website, are now the fastest growing users.

"High tech companies and those looking to capture a market want results -- and they want them yesterday," Crowe says. "For a dot-com company a month is an eternity, and they don't have time to wait for the planning, testing, execution and measurement of a traditional direct mail or ad campaign." Users of voice mail broadcasts have developed, tested, rolled out and measured the results of campaigns in less than a week, he explains.

"Cost effectiveness combined with speed is driving the growth of this new medium," Crowe explains. "With a voice mail broadcast, a quick, relevant message captures the intended recipient's attention for 25 to 40 seconds -- for less than half the cost of a direct mail letter."

So how does one target answering machines and voice mails? VMBC's technology utilizes a proprietary algorithm to determine whether a machine or a human is on the other end of the line. If a live person is detected, the system generates a busy signal or just politely hangs up. Because business-targeted calls are placed between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., and consumer-targeted calls between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., only a small percentage of voice mail broadcast calls actually get answered by warm bodies. The Irvine-based company has the capacity to make 1.5 million outbound calls a day.

One of the experts in delivering results with this new medium is Bill Hillestad, president of NextGen Marketing in Austin, Texas: "Because consumers are jaded by hype-filled sales messages, we specifically coach our clients to sound folksy -- as if they were personally leaving a message for the individual." He insists on injecting "ums" and "ahs" into messages to make them sound more natural and inviting to the listener. "Even though the messages are pre-recorded, we can still create the feeling that someone has personally called the recipient," Hillestad says. The personal touch translates to increased responses.

Voice mail broadcast campaigns implemented by Hillestad generally garner 90 percent of responses within the first two days. "A company can test and measure a campaign message or compare the results of multiple offers within a day or two," Crowe explains. "This is a significant competitive advantage and also a way to cut costs."

A Message From The President

This campaign season, some of the heaviest users of the new technology are expected to be political parties and candidates. President Clinton issued a voice mail broadcast during the last election, recognizing that people are not likely to fast-forward over a message from the President.

Crowe reports that the demand for his company's services has exploded during the past few months. The company recently opened a new call center in Irvine and had to immediately double capacity in order to meet the burgeoning demand. "Advertising agencies and traditional direct mail companies are discovering that the new technology augments results from traditional campaigns," Crowe notes. "Several, including several based in Southern California, have established new profit centers to focus on this medium."

The purveyors of this technology are quick to acknowledge that voice mail broadcasting achieves its greatest results when it complements traditional approaches such as direct mail, telemarketing, print or broadcast programs. Hillestad remarks, "When you make this medium part of an integrated marketing program, you deliver the best of both worlds and create phenomenal impact. The biggest winners will be those who capitalize on voice mail broadcasting while it is still new."

Additional information on voice mail broadcasting can be obtained by contacting Voice Mail Broadcasting Corporation directly at [phone].