Call Centers Must Comply with Changed TCPA Regulations

If your business uses a call center to market and generate leads, the revised TCPA regulations must be complied with. According to an article on Chief Marketer, the regulations set forth from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act “will require unambiguous written consent before a telemarketing call or text message,” and an established business relationship “no longer relieves advertisers of prior written consent.”

The changes in regulations are connected to the rise in mobile phone usage in the form of text alerts. Apparently, some marketers created problems when they “processed a large number of mobile leads and automatically put them on recurring text alerts."

Experts recommend that marketers employ tracking to avoid making mistakes. The new TCPA rules may make marketers nervous, but experts say that they can ultimately improve the way businesses generate leads.

Does your Mobile Marketing Campaign Comply with the Latest TCPA Regulations?

You may already be aware that in the year 2012 the Federal Communications Commission revised the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) with the objective of adding new guidelines to protect the interests of mobile wireless consumers. These regulations have been in effect since October 16th, 2013.

The revised TCPA presents both challenges and opportunities for mobile marketers. According to the new guidelines, marketers cannot send autodialed text messages for advertising purposes without the express auditable and written consent. Of course, this is not good news for mobile marketers. But before you press that panic button, remember that the changes also present a great opportunity to launch a smarter and more creative marketing campaign. 

If SMS is an important part of your cellphone marketing strategy, you will definitely want to explore newer and more effective ways to encourage more and more people to subscribe to your messages.

Make it fun and relevant

Depending upon the scope and nature of your campaigns, you may have to re-opt potential consumers. If you intend to include other advertising methods in addition to this campaign, you will probably have to do a double opt-in. This can sound daunting. But it is also an opportunity to start fresh.

What you need to do is to launch user friendly mobile opt-in campaigns to allow consumers to express their interest by giving you their phone number and/or email address and permission to send messages to them. Remember that quality and quantity are not always mutually exclusive. You cannot expect consumers to opt-in if you do not give them something of value.

Offer content to gain consent

Under the revised TCPA guidelines, a straightforward web page can serve as written consent. This allows you to easily leverage existing resources. Offer a free app, a song download or movie clip to encourage consumers to opt in. Include a checkbox and your terms and conditions in straightforward language. When consumers check the box, they also agree to receive your text messages at the cellphone number they have provided.

Target recently tested the efficiency of this method by allowing people to download a song for free. People who were interested in downloading the song had to call a certain number to receive a message that contained a link to a landing page. The campaign asked them to check a box and reveal their email address before they could download the song. This strategy enabled Target to quadruple consumer engagement.

Launch contests and sweeps that pair social and mobile

The revised TCPA guidelines are not applicable to one time campaigns where you ask users to call or text a number to receive a message that includes a hyperlink to download a song or an app, a sweeps entry, or a single coupon. These campaigns are exempt provided that they do not contain additional advertisements. That means by adding sweepstakes to your existing marketing efforts, you can reap rich benefits. Sweepstakes can be implemented pretty easily. They are also a great mechanism to measure the efficacy of your media placements.

Here is how Wendy took advantage of this: To promote their new sandwich launch, Wendy offered their customers several prizes for uploading a video clip shot with a mobile phone. They launched a mobile-optimized website for the campaign, included a hashtag and allowed participants to upload the video on Twitter, Vine, or Instagram. The participants had an opportunity to win an American Express gift card worth $6,000. The campaign was hugely successful.

There is a certain degree of ambiguity and uncertainty around recent regulatory changes. But launching marketing campaigns that comply with the guidelines are not all that difficult.

 

Tech Support Teams – Can’t Live Without Them

You might think that “tech support” involves some lowly and dismal tasks. People in this department have to deal with irate, screaming voices. They’re sometimes aware of how a problem can be resolved, but cannot do so because they don’t have the required authority.

Tech support jobs are for the poor slobs without alternative job prospects, true? If you think so, you’ve got your tech support concepts upside down. You're overlooking important channels for sales, marketing, and product development.

Your company’s unexpected face

Most of us have been jarred by a person’s voice not matching his picture at some time. A similar thing can happen when rosy things depicted on your company website do not hold true. You keep your home page as your company’s public face. But do things stay in tandem when you actually start speaking?

Tech support is possibly the single human interaction most customers will have with you. Can you leave this task to the least paid, least-qualified and worst-treated employees?

