Entrepreneur? Check Out These Awesome Benefits to Having a Virtual Phone System

Labels: business anywhere, professional call handling, small business, toll free 800 numbers, virtual phone system

Using 800 Numbers to Measure Your ROI

It’s easy enough to use Google Analytics to track results of PPC campaigns and other online marketing efforts, but what happens when leads are coming in from offline sources? It’s important to know what campaigns are driving those leads so you can ensure that your marketing spend is working effectively. Otherwise, you could be wasting money on efforts that aren’t getting results. With 800 numbers, you can easily keep track of your offline leads and more effectively measure your ROI. Here’s how.

Set Up Unique Toll-Free Numbers for Each Campaign

One of the greatest things about a virtual phone system is the fact that you can get multiple phone numbers. Assign dedicated 800 numbers to each marketing campaign and you’ll instantly know which ones are effectively generating leads. For example, you can include different toll-free numbers in your email newsletters, print ads and television or radio commercials than what’s on your website, so you’ll be able to determine how much traffic each individual campaign is sending.

Use Call Tracking and Reporting

Once you’ve set up your 800 numbers and assigned them to each campaign, you can then use the call tracking feature to further analyze the results. Run custom reports and gain valuable insights into how your marketing campaigns are doing so you can determine what’s working, what might need some tweaking and what may be better of scrapped altogether. The sooner you are able to do this, the quicker you’ll be able to make any necessary adjustments and limit wasteful spending.

Gauge Your Long-Distance Reach

For local campaigns, it’s great to use a local phone number, but when it comes to expanding your reach to the next city, state or even country an 800 number is the way to go. By assigning a toll-free number to each area you’re trying to reach, you can easily determine where you’re seeing the most success and determine whether to expand your efforts there or make adjustments elsewhere to achieve the same results.

Toll-Free ROI Tool

When it comes to running a successful small business, being able to control your budget and get the most out of your marketing efforts is critical. 800 numbers allow you to stay on top of what’s working and, perhaps more importantly, what’s not. The more accurately you can track and measure your ROI, the more efficiently you can manage your budget and ensure that every penny you spend is producing the results you want.

Labels: call tracking, marketing, toll free 800 numbers

What are the Different Toll-Free Area Codes, and is there Any Real Difference?

Everyone pretty much knows today that a 1-800 code means toll-free—and that’s easy: it’s been around forever (well, at least since 1967). But even though a 2006 survey reported that 85% of respondents recognized 866 as a toll-free prefix [1], the internet still gets flooded with hundreds of monthly search queries asking ‘are 866 numbers toll free’ ‘are 888 numbers toll free’... so evidently, some confusion still persists.

What Are Toll-Free Numbers?

First, let’s get this one out of the way. Toll-free numbers are phone numbers that, when called, get the charges routed to the subscriber rather than to the caller. You can learn more about their origin and evolution in our Brief History of Toll-Free Phone Numbers.

How to Recognize a Toll-Free Prefix/Area Code?

There are 5 active toll-free prefixes in use at the time of this writing: 800, 888, 877, 866, and 855.

You’ll notice that all codes start with the number 8, followed by a double digit—00, 88, 77, 66, and 55. It’s likely that future codes will follow the same pattern.

What will happen after the 8-- series is exhausted is a good question and anybody’s best guess. Maybe a new series will be introduced, or the processing might be tweaked to allow for another digit. Perhaps something completely new will come around. One way or another, there’s still plenty of time before that happens.

Is There Any Real Difference?

That’s a good question. From a strictly utilitarian viewpoint, all toll-free prefixes are equal: they all serve a single function, to facilitate auto-collect-calling, and they all do so in the same manner.

Where there is some practical difference is when things come to people and people's awareness, which is where we started this whole discussion.

The 800 code is by far the most popular. It has had some 30 years to percolate into our collective consciousness and to become virtually synonymous with the idea of toll-free calling. But bona-fide 800 numbers are in short supply nowadays and you’d be hard-pressed to get one.

As for the other contenders, you could follow the same reasoning and assume that an older prefix like 888 has had more exposure and therefore more likely to be recognized—or you could follow other metrics like the 2006 survey mentioned above that suggested 866 experienced a gradual boon. But honestly, these differences are marginal at best and will likely get only more so—so it’s probably not even worth the effort.

Just think about it, how long can it reasonably take before people realize all 8-- codes are simply toll-free, especially when the answer is only a Google search away?

Not very long I reckon, and that day is already overdue.

So the main matter is getting a toll-free number. What number it's going to be is of leaser concern and you may just as well go with whatever the virtual number dispenser happens to spit out. Unless you're in the market for a vanity number; then you should definitely be more picky. Check out Does Your Business Need a Vanity Phone Number? for more information.

