Your Music On Hold Player.

It’s a catch-22. Customers are your life-blood, and marketing is a primary tool for attracting customers, but in times of “fat-trimming” and “cost-cutting” the marketing budget often seems to be one of the easier places to cut back. Because marketing is not an obviously non-optional cost – such as payroll or the electricity bill – and because its “return on investment” is not always easy to quantify, it is sometimes perceived as “non-essential”. Consequently, many businesses make the mistake of eliminating marketing and advertising altogether during lean times. As a result, the door is left wide open for competitors to pick up market share. Even if they don’t, a business that is “out of sight” quickly becomes “out of mind”. When customers are in the market for your products or services, don’t expect them to think of you first, unless you’ve taken steps to ensure that they do so. How can you reduce your marketing expenses without turning off the spigot altogether? “Guerilla marketing”. Simple translation: Get creative. I.e., look for ways to continue to communicate with customers besides traditional, high-cost venues such as radio, television, print, or even direct-mail.

One of the easiest and cheapest guerilla marketing tools may already be hanging on the wall in your phone closet this very minute. That is, your music on hold player. “On hold marketing” has much to commend it. Connecting with the customers who are calling you right now may be one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain “top of mind awareness” – not only with the customers who are calling you today, but with your customers generally. Effective on hold messages can plant seeds that bear fruit in the future. The cost is a fraction of most other marketing channels, and the audience is warm and thinking about your company and your products or services. You’re not interrupting them or asking them to “change gears” to consider your message. Customers of Holdtime Studios typically pay less than five hundred dollars per year and receive regularly updated, custom written, professionally produced messages each season – i.e., several times a year. Customers calling you this season can be targeted with ideas and information that translates into action next season. Holdtime customers have even been known to pick up “word of mouth” and referral business as customers tell other customers about messages they heard while “on hold”.

It’s a matter of keeping the momentum going. Or, as the old saying goes, “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush”.

As a general rule, the smaller the business, the greater the number of hats management needs to wear. There’s administration, legal, operations, production, fulfillment, customer service, website, internet and computer systems, telecom, tech-support, sales and marketing, just for starters. In the marketing category, there are the various marketing channels – print, radio, tv, web, etc. Oh, yes, there’s also your on-hold music and messaging. Or does that come under telecom? So many things to think about!

If you’ve been putting off adding on-hold messaging – or upgrading your existing on-hold messaging – because you think it’s too “technical”, hopefully this post will help encourage you to pull this project off the back burner and get it handled so you can check it off your to-do list. On-hold messaging is a low-cost, easily implemented, and surprisingly effective marketing channel that allows you to reach a warm market with targeted, timely messages. Don’t let the fear of the unknown keep you from taking advantage of this strategic tool.

Whether you’re considering hiring a professional service such as Holdtime Studios or supplying your own music and or message you’ll still need to add a little bit of equipment to your phone system. Holdtime Studios has a range of options in on-hold music and message players for whatever your application all of which are available at a surprisingly low cost. Alternatives you’ll purchase on your own also come in a range of affordable price points and are widely available. Either way, you should have no trouble finding an on-hold music or message player, regardless of your telephone system. Most of these players are fairly easy to install and easy to use. Lower end phone systems such as those sold at office supply stores may require a little bit of extra adaptation in the form, typically, of one or two small devices plugged “in-line” between the telephone and the player. Don’t let this intimidate you; probably the most “technical” thing you’ll do is read the directions and make sure you plug these little units into each other in the right sequence. I.e., you’re not doing any “wiring”, you’re just plugging things together like tinker toys. (Do they still make those?)

Then, of course, there is the issue of the actual music or message you play on your on-hold music player. Obviously, the more professionally it is produced, the better the image you will project to your customers. In addition to selling hold music/message players, Holdtime Studios provides their clients with a professional grade of audio recording, music, and production for their on-hold messages. What’s more, they also employ professional, creative writers to custom-craft each one of their on-hold scripts. If you assume such a service is outside your budget, you owe it to yourself to look into it before ruling it out. You just might be pleasantly surprised at how affordable – and cost-effective – it is to let Holdtime Studios wear this hat for you.