Why is this important to you?

If you are a hardcore Online Marketer it’s huge.

If you are a small biz that markets in your local area, its huge-er.

Pay Per Calls Close……..

For hardcore OM’s, take a close look at the testimonials and stats.   Driving calls pays a minimum of $10.00 for each unique.  Much higher for specific markets like mortgage and insurance.   I know the product is limited right now but more will sign up.  If you were frustrated using Ingenio, Miva or eStara then sit back and keep one eye on Pay Per Call for now.

Why?

1.  AT&T jumped in this game to by buying up Ingenio in June.

2.  Google played with Pay Per Call back in 2005 and I have heard they are looking at it again now that their local search is strong.

3.  RingRevenue just picked up $3.5M in VC funding

It will grow.

For a small biz with a local market, take a close look.  You should focus on completing jobs and paying the bills, not on setting up Google Adwords Pay Per Click campaigns.   If you want more customers but don’t have the time to learn Pay Per Click marketing, BE CAREFUL.   I have seen people blow through $10,000 in a day by bidding on the wrong keywords and not setting a budget correctly.     My suggestion is you look into advertising with your dominant local online yellow page provider or get a webbie to get you signed up for Google Local Search with a simple webpage and your phone number.  It should cost you no more that $150.00.   Start small and learn.  When you’re ready to expand contact Commission Junction and look into becoming a Merchant.

Remember,

With Pay Per Call, you only pay when your phone rings.

You don’t get bombed with tons of emails from people just shopping, SpamBots attacking your advertising, or a huge bill for advertising that produced no results.

There is no Click Fraud.

Calls Close.…… it will be money well spent.

Hint…….Speed is the key………you have to answer the phone……. you can expect a 20-50% close rate as long as the calls don’t go to Voicemail.

Another Hint……..Use a Vanity Number in your Pay Per Call advertising and TurboCharge your results.   We have found a minimum of 3x bump in call volume.   Almost every major company uses a Vanity Number.   There is a reason for that.

That’s enough typing for me today……….I am going back to tweaking my campaigns and more research on mobile marketing programs.

>>l8tr

If you have a question about Pay Per Call just drop me a comment and I will let you know what I have found.

You may be a victim of NumSpell. Believe it or not people still type words into the phone in hopes of finding a product or service.

If you have been - or are - a victim of your phone company randomly selecting 227-Hug-eDic as your home phone number. I suggest you get to the bottom of it FAST………using these tools……..Before you say yes to the cute Phone Mistress in the nether regions of Ma Bell.

www.PhoneSpell.com - Old School and the best of the bunch

www.NumSpell.com - Limited results but prettier.  Uncheck the Adult Filter or prepare to be awakened at night.

www.PhoneSpelling.com - Yuk and confusing

There is one other tool that I used to use all the time, but being a guy, I didn’t think I needed directions to get back there, so I got lost and can’t find it.

Either the webmaster snoozed and a Domainer attacked or Google ate it.

If I find it I will post it for you.

Also……If you are in biz and want highly qualified phone sales……Check out Pay Per Call.    This summer RingRevenue quietly picked up 3.5 Mil to jack up their efforts.   Our Pay Per Call marketing programs that are using Vanity Numbers are out pulling regular numbers by 3x.    More on that in the next post.

Calls Close!………

a mouthful and far more common than we think.

As I sit here with my 6 - 24″ computer monitors, 2 phones,

the radio on and TV tuned to Bloomberg, its going to be very

very hard for you to get my attention.    We live in a very busy world.

But when you do, I want immediate gratification.   An easy

checkout process, fast shipping and a 90 day return policy so

that I can return something if it does not meet my expectations.

(I return very few things because I don’t have the time to box

it up and go down to ship it….So i just re-gift it?)……I don’t even

buy books anymore, I download them to my iPhone so that I

can drive, learn and listen at the same time.

 So, do you think that when I speed read my emails, or something

interesting catches my attention that I am going to remember your

212-555-1212 phone number.   Never…… But I will remember 

your vanity phone number 1-800-Roofing,  or 1-800-Plumbing. 

Grab some attention……Especially in these economic times…..

It works just like Pay-Per-Click Advertising, only instead of providing an interested customer with a web site, you give them a phone number.

You place your Pay-Per-Call advertisement in Google, Yahoo, MSN or any number of search engines that provide you with the ability to buy space. You can also use advertising networks like Miva, Ingenio, Jingle which are specifically focused on phone call tracking.