Related Articles:

1. Why Your Business Needs a Toll-Free Phone Number
2. Does Your Business Need a Vanity Phone Number?
3. A Brief History of Toll-Free Phone Numbers

Sources:

1. www.tollfreenumber.org
2. http://www.fcc.gov/guides/toll-free-numbers-and-how-they-work

Labels: 855 toll free numbers, are 866 numbers toll free, are 877 numbers toll free, are 888 numbers toll free, are all 800 numbers toll-free, toll free 800 numbers, what numbers are toll free

Why Your Business Needs a Toll-Free Phone Number

The toll-free numbers we know and love today actually sprung up from a service introduced to automate collect calling way back in 1967.

The original prefix was 1-800, but these were soon snatched like gummies from a bowl at the comic-books convention as the craze caught on during the 80's, and in 1996 it was followed by 1-888. 1-877 was added in 1998, 1-866 in 2000, and more recently—1-855.

“So what's it got to do with me” you ask? Simple. Toll-free numbers work.

They didn’t become popular just because someone had a beef with phone operators and wanted to see the entire profession go extinct, they became popular because they brought in business—lots of it.

And why are toll-free numbers so good at bringing in business?

Did Someone Say ‘Free’?

Yep. Everyone likes free stuff. If you doubt this, try thinking up the most useless thing you can imagine and go to the shopping mall with a small sign that says “Free ____ here!”

So if most of us are at least somewhat partial to the word ‘free’ before something completely useless—just imagine when it comes to something we actually need.

People are just more likely to call your business if they don’t have to pay for it (which is fair enough, since they’re giving you the time of day to practice your sales pitch).

Go Fishing Across the Seven Seas, Not Only in Your Own Backyard

The goal of every business is to grow, and growth comes from increased demand. What surer way is there to increase demand than by exposing yourself to a greater market? You must have heard the saying ‘there's plenty of fish in the ocean’ (a big brother perhaps?), and it couldn't be more true.

A local number only lets you cast your hook into the small pond behind your house, but a toll-free number opens up the seven seas and lets you go fishing virtually anywhere!

Someone, somewhere, is sure to bite.

Bachelor Life Rules! Don’t Get Married to No Telecom

Running a business sometimes also means restructuring. Things happen, and for one reason or another, you might want to switch providers at some point. A local number stays behind, but a toll-free number travels with you. It’s yours. You own it.

To put this into perspective, just imagine spending the time and resources on marketing your business with a local number, and then one day this number has to change. Not only will you have to rework all of your marketing materials and enter new campaigns, this could also hurt your credibility. After all, customers like stability, and a shifting phone number could be taken for a red flag signaling trouble in the business.

The Three Secrets of French Cooking...“Perception, Perception, and Perception"?

The French say the three secrets to great cooking are “Butter, butter, and butter.” Now, had they been good businessmen too, they might have added that the three secrets to success are “Perception, perception, and perception”. But they aren’t, so we’ll just leave them to their frog-legs and move on.

Because toll-free numbers have traditionally been used only by big and wealthy corporations, the afterglow of this prestigious legacy still follows them to date. As such, just seeing a toll-free number automatically associates in our minds with stability, credibility, trust—in with short, with every value you’d want your business to project.

This can help a small business with the right stuff earn the implicit confidence needed to set the right foot forward. But, on the flip side, perception is no substitute to substance, and should you not live by these values the veil can just as easily come off.

Last But Not Least, A Touch of Vanity

Remember that first time you ever saw an ad with a phone number like 1-888-WHY COOK and went: “Hey, I don’t have any letters on my—wait a minute...”

We all have those little moments of epiphany. Some while listening to Wagner, others when seeing a catering truck. It's all good.

These are called Vanity number—probably because they’re kinda like those pathetic license plates that spell ‘IM COOL’ or some such nonsense. But the difference is that Vanity numbers actually serve a useful function.

They’re great because memorizing one or two words is infinitely easier than memorizing seven figures, and when prospects may only catch a glimpse of your ad for a second or two, you want to make memorization as intuitive as possible.

Final Thoughts

Toll-free numbers have been smart business for the past few decades, and will continue to be for many more. The best part is that when you sign up to a virtual PBX service with Synclio, you get your own toll-free number absolutely free!

(Yes, yes, we’re out fishing too ;)

There’s been some hype that the world is fast running out of toll-free numbers, and that soon there will be the toll-free 'haves', and the 'have-nots'. There’s also been some hype about the Rapture, but we’re still here, and 2012 is not far down the road. Somehow, I have a feeling we'll survive.

While the numbers are being snatched at an incredible rate—89,149 were activated in the first week after the 855 rationing was lifted according to the folks at tollfreenumbers.com—new prefixes can always be made available, and by the time these are exhausted there will likely be something new. Technology never sleeps.

So should you run out the door this very moment and get one because there may not be any tomorrow? Of course not. But then again, if it’s something you know you need—why wait?

"Procrastination is the thief of time" said Edward Young, and your Economics professor would have added: "Time is money."

Labels: are 877 numbers toll free, toll free 800 numbers, vanity numbers, virtual PBX, what is a toll free number, what numbers are toll free, what numbers are toll-free