The InsideSales.com “Optimizing Business Communication” study found that the top three communication mechanisms most likely to elicit a response at work are email, office phone and cell phone—in that order.

Data tells us voicemail is indeed alive and well. In fact, the InsideSales.com study found that 61% of senior executives said they are likely to respond to a voicemail and 87% said they are likely to respond to an email.

But while voicemail isn’t dying, it is changing and adapting to methods that incorporate visual communications like visual voicemail programs, which transcribe the content of a voicemail into a text message that appears on your mobile device or email. And salespeople might be blowing this opportunity in two ways:

1) They’re not leaving a message at all. Adam Boalt, founder of LiveAnswer, puts the voicemail abandonment rate at 50-75%. “Everyone is looking for instant gratification, and if you can’t provide that, they’ll simply hang up,” he says. “Companies are losing business opportunities because people are not leaving messages.”

2) They’re leaving messages that kill sales.

Problem 1 has an easy solution: Simply instruct your salespeople to leave more voicemails. But if you don’t strategically fix Problem 1, salespeople step right into Problem 2, which potentially does more damage to the bottom line than if they’d never left a message in the first place.

Why Voicemails Fail

THE UNPREPARED SALESPERSON: Too many salespeople pick up the phone, end up with a voicemail, say whatever comes to mind and then wonder why no one calls back. If unprepared to leave a message, many salespeople leave ramblings that contacts easily delete.

THE UNCLEAR OBJECTIVE: Your objectives change based on the type of voicemails you leave and at what point in the sales process you leave them. If salespeople cannot articulate the objective of the voicemail, they will not create a compelling reason for a prospect to call back. Salespeople without objectives leave vague voicemails that don’t merit response.

UNREHEARSED TALKING POINTS: Filler words (“like,” “um,” “just”) leave salespeople sounding unsure as they bumble through their talking points. On the flipside, too many rehearse an unnatural script. This results in voicemails that sound more like recitations than conversations.

NO COMPELLING REASON TO CALL BACK: Often, salespeople simply fail to create a compelling reason for a prospect to call back, giving no attention to the prospect’s pain points. Too many voicemails sound like this: “Hey, Sharon. This is Paul. Just checking in to see if you had a chance to think about our proposal.” That’s not a voicemail that intrigues or begs response.

How to Fix It

Ask the question, “What are the two types of voicemails?” You’ll usually receive the standard answer: “Warm and cold.”

Wrong. Regardless of whether you are calling a prospect for the first time in a cold-call scenario or you’re following up on a warm lead for the first time, you still have a first-time phone contact—which very often results in a first-time voicemail. Any other voicemail you leave after that first message is a follow-up voicemail.

These are the two types of voicemails salespeople should master. The prep work is different for each. If you make a first call attempt and leave a message, your next call to the same prospect still qualifies as a first-time voicemail. A call does not require a follow-up voicemail until you have personally spoken to the prospect at least once.

FIRST-TIME VOICEMAIL OBJECTIVES

• Get a callback.
• Advance the sales call.
• Make the prospect more likely to take your next call.
• Avoid clichéd sales lines like “Please call me back at your earliest convenience.”

FOLLOW-UP VOICEMAIL OBJECTIVES

• Advance the sales call.
• Be persistent without being a pest.
• Avoid these clichés:
  • “I was calling to follow up on the proposal.”
  • “I’m calling to see if you had any questions.”
  • “I just wanted to make sure you got my email.”
  • “The reason for my follow-up was to see if you had come to a decision.”

The Brevet Group found that although 92% of all customer interactions happen over the phone, only 13% of customers believe a salesperson can understand their needs. The more natural and authentic you sound in your recordings, the more likely your prospects are to trust you.

Remember: Even the best voicemail templates will be ineffective if their delivery fails. Salespeople who do not practice delivering these messages before actually leaving them in a prospect’s voicemail inbox will sound stilted. Every actor who ever won an Oscar also had a script. You need a script and a playbook in order to succeed, but you have to rehearse that script until it feels and sounds natural.

Plenty of tools are available to help you use all these communication mechanisms to your advantage and advance your sales cold calls. Maximize your voicemail and email efforts by using technology to automate these communications and evaluate metrics that measure your effectiveness. One useful tip: Leave voicemails for yourself and then listen to them. Hearing your recordings will give you a better understanding of how to adjust the tone of your voice to reflect the urgency and intent of your message.

Supplement with Email

You should have a minimum of three email templates to match your voicemail templates—one for cold calls, one for referrals and one for a competition voicemail.

Even though you have three templates, they should all have the same subject line: Voicemail. Decision-makers are more likely to open an email with this subject line because they want to be sure they didn’t miss anything.

The most effective voicemail-email templates will follow the lead of the voicemails. For example, if you reference a competitor, your email might read: Hi [Prospect’s Name], I just left you a message regarding how we recently helped competitor 1, 2, and 3 eliminate [common pain] and gain [desired benefit]. I wanted to see if it makes sense for us to have a quick conversation. I can be reached at [your number].

According to Vorsight research, subject lines that use simple, direct words like “Update” or “Intro” have a nearly 90% chance of being opened. The most opened emails contain subject lines with two words or less—on average, these types of emails boast an open rate of 80%. Meanwhile, subject lines with five or more words are the least opened—and have a success rate of less than 15%.

Not sure where to start? Here are some data-driven best practices you can use to guide your efforts.

VOICEMAIL STRATEGIES

• To maximize call-to-contact ratios, call at 7-9 a.m. or 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday or Thursday.
• Don't give up. Even though 80% of sales require five follow-up calls after a first meeting, 44% of sales reps give up after just one follow-up.

EMAIL STRATEGIES

• Maximize open rates by sending emails in the early morning or late night.
• Try sending emails off-hours—some data suggests many execs view email on the weekends.
• “Re:” in an email subject line generates a good open response; “Dear” does not.
• Add additional recipients in the carbon copy to boost open rates.
• Keep your subject line under 35 characters. Industry research suggests one-third of emails are read on mobile devices, where visible subject lines adhere to a character limit.
• Perform regular audits of email performance to increase forecast accuracy.

Voicemail is a valuable but underutilized sales tool. Reps who have prepared and practiced their talking points can deliver highly focused, professional voicemails—which become even more effective when enhanced with targeted emails. Referencing email messages in voicemail messages, and vice versa, yields higher response rates. Implementing a successful cold call voicemail strategy and automating it maximizes productivity—and advances the sales process.

Michael Pedone is CEO & founder of salesbuzz.com. Gabe Larsen is director of the Momentum Strategy Team at InsideSales.com, which offers the industry’s leading sales acceleration platform built on Neuralytics, a predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine that drives revenue growth by delivering an optimized experience for both salesperson and buyer. The platform fuels sales rep performance and provides buyer personalization with breakthrough innovations in predictive sales communications, engagement tracking, forecasting, rep motivation and hiring.