Radio advertising accounts for just under 10 percent of all advertising dollars. It’s effective, universal, and mobile. That’s why many Custom Toll Free clients do direct response marketing over the air waves.

The folks at Radio Lounge USA are in the business of producing direct response ads for their clients. They advise companies to make the call to action clear and give listeners a URL or phone number that’s memorable.

“If you are driving users to a toll free number, make sure you are not advertising some random ten digits that are difficult to remember. Use vanity phone numbers,” is their advice.

Here are a few general tips for using radio advertising with your custom toll free number:

Know your audience. Pick stations and time slots that best match your audience demographics.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. Once you’ve chosen a particular time slot or show, stick with it. That guarantees enough repetition of your ad and your toll-free number with a particular audience (morning drive time, gardeners, talk show fans) that your information will be remembered.

Try “roadblocking.” The term “roadblocking” means running your ads on several stations during the same weeks. Businesstown.com explains why roadblocking can be highly effective.

You’ll also find some great advice for successful radio advertising here.

One of the best ways to strengthen the power of your vanity toll free number is to use it in all your marketing materials. That includes putting it in your telephone greetings. Think about it: Clients dial “1-888-PET-CARE” and the greeting they get is “Hi, this is Johnson’s Pet Supplies.” But they could be hearing “Hi, you’ve reached 1-888-PET-CARE, Johnson’s Pet Supplies.”

This is a no-cost way of helping customers recognize and remember your custom toll free number, increasing the likelihood that they’ll call your business again in the future. Here are five ways to use phone greetings to turn those vanity number calls into sales — and increase customer satisfaction.

1. As often as possible, have a live person answer the phone and present your message during business hours. Studies show that customers expect and prefer it, and it’s the ideal during a sales campaign when you want a sales person to have immediate access to a prospect. After all, studies show that customers who make purchases over the phone order more merchandise, and 95 percent of the time they order more expensive merchandise than customers who are ordering from print or online catalogs. If you are using your toll-free number for non-sales purposes, it’s not as critical that the live person greeting the customer be on your team. A good answering service can handle the caller and then send you a convenient email message.
2. If you need to use recorded messages, be sure to record separate ones for business hours and for after-hours. Why? See tips 3 and 4.
3. When your callers do get a recorded message during business hours, it should mention your 1-800 number and your company identity. Then tell the caller, quickly, how to get to the department they’re calling or the information they want. Example: “Thank you for calling 1-888-PET-CARE, Johnson’s Pet Supplies. A representative will be with you in one minute. If you need to reschedule a delivery for tomorrow, please press 3 for the shipment desk. For all other business, please stay on the line.”
4. The message callers get after hours should (again) reinforce your business identity by mentioning your toll-free number and business name. Then let people know when you’ll be back in the office and what they can do to get a message to you in the meantime. “You’ve reached the after-hours line for 1-888-PET-CARE, Johnson’s Pet Supplies. We’ll be back in the office at 8 a.m. Please call back then, or press 2 to leave a message with our answering service.”
5. If you have a website that allows people to view products or schedules, place orders, or send email, be sure to mention that website in your phone greeting. For some callers, this is a plus. But keep in mind that many callers to your toll-free number prefer to talk directly to a live person.

Whenever you think of the toll-free number market, you think flowers, contact lenses, or safe autos. But today, many parents are using personal toll free numbers to keep tabs on their kids. Parents worried about their college-bound youngsters are resting better at night with toll-free numbers.

We all know it’s hard to get little Suzy or Johnny to call home everyday, but if the call is free you might have a better chance of hearing that phone ring. While normal cell phone plans were once the popular route, they can be highly expensive.

In fact, research shows that 90 percent of people in the United States are dialing toll-free numbers. Additionally, response rates increase an average of 14 percent when advertisements contain toll-free numbers.

Who are the regular people using toll-free numbers today?

•    Parents and grandparents
•    College students
•    Parents of teens and tweens
•    Military families
•    Frequent travelers
•    Those in a long-distance relationship

Custom Toll Free can design a minute plan that is just right for your special toll free needs. You just might bond with your kids, friends and other loved-ones better. Well, maybe or maybe not, but you WILL save money!

One of the most effective ways to track your ROI on marketing campaigns is to assign a unique toll-free number to each particular offer. Then it’s easy to track how many calls each campaign generates, how many sales are closed, and even what type of business is generated.

1. You can use unique toll-free numbers to run a split test, comparing the effectiveness of two different campaigns.
2. You can use one number to track the effectiveness of a particular campaign over time. Find out if your campaign is losing its punch, or see if it generates increasing amounts of business as your message penetrates the market.
3. In web advertising (and some other media) you can modify a direct marketing offer almost immediately, then track responses to the toll-free number to analyze the results of that change.

Custom Toll Free can help you acquire blocks of toll-free numbers to handle all types of tracking for direct marketing campaigns.

At last, you’ve got it: Your new vanity toll-free number. It’s catchy and memorable — and powerful. But only if you get it out there where prospective customers can see it. While you certainly have plans to use it in the next big direct marketing campaign you roll out, keep in mind that there are many other ways you can a vanity toll-free number to boost business and improve ROI.