Tech support generates sales

One tends to think the reason for having a tech support team is to answer questions and sort out confused people. But we feel that the objective of tech support is making customers do a fantastic job which involves your product.

This implies that you don't simply help them find a menu command–you try to figure out what they’re trying to achieve and assist them with it. You don't simply apologize for a missing feature – you suggest a workaround.

When you enable your customers, you’re not simply adding value to your product – you’re enhancing your entire company’s image. If you help your customer become awesome, he’ll pay you to stay awesome always. Now doesn’t that increase sales?

Good tech support - a pleasant surprise

Most people have negative things to say about tech support. When you want to know how fonts are changed, they ask you to restart the computer. If you want your billing address changed, you’re presented with three products you could buy. And other things like navigating complex menu options, waiting long periods and typing the same serial number multiple times.

A pizza supplier can earn bonus points if he delivers an unexpected free box of garlic bread with your pizza. Similarly, when tech support surprises a customer pleasantly with something additional which benefits him (not you) he’s going to be happy. He might post great tweets about your service, start following you on social platforms and encourage friends and followers to do so too.

Oh gosh! It looks like tech support has better social media outreach than your regular program of hiring interns to post gracious comments on blogs randomly. Does this surprise you?

It has been said that the best way to reach a customer’s heart is to under-promise and over-deliver. Most people don’t expect much from tech support anyway! Agreed super-fabulous tech support is great, but even merely acting like a human being puts you ahead. Answering an email with a support executive’s name at the end works better than sending an automated response.

Why give up such easy opportunities to make customers happy? Pleasant surprises are quite rare in business and if your company gets a reputation of giving them often, don’t you stand to gain?

The Changing Face of SEO in 2014

It looks like SEO finally matured in the year 2013. The year witnessed nearly 500 algorithm changes. While keeping pace with these updates was both confusing and frustrating for some people, others seem to have gained valuable insights.

The rapid pace at which Google launched algorithmic updates in 2013 suggests that SEO experts need to shift their focus from keywords to content.

Secure search and its impact on SEO

In September 2013, Google made 100% search keyword data "not provided."This finally forced experts to reconsider their strategies.

SEO changed for good in 2013. While Google has been trying to reward good content for a long time, the search giant's Hummingbird update released in 2013 reiterated the need to create great content that users would want to like and share.

Google's Panda update in 2011 clearly indicated that it was shifting its focus to content. The gradual increase in 'not provided' keywords also suggested a shift to a ranking model based on content. When Google made all keyword data 'not provided', it made adapting to change a necessity rather than an option.

Is SEO dead? Many marketers still seem to believe so. There are also some marketers who believe that while SEO has changed, they do not have to change the way they work. These are dangerous perceptions.

Before Google made all searches secure, online marketers had access to traffic and conversion rates data by keywords. That data is no longer available. That means you need to shift your focus to other areas. Rank checking tools have also lost their importance.  In 2014, if you really want to reap success you will have to move from old tactics to new tactics and you will have to implement them across your pages, search, content, and social channels.

Future SEO

The Hummingbird update puts a renewed focus on great content. Also, secure search made it necessary to measure business performance at a page level. Now you have to make the pages on your site, the pillars of your SEO. You can still pull relevant data from your analytics software at a page level and it is still possible to know which pages bring in visitors.

Integration of multiple channels

A lot of factors including search, mobile, social, local, and global determine your position in SERPs. The truth is that now you can't afford to ignore any of these channels. While keyword data is no longer available, achieving a greater rank for your page is still essential. You also need to measure rank and conversion by the type of the device because they vary on phones, tablets, and desktops.

In 2014, you will have to approach your content the Hummingbird Way. Ultimately, it is the content that attracts visitors. That requires analyzing your content at a page level. You also need to integrate and work with Google Webmaster Tools to correlate your keyword and page data.

All Data is Connected

In 2014, you will have to use more and more sources to get a complete picture of how your SEO efforts are performing.

You will have to utilize all data at your disposal. Use multiple sources like Google Analytics and Majestic SEO. You can restore keyword visibility to a certain extent by utilizing your Webmaster Tools data. And by integrating data pulled from different sources, you can still create keyword reports.

Conclusion

It has become imperative for online marketers to adapt to change. Search optimization has always been and will always be the most predominant factor in online marketing. If there is anything that has changed, it is people's perception of SEO.