Recently in Advertising response Category

We have access to a new set of vanity 800 numbers for the health care industry.
These numbers will bring in more response to your ad campaigns, and help you book more new patient appointments.

We have this set of numbers for the health care/medical sector:
  800-THE-CLINIC
  888-2-RELIEF
  888-A NEW LIFE
  888-CHIRO-CARE
  888-PAIN-CENTER

Get a quote for these numbers in your market today.

From Dealer Marketing Magazine's recent issue...

Quality and value...two words that many people are focused on right now, no matter what their position on the business food chain, whether they're a consumer or a business owner. As we forge ahead through 2010, quality and value are two key messages you will want to convey in your marketing and advertising campaigns: not only from a product standpoint, but also from a service standpoint.

 

Think of all the business services you use to make your operation run smoothly--communications, customer management tools, the phone system, and so many others. Are they the best?

Do they deliver the quality and value that you expect?

Do they allow you to effectively talk to your audience?

 

Let's take your marketing and advertising communications as an example and look at the business services you deploy to deliver quality and value to your customers.

 

Quality leads to credibility:

A quality ad campaign is one that is appealing to, and resonates with, consumers. It should leave them with a favorable opinion of your business and a perception of credibility--a dealer they would want to buy a vehicle from. Quality advertising always includes an easy way for customers to get in touch with you. If you offer a local or toll-free numeric phone number, like 866-432-6897, it is going to be hard for people to remember. If you advertise with a vanity number, like 1-800-NEW-HYBRID, however, you make it easier for people to remember you when they want to call.

 

Make sure you work with a phone service and number provider that best fits your needs: a quality provider that offers flexibility with their services and delivers value.

 

Value drives response:

Value-added (along with quality) advertising campaigns generate a surge of consumer response and deliver leads. When a campaign brings customers into your dealership (with phone calls, web leads, or walk-ins) your ROI for the campaign improves, the cost-per-lead goes down, and the value of your advertising campaign, in relation to the business strategy goes up!

 

Also, the call data that your telecommunications provider delivers should be easy to access, understand, and manipulate for various reporting needs. Robust call data is valuable because it can show trends, including your busiest business hours and what campaigns are driving the most inquiries. Armed with this important data, you can plan staffing and marketing resources according to when you'll be busiest, where your leads are coming from and which marketing sources deliver the best ROI.

 

As part of your team, your service partners should help you deliver these key emotional and financial aspects--quality and value to your customers.

Here is a snippet about vanity numbers from an article on eHow.com, by a contributing writer. 

"Vanity numbers spell out words or suggest words. 1-800-FLOWERS is one of the most widely known vanity numbers and is easily remembered on Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. Vanity numbers are a marketing tool that can encourage brand switching. Even if consumers have a favorite restaurant with a local number, they're more likely to call the number they remember first. Vanity numbers are in short supply, and a broker may be required to negotiate a deal with the person who owns a specific number." Read the full article.

Every business misses calls from time to time. But these missed opportunities are costly, and can be hard to recapture. And, in today's business environment, missed leads could jeopardize the viability of your business.

Services are available that monitor when your business misses incoming calls and leads.  An automatic email or text message is sent immediately with the callers phone number, name, and time of when they tried to reach your business.  This alert gives you and your sales team a near real-time opportunity to call that person back and recapture the lead, and attempt a sale.

This type of monitoring service empowers a business to:

• Follow up with lost prospects within minutes.

• Choose which types of missed calls to monitor - hang ups, ringing "off the hook" without an answer, busy signals, and even short calls.

• Alert multiple contacts (sales, customer service, management) for full lead coverage.

• Schedule monitors for any combination of days, times, toll-free numbers and ring to numbers.

Employing a monitoring service that notifies your business of missed leads can help you turn those missed opportunities into sales, and that can make every bit of difference in sustaining your business.

We realize it's not a new concept - tracking ad response rates, but we wanted to reiterate the power and level of knowledge that ad tracking, and specifically phone call tracking, brings to you and your business.