• Update your advertising. Redesign your ads and get new versions to all the publications, websites, and broadcast outlets where you currently advertise.
• Update your printed materials. This includes business cards, envelopes, packaging, invoices, brochures, and signage. It’s amazing how many people may drive by your bricks-and-mortar business every day and not stop in, but who will call as a result of seeing your 1-800 number.
• Update your website. The new custom toll-free number should be prominently displayed on the home page and any sales pages — not buried on the “Contact Us” page or at the very bottom of the web pages.
• Update your phone message. If people who call your current number get a recording (when you are closed, or if they are on hold), take advantage of those recordings to inform them about the new toll-free number. It will make it easier for them to call you next time.
• Explore new types of advertising that are now open to you with an easy-to-remember vanity toll-free number. Those include vehicle signage, t-shirts, and all manner of corporate memorabilia, from mugs to license-plate frames.

At Custom Toll Free, we’re well aware of how much time and effort our clients put in to finding a good vanity toll-free number. We help our customers choose the best toll-free numbers and, often, we help clients acquire a great toll-free number that’s not readily available.

People go to all this work because strong toll-free numbers are a proven way to enhance your market presence and attract business. Toll-free numbers are associated with major companies. And a good vanity toll-free number is easy to remember, maximizing the chances that people will call.

After all the work that goes into securing your vanity toll-free number to bring prospects to your business, you want to invest plenty of time and effort into making sure that when prospects call you, they have the kind of phone experience that turns callers into buyers.

Here are a few “must haves” to maximize your investment in a custom toll-free number:

• An efficient phone system. Don’t let eager prospects languish on “hold.” Invest in a call system that can handle your call load. 
• Trained sales staff answering your phone. If someone is answering calls to your toll-free number, that person is part of your sales team. Your call center staff should be trained to do what it takes to convert callers into buyers. 
• A professionally written sales or customer service script, tailored to your business. This is essential if your company is new to telephone sales. And, if you’ve been doing phone sales for a while, it never hurts to have a professional re-evaluate your script to see if it is still aligned with your products/services and your customer base.

Toll-free numbers are popular for business of all sizes. Large companies and government agencies use them for sales and customer service. But, increasingly, small- and mid-size businesses are finding toll free service to be a valuable tool for marketing, advertising, and direct response research. According to experts, a toll free phone number can level the playing field and help smaller businesses compete. Because a toll free number is often portable, it’s ideal for a small business that may relocate as it grows.
Industries most like to employ toll-free numbers include telecommunications, internet service providers, beauty, banking, insurance, and travel. You’ll also see research organizations list toll free numbers to improve response to their surveys.

If you’ve been thinking about getting a toll free number for your business and have some keywords in mind that you’d like to use, here are some easy-to-use tools that can get you started.

• NumSpell searches for word that might be spelled using an existing seven-digit number.

• Available Toll Free Number Search finds custom 800, 866, 877, and 888 numbers that meet your keyword needs. Refine your search by industry, number type, and monthly cost.

In addition to these free basic tools, we also offer fee-based tools for more powerful toll-free number search and toll free number lookup. These give you access to a vast database of information on numbers and their status.

• You can search tens of thousands of numbers for numbers that meet your needs. (For instance, numbers that contain the alphabetic sequence that spells “law” or “pizza.”)

• If you know exactly what numbers you want, you can do reverse toll-free number lookups to find out the status of the number.

Once you’ve done your basic research, we’re available to provide additional services. We have an excellent track record at helping customers find the owner of a toll free number they are interested in. We can also conduct negotiations to help you acquire a toll-free number currently assigned to another business.

Not sure how to proceed? Custom Toll Free can monitor a toll free number and let you know if and when it becomes available. For more information, please contact us.

When toll free “866″ numbers were made available in 2000, they opened exciting new possibilities for businesses that had been unable to get desirable vanity numbers with the popular “800″ prefix.

Recent research shows that well over 80 percent of Americans 18-55 now recognize “866″ as a toll free prefix. If your customer base falls in that demographic, “866″ numbers offer the perfect business solution for you.

A sizable part of our business at Custom Toll Free involves locating 866 numbers that match the needs of our clients. Locating 866 toll free numbers is both an art and a science. We’ve automated our powerful database of toll free numbers so you can search to find out if the 866 numbers you want are available.

If the 866 numbers you’d like have been assigned to other companies, don’t give up! Custom Toll Free specializes in handling negotiations that can get numbers released and assigned to you. Our experienced consultants can help you explore a wide range of options.

When it comes to toll free vanity numbers, you don’t need to mind your P’s and Q’s. What you need to watch out for is the letter “O.” That’s because many people make the mistake of dialing the numeral “zero” instead, and end up either talking to a different company or simply getting frustrated. (In some cases, they’ll wind up reaching a competitor of yours who has snapped up an available toll free number for exactly that reason.)

If your name includes an “O,” you can still make it part of your toll free vanity number. But you’ll want to make sure to secure the version of the number that uses a “zero,” as well.

We know many other insider tricks for setting up the perfect toll free number for your business. Give us a call, or contact us using our comprehensive email form. You can also get started by using our convenient vanity number look-up tool.