With the increase of natural disasters and terrorist threats over the last ten years, business continuity has increasingly become a bigger concern for companies of all types. So are 855 numbers an effective form of business continuity insurance?

Most brick and mortar businesses have business insurance already. However if they read their policies or have been through a disaster already, they know they will be left uncompensated in most cases despite having forked out large sums of money in premiums. A few emerging companies provide information on protecting your business continuity and can create elaborate plans for all types of contingencies; however, such extensive planning isn’t always needed or the best use of capital for many organizations. So how can 855 numbers provide a superior level of business continuity that is far more affordable?

Business continuity planning's purpose is to ensure that despite a natural or man-made disaster, whether hurricane, earthquake, or bombing, your business can continue to operate. Even when the economy was at its most buoyant for most companies, just missing a few days of business could be ruinous. What plans and safeguards do you have in place right now? Imagine what would happen if all of your business phone lines were down for a week, your month’s marketing budget was completely wasted, and you lost 25 percent of your current clients because they couldn’t get ahold of you? Your organization may be able to survive, though it would certainly mean a massive loss of market share and leave you struggling to catch up for at least a year while your competition fed off of your demise.

855 numbers can enable your business to set up emergency forwarding plans in advance so, should your main place of business or any branches be affected by a disaster, incoming calls can be immediately routed to preset alternative numbers so you never have to miss a beat. 855 toll free numbers, together with outsourcing and cloud-computing, document-sharing tools, can help you seemlessly to keep your operations running and revenues coming in.

1. Research

Any marketing strategy not founded on research probably has no more chance of success than the roulette table. That doesn’t mean it has to be incredibly expensive, but some market research built on real facts and figures is crucial for a winning marketing strategy.

2. Branding

Before launching any new marketing strategy, you must have developed your brand image in order to ensure maximum results in both the short- and long-term. This development should at a minimum include a unified brand incorporating your business name, web domain name, a toll free vanity number, and a logo. Unified branding will result in the biggest yields in terms of direct responses as well as repeat and future business.

3. Testing

Testing is absolutely critical for maximizing marketing ROI and survival in every industry these days. Once you have done your research and branding, get your online assets up and running quickly because without action, there can be no returns. However, instead of throwing your whole marketing budget on one channel or ad set, start slow, see how you can improve conversions, and constantly be improving your marketing strategy.

4. Grow Traffic

Before you can make a real impact in your industry and see high volume results from your marketing strategy, you are going to need to be able to get your message in front of a lot of prospects. It is true that paid Internet advertising is still an essential and effective part of any marketing strategy. Yet, growing your fan base, followers, subscribers, and website traffic will ensure you get the highest possible return on all of your future marketing efforts. Try building your opt-in email list with free reports, and run competition and promotions to bolster your social media fan base.

5. Create Your Funnel

While the main focus of your marketing strategy right now may be to generate immediate deals and revenues, do not overlook the future value of your contacts. Build out your product funnel so you can automate follow up and make the most out of every lead.

6. Monetize

Once you have your online marketing flow working smoothly and have cultivated a large following or at least a large amount of regular web traffic, it is time to monetize it and start really turning on the profits. Your main product line may be performing, and you may be converting others down the road through your funnel, but by joining leading affiliate marketing programs and working them, you can dramatically increase the value of every visitor to your site and really put the icing on your marketing strategy.

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Several years ago, even small businesses had to spend $6,000, $15,000, or even more on a business phone system in order to handle communications and conduct business with clients effectively. However, with advances in VOIP and cloud computing software, both new and existing companies can eliminate most if not all of this expense while maintaining a professional presence with premium toll free numbers.

Even better, toll free numbers can also help reduce the overall start up investment and monthly overhead. Toll free forwarding combined with Internet phone service can enable your organization to work on higher profit margins and even deliver a higher quality of customer service at the same time while eliminating the need for expensive business phone systems. Call centers and even large companies who need a more robust and elaborate business phone system can find hosted virtual business phone systems that offer more affordable options and flexibility.

In most cases, this new breed of business phone system solutions also offers faster changes when needed and less expensive maintenance. These new business phone solutions mean saying goodbye to the days of messing around with tech support for days on end or even having to deal constantly with replacing or adding new phones which can run hundreds of dollars each. It also makes moving and relocating easy, making your organization as a whole more flexible and able to take advantage of the best opportunities as they arise.

Taking advantage of the best toll free routing and forwarding features for your business phone lines can also give your organization the edge over your competitors who are still trying to do business the old way. And not only will it streamline your business processes but help in maximizing your marketing ROI. So before you go shopping for an expensive new business phone system or put out more money to expand or relocate an existing one, check out your other options; you may be surprised by just how much you can save in terms of money and gain in terms of efficiency.

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….

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1. Article Marketing
Article marketing has emerged in the last couple of years as one of the most powerful additions to a great online advertising strategy. Not only can article marketing be used to position you as an expert in your industry, but it can drive in lots of new traffic to your website and improve your website rankings with the search engines.

2. PPC Advertising
While there have been many new forms of Internet marketing emerging in the last year or two, PPC advertising should remain a part of your core advertising strategy. Done right, it can offer one of the most efficient and effective forms of online marketing and can provide instant results. It should include image and text ads for major search engines as well as through popular social media sites.

3. Press Releases
Press releases distributed across the web as part of your Internet advertising strategy can also be incredibly effective, create a buzz, and get your business noticed. Using sites like PRWeb and PRNewsWire, you can benefit from the viral capabilities of the Internet and boost brand visibility.

4. Blogging
While blogging is hardly new, it should not be overlooked as one of the best ways to drive masses of new traffic to your web assets and increase retention rates. When you look at the incredible volume a good blog can drive in, it is clear it should remain one of the most important elements of your online advertising strategy.

5. Email Marketing
A few years ago, email marketing suffered from overuse and lost a lot of its impact. But the cycle has come full circle now, and when done properly, it can prove to be one of the most inexpensive parts of your advertising strategy. With testing and incorporating links to social media and even video marketing, many companies are now seeing response rates between 10-50 percent compared with as little as 1-2 percent three to five years ago.

6. Mobile Marketing
Any company serious about being successful and staying ahead of the competition must be at least researching how it can incorporate mobile marketing into its overall advertising strategy. Mobile marketing will definitely be a differentiating factor between those who become leaders in their industries and those who fall by the wayside in the next couple of years.