800 number lookup tools have many invaluable benefits for those in B2B businesses. Not only do 800 number lookup tools provide a mammoth database for harvesting leads, but they can help your staff to understand your prospects better and to hone pitches as well as offering insight into what other products and services you may be able to bundle together to make your offering more attractive.
800 number lookup services can provide easy targeting of specific businesses in niche industries by performing reverse lookups using keywords and phrases in vanity numbers. The best 800 number lookup services will also provide a variety of other details about a number's owner so you can better focus your pitches and sound more educated about your prospects’ needs. These details often include the business' name, web domain name, other contact information, the history of the toll free number in question, as well as other toll free numbers that may be useful for them.
Armed with this information from your 800 number lookup, you may in fact find it profitable to join a toll free affiliate marketing program so you can also offer prospects additional toll free numbers and add to your revenue stream. At the same time, you may even be able to profit from including additional Internet domain names to keep the customer's branding unified, even further increasing your profit margins and the value of your offerings.
In the past, 800 number lookups have been difficult and have required expensive subscriptions to websites that often did not even have the information you wanted. By contrast, today’s leading toll free providers offer free reverse 800 number lookups with a large range of search options that deliver instant results. So if you have been looking for a new source of B2B leads or a way to improve your closing ratios, you may just be a click away....
Image Credit: © Beata Suchenek | Dreamstime.com
1. Missed Branding Opportunities
Whatever type of marketing campaign you are launching, a vanity number offers instant branding. Even if your prospects do not take immediate action, an easy to remember vanity number will stick in their minds until when they do need your product or service. This truth applies to PPC advertising, direct mail, email marketing, and display ads.
2. Increased Response Rates
It has been proven time and time again that toll free vanity numbers consistently provide significantly higher response rates. So, considering the small investment it takes to get a winning vanity number, why anyone would ever dream of running an ad campaign without one is a mystery. Otherwise, you are not just throwing away money but handing those prospects over to your competition.
3. Improved Closing Ratios
Vanity numbers not only help increase the response rates to your advertising, but more importantly, they also improve the actual closing ratios from your campaigns. That is where you really put profits back into your pocket. Ask yourself how much a closed deal is worth, not only now but also in terms of the value of a lifelong customer and the referrals you will receive. Easily in the tens of thousands. So with some shared use, vanity numbers are available for as little at $19 a month. That small amount can provide at least two or three times the closed deals from a campaign. It is really a no brainer.
4. Tracking & Testing
Toll free numbers offer the ability to track and test easily all types of metrics and variables involved in your marketing. Those tools mean the ability to identify easily what is working well and what you can improve on so you can hone your marketing into a well oiled money making machine.
5. Maximizing Marketing ROI
These compounding factors of increased advertising effectiveness through better brand recognition, higher response and closing ratios, and well-tested campaigns means being able to see the maximum return on investment from your marketing budget. What you do with the extra profit is entirely up to you, whether it is expanding your marketing efforts, handing out bonuses, donating it to charity, improving your products or services, or just treating yourself to a well-deserved vacation in the sun. Going to the market without a vanity number is the equivalent of handing over large slices of market share to your competitors. Win or lose - it is all up to you.
Image Credit: © Vladimir Mucibabic | Dreamstime.com
1. Filling The Need
You can debate the exact amount of white space you should have in ads and the perfect percentage of keyword density for SEO until you are blue in the face, but if your product or service is not perceived as filling an urgent and essential need, then you cannot complain about poor advertising effectiveness. Don’t just sell the features and tell prospects how your product or service works. Make sure you are promoting the real benefits for your prospective customers, the ones that are most important to them. For example, a toll free number is not just a way for your customers to reach you by phone or only a critical part of your branding. Toll free numbers have not only been proven to improve advertising effectiveness in terms of response rates but also through double digit increases in closing ratios and actual revenues.
2. Personalization
Both individual and corporate consumers are becoming more demanding than ever about the products and services they choose to acquire. They want to be made to feel special and that you care about their needs, and they often will only jump on those offerings that appear to be made just for them. This case is true whether it is a new smartphone, a marketing program, or a mobile app. So consider how you can improve advertising effectiveness or add options to your products that will give that personalized "created just for me" feel. You can also achieve this customer connection by improving on tracking and the flow of your system that will present visitors to your mobile and web presence with exactly what they are looking for and need. Or perhaps you should be creating multiple mini-sites complete with their own branding and vanity numbers to target specific niches in your industry.
