The Makings Of A Vanity Number

Have you noticed telephone numbers containing letters? These are vanity numbers. Usually, companies use their name or an abbreviation of their name and incorporate it in their contact numbers. Those are the letters that are found in the keypad of your telephone. You can actually choose any phone number. It can be the name of your company or any abbreviation of something.

These numbers are created so that people can easily remember them. Plus, this is part of a company's advertising campaign because a series of numbers is difficult to memorize unlike a word or an abbreviation. These numbers have been recognized as an effective marketing tool since doubled the number of calls compared to using a traditional number.

In the United States, they have used these numbers in toll-free numbers for the past thirty years. These vanity numbers usually start with 1-800, 1-866, 1-877, or 1-888. The most popular is 1-800. A toll-free vanity number is much easier to remember because it spells something that relates to the business or individual. Examples are 1-800-PAINTS for a paint company or 1-800-PIZZA for pizza delivery.

Call tracking is an added service h permits businesses to verify their incoming calls and know where these calls come from. This kind of added feature can allow managers to keep track of all their calls and make a database of leads. They can also export these data into other programs and improve personnel allocation basing on these call patterns.

Since this can provide business with detailed reports on different media buys like radio TV, cable and other media, businesses can manage their advertising plans and budgets to make them work for their advantage.

Vanity number's increasing success rate and popularity gave an idea to companies to link these numbers to web pages of the same text. This permits them to zero in on phone and web users altogether. An example of this is the number 1-800-THRIFTY which consequently made the web page "http://www.1800thrifty.com". Following this, other companies are forced to join the bandwagon and pay many thousands or even up to a million dollars just to acquire the domains of the same text as their vanity number.

There has been a virtual scramble amongst most business enterprises to obtain vanity toll free numbers. This is ample proof that toll free vanity numbers do the magic as otherwise these companies would not be foolish to rush to get them.
It is preferable to choose alphanumeric numbers as human tendency is to more easily remember words than numbers. Alphanumeric might be easier to acquire, but try to get as creative as possible with a full word.
As a first choice, try to establish yourself with an 800 vanity number as that is what customers are more familiar with. But the fact is it is getting tougher and tougher to acquire obtain the 800 vanity number. If you do not succeed in getting an 800 vanity number, 888 should be your second choice as it is far more customer-friendly than 877 and 866.
As a rule, avoid spelling out your company name unless yours is a well known company and you are sure everyone knows your company's name. Start using your new vanity number as profusely as you can and take all steps to ensure that the public sees and hears it quite often.