A Custom Call-to-Action

A Custom
Call-to-Action

Gienna
Shaw, for HealthLeaders Media, May 7, 2008

Wouldn’t it
be cool if your hospital’s phone number was so memorable that your
customers–including referring physicians and patients–didn’t even have to look
it up? An academic medical center’s heart care number could be (800) HEART
SMART, for example. A community hospital that offers personalized care could
have the number (800) ACH CARES. A hospital wanting to tout its overall
superiority could use (800) TOP-HOSP.

In fact
it’s more than cool–it’s a smart marketing tactic: Customized numbers used in
the call-to-action in marketing efforts can increase response rates by 30-60%,
says Laura Noonan, vice president of marketing at 800response, which rents out
its collection of toll-free numbers to businesses by region. (Hospitals in
different regions can share the same number–calls are automatically routed to
the correct hospital based on the caller’s area code.)

The reason
it works: People quite simply remember words more easily than they do numbers.
And, says Noonan, “It’s all about the recall.”

NextCare
Urgent Care in Mesa, AZ, has two toll-free vanity numbers. The
main number, (800) NEXTCARE, works for them because it is so easy to remember.

Another
number, which they use as the call-to-action for a campaign they called
“What’s Next? NextCare,” does more than improve recall, says Megan
Lamy, regional manager of marketing and sales. The number, (877) WHATSNEXT,
helps the organization track effectiveness of ad placements. For example, she
can look at the call volume following a radio spot that airs during the morning
drive and compare that to one that runs during the evening commute.

NextCare
employs another form of customization, using a different URL for each print
publication they advertise in. Then Lamy and her team looks at response data to
decide where best to invest the organization’s marketing dollars going forward.

Media
advertising is expensive, Noonan says. If you’re going to spend the money on
it, you want to leave the audience with an easy-to-remember way to reach you
when they need to, even if it’s weeks or months later.

“It’s
really just good advertising practice,” she says.

Having
trouble fitting a word or phrase that’s right for your organization into a
10-digit number? “It doesn’t matter,” Noonan says. “The phone
will still ring if you dial the next number.”