12 Ways to Implement VoIP in Your Integrated Digital Marketing Campaign

By Richard Conn

A digital marketing campaign has many moving parts—content, social media, email—and there’s plenty to consider and plan. A VoIP phone system as part of a unified communications solution can help you streamline all of those moving parts while offering some added extra benefits. 

In this article, we’re going to dig into 12 different ways implementing a VoIP solution can enhance not only your digital marketing campaign, but your entire business operation. 

Let’s get started. 

But wait, what is VoIP?

If you’re asking yourself, “What is VoIP?” relax. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, which means a system that allows you to make and receive calls over the internet instead of calls placed over the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).

That means if you have an internet connection, you can make and receive calls without needing local phone service or implementing any hardwired infrastructure. You just sign up, connect, and start calling. 

By 2024, the global market for VoIP services is expected to reach $194 billion in revenue. As you can see from the chart below, the shift from landlines to VoIP has been steadily increasing for a number of years.

So now is the time to take the plunge and utilize everything VoIP has to offer. 

1. Optimize your availability 

A successful digital marketing campaign means customers calling your business at all hours of the day and night across multiple time zones. A VoIP phone service allows you to direct these calls in the best way for your business, team, and customers. 

With VoIP, you can customize call routing and forward calls to your personal phone from your business line if you’re working from home or working remotely. If you know you’re going to be unavailable, you can easily set up rules to have any incoming calls transferred to the next best contact.

2. Connect with customers 

Including a VoIP communications solution in your digital marketing campaign can help you connect with customers on a more personal level, like using a retail customer relationship management solution if you were running a brick-and-mortar operation. 

A potential client may see one of your posts on social media or read a piece of content your business publishes about a new product and reach out to your sales team for more information. The right VoIP system will help you engage and nurture that client along the sales funnel.

3. Expand your presence

Want to reach customers in a particular location, but don’t have a local presence? A fixed VoIP number allows you to utilize an internet-based phone line with an actual address assigned to it. You can set up multiple local business numbers to expand the presence of your business and appeal to new clients.

A local phone number in multiple geographic areas will allow potential clients and new customers to call you without dialing long distance or using a toll-free number. Customers will also have an easier time remembering the local number thanks to its familiarity. 

4. Give customers options

Everyone has their preferred way of doing things—ordering pizza, tying their shoes, organizing a closet, you name it. That goes for communicating with a business, too. Customers want to reach out on a channel they feel comfortable using, and a VoIP solution with omnichannel customer support gives them lots of options. 

Make sure customers can reach you on whichever channel they prefer. If a client sees your marketing campaign on Twitter but wants to call for more information, they should be able to do that easily. VoIP allows you to build on customer relationships and add a personal touch on a global scale.

5. Take advantage of analytics

A hosted VoIP system as part of a unified communications solution can provide precise, decisive analytics across all of the channels you use in your marketing campaign. Analytics allow you to customize the data you see from each channel. You can identify employee, team, and customer behavior trends. 

See what parts of your website visitors view the most, what links they click on, and when they might call. Knowing these metrics will allow you to decide what to highlight and what to improve to increase customer engagement.

6. Keep an eye on advertisements

With VoIP, you can track which numbers from different local ads receive the most traction with customers. Unique virtual phone numbers allow you to see the correlation between your campaign efforts and actual sales results.

At the same time, you can also utilize multiple phone numbers on different pages of your website to measure the performance of each page, much like real-time ecommerce analytics software. By monitoring which numbers the calls are coming in from, you can determine where your customers most often decide to take the next step in the sales funnel.

7. Enable a work from anywhere approach

With traditional desk phones and phone lines, your phone number was attached to your phone, and that was that. VoIP completely changes that; you can assign one phone number to multiple devices and give your employees their own extension. 

With their own extension, employees can work from any connected device, like their mobile phone or laptop. That means if you have people on business trips or working from home, they can still work with full functionality.

8. Reduce costs

Setting up phone lines on the POTS (plain old telephone service) can be time-intensive and cost-prohibitive. You have to pay for the infrastructure, setup, and continuous maintenance. 

A VoIP system is much cheaper to set up since it runs on infrastructure you probably already have in your office. Most systems can be set up the same day by your own team, so you don’t need to wait or pay for costly installation. You can add lines easily whenever you need to and remove them just as quickly. 

This is especially true for startups and small businesses. VoIP options allow you to choose a pricing plan that works for your business now, with the opportunity to scale growth later when you need to. As your business grows, you can add more users working from anywhere without setting up any onsite hardware.

9. Utilize call management options

Auto attendants and call management options can dramatically enhance your integrated digital marketing campaign. As potential customers reach out to your company looking for more information about your product, most likely, their first point of contact will be with an auto attendant. 

This customizable virtual receptionist can direct customers to the correct department or be programmed with essential sales information. Set up special holiday menus or special event hours. Create auto-attendant profiles and define time zones and languages for each one.

By using your IP phone number to set up an auto-attendant and utilize call management options, you’ll be providing options for potential clients and ensuring efficient customer service across multiple channels.

10. Coach smarter with call recordings

Consistent messaging is definitely a vital component of any digital marketing strategy. Making sure that the message is delivered consistently across all channels may seem impossible, but call recording allows you to do it successfully.

VoIP services allow you to record calls which provide you with a myriad of benefits. With call recording, you can use stand-out calls to train new agents and help any agent learn how to maneuver tricky sales or customer service calls.

11. Unify your communications

A VoIP solution is the best step in unifying all your communications and building a solid marketing strategy. 

Combining your phone, messaging, video, email, and chat capabilities allows your team to collaborate anywhere. APIs and embeddable apps can enhance every step of the campaign process.

Unified communications also mean you can communicate across any platform while maintaining a consistent presence. You can manage customer information all in one central location that considers the multiple channels a customer might try to communicate through. 

In addition to unifying tools and communications, a UCaaS platform also offers management more analytics. Identify trends with analytics, customize data, and make important business decisions all from one platform.

12. Expand globally

An integrated digital marketing campaign utilizes channels like content and social media to reach customers globally. So how does an online phone service fit into a global strategy?

VoIP lets you reach customers no matter your business’s or customer’s location. A VoIP solution means you can reach any geographical market you want for maximum engagement. You won’t have to set up physical offices or local employees; you’ll be able to call, text, chat, and plan over your unified communications system with VoIP.

In closing

Seamless integration across platforms? Check. 

Ability to work from anywhere at all hours of the day? Check.

Trackable analytics with easy-to-read reporting? Check. 

VoIP is a lot more than just a replacement for the plain old telephone system. It’s an accessible way to enhance and streamline your business phone options. With these 12 actionable insights you can set your team up for success and deliver the best digital marketing campaigns possible.

About the Author

Richard Conn is the Senior Director for Demand Generation at 8×8, a leading communication platform with integrated contact center, voice, video, IP phone number, and chat functionality. Richard is an analytical & results-driven digital marketing leader with a track record of achieving major ROI improvements in fast-paced, competitive B2B environments.