The art of voice mail!

Are your voice mails impactful? They should be. There is a science to leaving a short, impactful message. Just think about all the voice mails you receive on a daily basis. Is the caller clear and concise? A voice mail can be viewed as mini elevator speech. The objective is for the listener to take action. Below are five tips that will make your voice mails more effective:
1. Get to the purpose. People want to know why you're calling. Are you requesting information, returning a call, providing an update or requesting a call back?
2. Leave contact information as the first thing on the voice mail. Hello, this is Pat Alva-Green with Alva-Green Coaching at 817-291-0717. When you do this, it make is easy for the person to press rewind and get your information quickly.
3. Don't leave information that the voice mail system is going to record automatically i.e. date and time. This shortens your message even more.
4. Say your phone number once, at the beginning of the message. The person can use the rewind feature to playback your message. Optimize the features found on most voice mail systems.
5. Stay to one topic. Keep it simple. If you feel you want to cover more than one topic, consider sending an e-mail.

What other tips have you used in voice mails?