A DDI telephone number – often referred to as DDIs – is a phone number that is assigned to a specific employee or department within a company. This enables callers to speak directly to the right team or team member – avoiding the switchboard. In other words, it gives each telephone extension an individual number. The impact of DDI telephone number on your marketing department will depend on business needs, but, this blog provides the insight on how to use them to track campaigns.
What are DDI TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Marketing departments benefit significantly from DDIs as they allow the team to track the success of each of their campaigns. If your marketing department was to take out an ad in your local paper, give out business cards at a trade show or start a blog, they can utilise DDIs to track the success of each of these. It’s simple, in this instance the marketing team will use 1 different DDI for each of those campaigns and then when calls come in they will know which number they are ringing from. This will lead the marketing department to be able to track whether more enquiries came from the paper, the trade show or the blog.
A DDI is essentially an alternative to a landing page that a marketing team will usually use to track click through rates to analyse which of those specific web pages were most successful.
How DDI NUMBERS work
If you’re unsure just how a DDI telephone number works in practice, here is a simple diagram to help explain a customers experience from point of using the dedicated numbers to how it is routed to the intended recipient within your team.
How Marketing use DDI TELEPHONE Numbers
| Campaign Tracking | Assigning unique DDIs to campaigns enables a marketing team to track incoming calls and prove campaign success through precise attribution. |
| CRM Integration | Log call data and enable retrospective actions , whether it be monitoring, re-engagement or sales enablement. |
| Dashboarding | Visualise trends in geographic locations, call frequency, duration and conversion rates. |
| Lead Qualification and Segmentation | Review lead quality direct from a campaign to understand intent and probability of success to tailor follow-up actions and marketing messages. |
| Engagement Monitoring |
Determine sales cycles and understand how a campaign fits in to the business’ overall decision-making. |
Scenario
A marketing team operates a campaign across three distinct channels, including: social, email, and direct mail. Each campaign is linked to a specific DDI.
Process:
- Tracking Calls: The marketing team monitors incoming calls on each DDI.
- Data Analysis: The call data is integrated with the CRM to evaluate the lead quality and conversion rates of each campaign.
- Strategy Adjustment: The data reveals that the email marketing campaign yields the highest quality leads and conversion rates. Consequently, the team reallocates more budget towards email marketing and refines the social media advertising strategy.
Outcome:
By leveraging DDI data for informed decision-making, the team can improve their ROI and the overall effectiveness of their campaigns.
Benefits of A DDI TELEPHONE NUMBER for Marketing Departments
When asked about how DDIs benefit our marketing manager Amelia Ebdon she said that One of the biggest struggles I’ve had in any marketing team that I’ve worked with has been tracking and reporting. Without the right tools for the job, marketing activity is notoriously hard to track (particularly campaigns involving PR or offline lead generation) and reporting an accurate ROI at the end of every quarter can be challenging. In order to know what is really working for our company and to make sure we are spending our marketing budget in the right places, we need to have the data and the details to analyse our marketing plan rigorously . Marketing DDIs are arguably the most effective way to tackle the challenge of reporting return on investment (ROI).
DDI numbers enable marketing departments to track not only where their leads are coming from but also how successful each of their strategies are which in turn saves the company money on campaigns that are not returning enough on their investment.
Another side of DDI benefits is that it can allow your marketing department to begin advertising in other geographical areas as you are able to get a local DDI for each area regardless of whether your company is based there.
DDIs don’t only offer benefits to your marketing department but to your company as a whole. Not only do they improve your customers experience and free up your receptionist’s time but there are a variety of other benefits;
- They offer a variety of cost benefits as they mean that companies are able to use local DDIs for centrally based employees as opposed to employing remote workers.
- They allow for a number of calls to be taken at once meaning that customers do not have to wait on hold or go through a number of different call agents before speaking to the right person.
Using DDIs allows your marketing department to put more time, money and focus into campaigns that are proving to return enquiries as well as ensuring that your customers are being sent directly to the people and departments they need to straight away.
Considerations
Introducing Direct Dial In numbers (DDIs) in a marketing department offers numerous advantages, but, consideration needs to be made to guarantee successful deployment and use.
| Consideration | Description | Reason |
| Implementation Costs | Implementation costs are the expenses related to establishing DDIs, encompassing both the initial outlay and the ongoing operational costs. |
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| Training Requirements | Training requirements refer to the instruction and learning necessary for staff to efficiently utilise and manage DDIs. |
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| Reporting Capabilities | The size of your team or the number of campaigns could determine the level of reporting needed. |
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If your business or department is actively running campaigns that are difficult to review or if you’re having challenges attributing a campaign to a new lead, you need to be considering the positive impact of DDIs on your marketing department and business. You’ll be able to put focus on what does work and reduce budget wastage on what doesn’t work.
We have a blog on how why your business needs direct dial ins: DDI numbers, why have them? – Enconvo
Want to find out how our telephony solutions can help you increase your productivity and reduce your costs? Or are you just looking for some friendly, impartial advice on the best tools to make communicating a breeze? We can help! Contact us today via our live chat, call 0333 3603 423, or email enquiries.uk@enconvo.co.uk.