Imagine spending thousands on your ad campaigns with no way of measuring the results.  (Yes, a closed sale is a measurement, but you also need to measure in terms of leads generated.)  Knowing how many leads a campaign generates empowers you to make decisions on future ad campaigns and media buys.

Real-time tracking and recording features provide you with the knowledge you need to make strategic decisions when it comes to advertising campaigns; whether it be decisions on creative elements, your offer, the call to action, and the media outlets you advertise with.

With a call tracking service you can hone in on the fine details of who is calling your business, what their average household income is, their average home value, as well as when they are most likely to call your business.  How?  With detailed tracking reports that capture data on each incoming call.  Call tracking reports like:

• Addresses & Demographics will build your lead database.
• Zip Code Summary shows you the hot spots, where your callers are calling from; home, work.
• Repeat Callers Detail reveals who is calling you often, or more than once for information or to hire you.
• Missed Calls is a huge eye-opener for many businesses, they can monitor how many leads they are losing with a report like this.
• Hourly and Daily Call Summary reports show when your business lines are most active so you can determine the necessary staffing levels and monitor response to radio campaigns, TV ads, etc.
• Top Cities and Top Area Codes reports also drill down on where your callers are located.

 

With all of this data at your fingertips, you'll be able to more accurately plan out marketing and advertising campaigns, and get more return for your advertising investment.

 

Find more information about call tracking, call recording, and vanity toll-free numbers here.

There are some out there, so we'd like to debunk them.
Here is one:

MYTH: Good Vanity 800 Numbers Must be Expensive

If you (or your client) think they cannot afford a vanity 800 number - think again! No matter what the size, if your clients are not including a vanity 800 in their ad campaigns, then they're losing a significant portion of incoming leads - like 25-50%!

 

FACT: Custom 800 number costs are minimal compared to your clients' overall advertising budgets. In fact, a quality vanity 800 number is typically just 1% of a broadcast ad budget.

 

A vanity 800 number will increase the leads and sales from ad campaigns, providing a healthy advertising ROI.

 

Your clients can't afford NOT to have a Custom 800 (a.k.a. vanity 800) number. Don't take our word for it though. We work with businesses in many industries that experience more incoming calls and sales after they add one of our Custom 800 numbers to their ad campaign.

Here's what just one of our career college customers has to say about advertising with a Custom 800 number...

 

"I could not be happier with the response we get from our advertising. Using the vanity 800 number is an inexpensive way to increase the number of applications we process.  I would not give up 1-800-NEW-CAREER for anything."

A great article on vanity numbers (or phone words as they're known as in Australia)...

by Gavin Scholes, CEO of Australia's largest provider of phone words and smart numbers, 1300 Australia.

 

For those who don't know the lingo, a phone word (or vanity number) is the alpha numeric equivalent to a phone number. For instance, 1300 CREDIT = 1300 273348.

 

For more than 30 years, phonewords have been a phenomena in the United States. Three years ago they entered the Australian market and have shot to popularity in advertising because of their memorability and demonstrated results when it comes to customer recall.

 

If you have a phoneword - or are contemplating getting one to boost your marketing efforts - here are 5 handy tips regarding how to use it effectively to maximise its impact - and your advertising spend.

 

   1. Use your Phone word throughout all your marketing activities - on promotions, throughout advertising, even on your business stationery and building signage.

   2. Phone words are particularly strong in radio. If your business suits radio advertising, use it and ensure your Phone word features prominently in the broadcast.

   3. Create fun little direct mail pieces for customers and prospects that connect back to your Phone word. For instance, send your prospects a packet of "lifesavers" with your name and Phone word as a solution to their problem.

   4. Ever get a jingle stuck in your head? Create your own fun jingle featuring your Phone word and include it as "on hold" music when customers and prospects ring.

   5. If you advertise in the Yellow Pages, make sure you feature your Phone word largely in your listing. Once a customer remembers your name, they don't need to look you up any more, and that's bad news for your competitors.