3. Integration
In several ways, integration applies to increased advertising effectiveness. First, consumers and prospects are surrounded by so many channels these days that it is essential to keep in front of them wherever they are in order to keep your hold on your market share. No longer are consumers just bombarded by billboards, telemarketers, and TV ads. They are now permanently plugged into the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites whether it is on the computer at work, in their cars, or via their smartphones at every other moment of the day and night. Make sure you are in front of them wherever you can be as often as you can, keeping your service fresh in their minds and making it easy for them to acquire your products and services. However, integration is now also playing an extremely important role in the form of Facebook "likes." Getting your products and business "liked" means being able to tap into the sphere of influence and social network that each of your customers has with an extremely powerful word of mouth referral, so make sure to integrate social media with the rest of your business every step of the way.
4. Make It A "No Brainer" To Do Business With You Online
One major factor that has many business owners stumped at just how poorly their online advertising is performing is that they fail to recognize just how different it is doing business via the Internet than face to face. In the past, your sales team may have done great moving high end products with almost no effort at all. However, in many cases you cannot expect to charge the same premiums to complete strangers who are finding you on the web for the first time without making a solid effort to demonstrate your credibility through strong branding. You will also find your advertising effectiveness dramatically improves by offering trials or other incentives to get prospects to realize just how great your company is. Make it impossible for them to say no!
1. Branding
Toll free vanity numbers are a critical part of any successful brand. An easy to memorize vanity number not only can unify your branding and make you easier to contact, but it is essential for those who really aspire to become long-term fixtures in their industries. If one of your business goals is to become a leader in your field, then you must have a vanity number.
2. Advertising Effectiveness
Whether you are a new start up, a large corporation, or a non-profit organization, toll free numbers have been proven to increase dramatically response rates to advertising. Isn’t it worth a few dollars a month for a winning toll free number that will increase the responses from your advertising by double digits? That could be the difference in only getting a handful of leads or getting several hundred from the same marketing campaign!
3. Better Closing Ratios
Getting lots of leads is great, but unless they become closed deals, they are just burning up your resources. Toll free numbers offer superior brand recognition and credibility and have been shown to increase closing ratios significantly. So if it is closed deals and actual revenues you want, and not just inquiries, then don’t even think about launching your next advertising campaign without a toll free number.
4. Enhanced BPM
In the last few years, toll free numbers have actually emerged as one of the most powerful tools for aiding more efficient business process management. Utilizing the latest toll free routing options, businesses can now offer increased service coverage and have staff working around the clock in every time zone at very affordable rates while streamlining their processes.
5. Business Continuity
One of the biggest buzz topics of the last couple years - "business continuity" - is not to be overlooked. Toll free numbers actually provide the most effective and affordable tools for business continuity in order to protect revenues, gain customer retention, and ensure your company does not miss a beat even in the face of natural disasters and terrorist threats.
In the last few years, 800 numbers have rocketed from being solely the domain of huge corporations to mark their territory and of vanity toys for small and medium enterprises to becoming one of the most valuable and critical tools for businesses of all sizes around the world.
The branding benefits of 800 numbers are now widely publicized, and organizations of all types have recognized their power both to attract new prospects and minimize chargebacks. In fact, more recently vanity numbers have even been credited with being responsible for the incredible success of new enterprises in many industries that have used their 800 numbers to rocket their businesses to industry dominating status. This use not only includes flower delivery services and contact lenses but even new books.
Branding, publicity, efficient lines of communication and attracting masses of new prospects are all important for both new and established businesses. However, none of them are any use unless prospects are turning into closed deals and dollars. It doesn’t matter how much website traffic you can generate, how many incoming calls you can create from direct mail campaigns, or how great your products and services really are if no one is actually acquiring them.
Fortunately 800 numbers have also been shown dramatically to increase closing ratios, adding tangible benefits and bringing in real revenues. Toll free numbers can improve closing ratios in multiple ways. Using 800 numbers for testing before launching large campaigns enables organizations to hone their messages and target markets, increase advertising effectiveness and maximize marketing ROI. Getting the right message to the right prospects at the right time means that not only will your response rates be higher, but those who respond are those most ready and willing to acquire what you are offering. On top of this advantage, the credibility that great 800 numbers can add to your image instantly positions you as the best if not the only choice for meeting prospects' needs so they are left with almost no option but to work with you.
Image Credit: © Dario Bajurin | Dreamstime.com
Is your business phone number helping your company make more money, or is it dooming you to go broke?
We have seen many incredible changes in the world of business recently. The rules have changed in a big way and the margins for error are smaller than they have ever been. Fortunately, those entrepreneurs and managers who have harnessed the power of toll free vanity numbers have positioned themselves with the best available tools for dealing with the demands of the new economy. Not only are vanity numbers key for maximizing marketing ROI by increasing advertising effectiveness, but now they play a critical role at every stage of operations.
