In the wake of the holidays, 800 toll free numbers continue to remain relevant through the winter wonderland. Don’t think just because the shopping blitz is over that these numbers will go out of service. If anything, 2013 will prove not to be the end of an era, but a new beginning. On the surface it would seem that last year would have shown a decline in the use of 1-800 toll free services, but the medium is taking new strides for greater evolution. With even more 800 toll free numbers being taken off the wires, the popularity continues to grow.

For one thing, 800 toll free numbers are still the go-to service for various state departments of transportation whose borders are encountering blizzards. Another important service, particularly over the holidays, provides free towing and transportation services for intoxicated drivers who need to get home. Local businesses also teamed up to provide a toll free service for cab rides home. 

 Bear in mind that deadlines for Hurricane Sandy relief claims and assistance requests were extended through the end of January. Residents of the area are encouraged to dial the toll free number.

A world without accessibility and clear-cut channels of customer communication will put technology in the wrong hands, perhaps as Mike Judge envisioned when directing Idiocracy. Recently, we saw hash tag (“#”s) texts gaining steam in providing toll-free services. Not to mention, Sprint’s inclusion of the new service, StarStarMe, will hopefully continue the trend of toll free numbers. And last but not least, businesses are considering applying toll-free data plans to better serve customers with mobile data limits and throttling. he challenge lies in continuing with the trends of communication. We’ll see you next year.

#Telephone trends have changed dramatically altering advertising effectiveness and spurring new marketing strategies, but the sweet spot of the future might not be where you think!

A new report from the CDC shows a 40% shift in the types of phone services Americans are using in the last ten years alone. Landline usage has reportedly dropped back to WWII era levels, with some demographic groups reporting 75.9% no longer have any landline phone at all.

What does this mean for marketing?

It obviously brings many challenges for telemarketing and outbound call centers. Many have offset this by delegating their call center operations offshore to low expenses as conversions drop. However, the resulting drop in phone agent quality is certainly also compounding the decline in advertising effectiveness, making room for the few onshore top guns to really stand out.

Most businesses immediately deduce that the future is all about mobile marketing and apps, though far too many still fail to develop their own apps.

Truly savvy marketers are able to get the edge in all types of outbound phone marketing by digging further into the data to target prospects and tailor messages based on types of devices and phone carriers. Bulk SMS, mobile ads and apps all still have their place, as does social if targeted well. Even cold calling can still work effectively if approached the right way.

At the same time it must be expected that saturation will also affect outbound mobile marketing in the next 24 months. This means it is more essential than ever for companies to also have strong and memorable brands, with highly visible toll free numbers as well as great content for attracting and closing inbound business too.

The battle for retail dollars is set to be fiercer than ever in 2013. Will your tech keep you on top of the game or see you become a victim in the next twelve months?

Reports put the 2012 holiday sales season as the worst on record since 2008, despite deep discounts and offers beginning even before Black Friday. If this trend continues into the New Year, then only the strong will survive.

This will be a year when only the consumer friendly brands hold out, those mastering technology to lower overhead and widen profit margins stay in the business, and the organizations that stand out the most will thrive, grow, and be able to dominate on the downfall of their less well-equipped competition.

With stories of even Mark Zuckerberg's sister publicly complaining on Twitter about the lack of photo sharing privacy on Facebook, social networks have a lot of work to do to retain users and marketers ahead.

Apple has announced a new iPad 5 to be released in March. This will certainly rub many who forked out for iPads for Christmas the wrong way and will be followed by more time in the courts as tech giants use every weapon in their arsenals to fend off the competition.

However, perhaps most significant was the Netflix flop on Christmas Eve which left consumers on two continents unable to use the service on two of its busiest days of the year. Netflix blames Amazon Web Services, signaling that retailers must make themselves less reliant on third parties in 2013 and have a strong offline alternative for marketing and communications if they want to retain market share in the year ahead.

This, plus as competition for dollars heats up, with potentially fewer dollars to chase, those with prime toll free vanity and business phone numbers will be those who lead in 2013. Do you have yours yet?

Yesterday Facebook began testing a new fee for sending messages to anyone outside of a user's immediate network of friends.

More than just turning more brands off of using the social platform as a marketing tool, this signals a major shift needed to keep today's startup culture alive and a new marketing strategy for those who have been investing in social media marketing.

The new move by Facebook charges senders $1 per message sent to someone outside of their immediate circle of contacts and would cap the number of these marketing messages to recipients to one per week.

In one sense it takes Facebook back to its original roots as a tight knit social network. On the other hand, it will have a major negative impact on all of those businesses that have been using the platform for mass outbound marketing. It will now be far too expensive to use for all but the largest brands like Coca Cola.

The Menlo Park social media giant may believe that brands are held ransom to forking over any amount it demands to keep marketing due to its past status as a "must-have" for all brands. However, on the back of a flurry of these moves, Facebook has certainly lost this status and now remains a side thought as companies get busy focusing on more profitable advertising channels.

Investors may love the hope of bringing in more money but are perhaps out of touch with how businesses are really using it. This is definitely clear as this announcement yesterday brought a halt to Facebook's rebound and has sent the share price sliding downwards again.

More significantly, on the back of this week's Instagram debacle, it is clear this approach from social and tech businesses presents a major threat to the nation's startup culture and tech industry. Venture capital funds and investors are going to get fed up with losing money on these bets if there isn't a major shift in mentally very soon.

The current culture has made it acceptable for entrepreneurs to launch trendy ideas and tech platforms with no real business plan or plan for profitability from the start. It is no wonder so many startups are failing. We have been enjoying an amazing climate where investors funnel masses of capital into accelerators and incubators and are okay with an occasional winner. However, if even the largest "success" stories continue to flop, that money will soon go elsewhere, ending an incredible period of innovation.

Freemium is great, but a business must be profitable enough to at least cover its own overhead and expansion from the start or have a plan to do so within a fixed period of time. Sadly, most won't grasp the magnitude of this.

Truly savvy entrepreneurs and those serious about their long term success will be scooping the best toll free numbers ahead of the New Year to roll out alternative marketing campaigns as they decrease their reliance on social.

In order to serve these winning brands and those who serve them, Custom Toll Free has just launched a new page sporting the best specialty vanity numbers for marketing agencies.