 

There are so many ways you can use your phone word and each time you use it, it grows stronger and stronger. A phone word is a valuable marketing asset and you should actively use it in your promotional activities to make the most of it.

 

Gavin Scholes is CEO of Australia's largest provider of phone words and smart numbers, 1300 Australia. Talk to 1300 Australia for access to expert advice and the broadest range of high quality phonewords in Australia.

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."

Background: Neat Feet and Elkins Retail Advertising have put together a unique advertising approach, bringing together multiple podiatry practices to share advertising costs, increase incoming leads, and reduce their cost-per-lead.

Client: 1-800-NEW-TOES Laser Centers
A collaboration of five podiatry centers, including Neat Feet, offers a new laser treatment for nail fungus. Locations are throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Elkins Retail Advertising
Elkins has 20 years of experience using vanity 800 numbers in their clients' advertising campaigns. The agency continually appears on the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal list of the 25 largest agencies in Santa Clara County, CA.

Challenge: Neat Feet was looking for a way to advertise on radio stations with the largest reach in the Bay Area, but it was cost prohibitive.

Strategy: Join forces with other podiatry centers in surrounding markets to form "1-800-NEW-TOES Laser Centers", a group initiative. Develop a radio campaign and share advertising expenses and incoming leads among the five locations.

Results: With Neat Feet, Elkins pulled together four other podiatry centers in the Bay Area to collaborate on a radio campaign aimed at generating leads for each location. The radio spots run on the largest stations in the Bay Area and prominently feature the group's vanity number as the response tool.

Hunter Elkins has 20 years of experience recommending and using vanity 800 numbers in his clients' advertising campaigns.  "I've had success using vanity numbers in the past, and knew that this strategy of radio ads with 1-800-NEW-TOES would be successful for Neat Feet and the other centers," says Elkins.

"As a result of the radio campaign, each center now receives more incoming calls because the 1-800-NEW-TOES vanity number and the matching co-op company name are so easy to remember," says Elkins. The campaign drives listeners to call the vanity 800 number or visit the vanity URL, 800newtoes.com, which also lists the vanity number prominently on the splash page of the site. "The average close rate of incoming calls among the group is 55%," says Elkins, which is higher than the average conversion of Web visits.

"We use the tracking site to monitor the number of incoming calls and clicks they receive each week, and the resulting cost-per-lead. Call data is easily sorted by each location so we can keep a tight watch on the performance of our radio campaign, monitor the traffic to each center, and make adjustments to the campaign if necessary," says Elkins.

According to Elkins, "The collaboration would not have been possible without 1-800-NEW-TOES. The vanity number allowed us to brand the group with a unified name, share advertising costs, and generate more business for each center."

Toll-free call tracking numbers are powerful 10-digit numbers that allow businesses to monitor and track every lead down to the source.  This is a must for any marketing/advertising manager, director, or executive who is responsible for reporting on their strategy's performance at the end of the day.

Numeric call tracking numbers are perfect for advertising and marketing campaigns that include visual media types, but only if they have a "shelf-life."  This includes newspaper advertising, Yellow Pages ads, online ads, and some direct mail.  Advertisers can effectively track pay-per-click and SEO ad campaigns, test one direct mail postcard against another, and tracking online conversions from their websites, all with these numeric toll-free numbers.

What these numeric tools cannot do is brand.  Only a vanity 800 number can brand your business, like 1-800-NEW-ROOF for a roofer, or 1-800-NEW-RATE for a bank or lending institution.

So, advertising businesses that execute multi-media campaigns need both of these tools.  Don't balk, because it is possible to get them at an affordable price.  Some vanity service providers offer free call tracking numbers with their service so that businesses can maintain a complete lead-tracking system and monitor every advertisement in their campaigns.

For an effective advertising and marketing strategy, incorporate both of these toll-free options - vanity 800 numbers and call tracking numbers - and you'll capture every incoming lead and be able to source it back to the specific advertisement/media buy that generated that lead.  These direct-response tools allow for complete lead-tracking, accurate measurement of ROI, and budget accountability.