Toll free numbers have long been proven dramatically to increase response rates and closing ratios, yet these benefits are only the tip of the iceberg for what a great vanity number can offer. Capitalizing on the latest toll free routing options, you can use vanity numbers to slash overhead and enable rapid growth. Lower monthly expenses means bigger profit margins that allow vanity number users to remain more competitive and take advantage of new opportunities that arise in their industries.
However, perhaps the most important and most overlooked benefit of acquiring a vanity number is the ability of a great vanity number to make a product or service successful all by itself. In addition to the huge corporations that have utilized vanity numbers to dominate entire industries, from flower delivery to contact lenses, new start ups have used them to rocket their ventures to stardom. It is no longer a question of whether you should obtain a toll free or vanity number for your enterprise. The question is what great vanity number can you get your hands on that will propel your business idea to fame and fortune!
1. Unifies Branding
A good toll free number should unify your branding. That means having a vanity number that matches with your business name and Internet domain name. Checking the availability of all three before you reserve any is important.
2. Keyword Search Tools
At least one of the leading toll free number providers now offers a keyword search tool for looking up toll free numbers based on keywords in your branding, whether it is your business name, Internet domain name, product, or service.
3. Check Out The Competition
See what the competition is doing. What is working for them? What companies are dominating your industry and is it because of their toll free numbers?
4. Differentiate
Once you have researched your competitors, analyze what you can do differently. What niches are being left under-served or what direction can you go in to become more appealing to consumers?
5. Reverse Lookups
If there is a toll free number already in use that is ideal for your organization, you may wish to perform a reverse lookup to discover who owns the number in question. You may still be able to acquire this number, although it may be wiser to employ the services of a third party to negotiate the best deal for you.
6. Shared Usage
Shared usage of toll free numbers can be a great way to get use of a premium vanity number at a fraction of the cost. This option is perfect for businesses that are operating in only a few select areas as opposed to nationwide or globally. For example, you could possibly reserve a premium vanity number like 800-MORTGAGE or 800-HOMELOAN for use just within the one or two states where you are licensed to do business.
7. Testing
If you are still having a hard time deciding on which toll free number is best for your business, perhaps you will want to test out several. You can test by simply bouncing the ideas off of different focus groups or polling. Or you could even try out different toll free numbers in PPC ads, and different pieces in direct mail campaigns to see which pulls in the highest response and closing ratios.
Credit Line: © Asri Batu | Dreamstime.com
Without a doubt, the current economic environment requires businesses to be more careful with and more demanding of their marketing budgets than ever before. If you want your company to survive and prosper, you must maximize your business marketing return-on-investment. So how do you calculate your business marketing ROI? What factors are the most important?
Most forms of advertising and lead generation are invested in terms of how many pieces or leads you receive for your money. For direct mail, it is how many pieces you send out; for pay-per-click, it is the number of prospects that click through to your site, and for Internet leads, it is how many actual leads you receive. When calculating expected business marketing ROI from an advertising campaign, it is important to recognize the difference between leads and revenues. It really does not matter how many leads or calls you get on your toll free numbers if none of them are converting into actual customers. In fact, too many contacts not following through will actually begin to cost you more money. While most lead generation companies will shy away from giving you any hard figures on what you can expect in actual closing ratios, the prospective close ratio is still the most important figure when calculating business marketing ROI. However, smart marketing companies and lead generators, who offer direct marketing like direct mail and use toll free numbers for tracking, should be able to show you real numbers from what similar campaigns have generated in actual prospects and incoming calls. These historic results help close the gap between your marketing pieces and actual business marketing ROI, but in the end, it still comes down to your staff to ensure conversion.
When calculating business marketing ROI, what you really need to look at is cost-per-action. In other words, what is it really costing for each new client and each dollar in revenues? Compare these numbers to your other advertising options; then strive to achieve the lowest cost-per-action possible and hone your campaigns to maximize business marketing ROI. This strategy includes doing a better job of targeting your ideal customers and improving the conversion capability of your phone staff or website.
Credit Line: © Dmitry Baevskiy | Dreamstime.com
What are your vanity numbers doing for you? Vanity numbers are not just for vanity. Used in the right way, your vanity numbers can launch your business forward, increase your closings on a daily basis, and cut expenses. All this means putting cash back in your pocket quickly. In fact, many businesses swear that their decision to have vanity numbers is the best choice they ever made when it comes to ROI.
855 vanity numbers offer a unique opportunity for new ventures to get off to an incredible start. The October 1st release of the 855 number prefix comes at a great time for new business start ups and established corporations spinning off new divisions. In the past, most new businesses have been at a distinct disadvantage when they launch due to the barriers faced to acquire quality vanity numbers. Premium vanity numbers have mostly been taken by bigger competitors and to acquire the best toll free numbers for their industry would be a strain on most new businesses' budgets. However, the launch of 855 vanity numbers changes all that for those who are wise enough to grab the opportunity.