Wikipedia has a list of Service Providers and some more general information.

What are the benefits to Pay-Per-Call?

1. Competitors can’t click on your advertisement and cost you money….aka Click Fraud.
2. Your leads are more qualified. Callers Close.
3. You don’t have to pay for complicated web sites. It’s easy.
4. It’s easy to track your success. A notepad and “How did you hear about us” is all you need.

And, if you use a Vanity Number, you will save money on advertising. People will remember you and not have to go to the web and click on your ad again.

We find that when we provide our customers with our phone number in - big, red letters - in the same spot where they check product pricing, we get a large number of calls that have a very high close rate. And most of the calls we get are just to make make a customer comfortable about buying over the web.

Don’t forget, people still buy from people.

MONSTER Numbers change industrys. They dominate. They decimate.

They aren’t just another marketing tool. They are a Brand.

There are a lot of valuable vanity numbers, but some numbers above the crowd to become true ‘MONSTER’ numbers, Examples are 1-800-FLOWERS, 1-800-COLLECT, 1-800-CONTACTS and 1-800-MATTRESS.

It takes more than just a real prime (7 digit) vanity number to do this. It takes a successful and powerful business behind the number and it takes a lot of powerful advertising to build a national brand name.

But it also motivates its large consumer market with “Instant Recall.”

Most 800 numbers are used in direct response and nearly all vanity numbers are valuable, but with the combination of these things, you have the raw potential to create a true industry leader.

Direct response is designed to illicit an immediate or direct response from an advertisement. Instant Recal is designed to get the consumer to immediately recognize the company when the need arises.

Most commercials with 800 numbers are direct response, so they want you to be able to remember the phone number long enough to call it. But did you ever see a commercial for 1-800-FLOWERS and say to yourself, “Hey, I could really use some flower now.

Of course not. But now when you break into a sweat about forgetting your anniversary, and your stuck in commute day traffic, you instantly recall 1-800-FLOWERS.

It takes a lot of time, effort and creative marketing to get to that point. But when you do, you have created a multi-million dollar industry leader.

Google slaps me down.

Let’s be real. My goal is to get people to call me. Calls Close.

So I prefer to have a rather “shallow” - aka…Thin - web site that does not bore people with lots of detailed prose. They know what they want.

My goal it to give them the cheapest price - fast. At the lowest customer aquisition cost. The way I do that is to get a toll free URL and use it in my ad Title/Description.

So people will see the phone number and call without clicking.

But now I am dealing with Google Quality Scores. And that makes us all work harder……

Be sure your site includes:

A Privacy Policy
An About Us page
A Contact Us Page - with an address and phone number. If you can’t put your phone number on your site you should not be in business.
Some press releases
And a few pages of fluff

That should get you by until Google slaps us again

What do you do first?

Put it on your business cards, letterhead and envelopes……yes envelopes……Is there some archiac business commandment that says “No Phone Numbers on Envelopes?“. I can’t tell you how many times I have received a check in the mail and I can’t figure out what it’s for. You know the drill, - you go to Google, type in the company name, surf for a half an hour because they are using some bizarre URL that doesn’t match the company name……..All you want to do is call them…QUICKLY….

So, go to whoever creates the graphics for your business papergoods and begin to explain to them that they need to put your new Vanity Number in a BIG font size, where everyone can see it.

They will rebel, in fact they will threaten to quit when you tell them that you also want them to dump the light grey font color and the 6 point type. They will whine and gnash their teeth about how ugly it looks. Hold your ground

To test if the you have the right placement and size, strap your Graphic Artist into their Prius, point them to the freeway at 4:30pm. Tell them they are 15 minutes late for a reallllllly important meeting. As they bob and weave to avoid traffic, pass them your cell phone and business card. Ask them to call the customer and tell them you will be 5 minute late. Then sit back with an air of superiority as they squint at the tiny font trying to find the tiny phone number. As they are busy memorizing 10 numbers while downshifting during ABS chatter, ask them if they think a TINY GREY 1-800-356-9377 is WAY easier to memorize than BIG BLACK 1-800-Flowers.

The moral of the story. Unless you are passing out our business cards to 14 year olds with 20/10 vision, do yourself a huge favor, MAKE YOUR VANITY NUMBER READABLE - and MEMORABLE. And don’t forget Pay Per Call……..It’s the future

Real Simple……remember when you could pickup waterfront property and a cute cabin for $25,000.

I don’t.

Now we are lucky to get “filtered” waterview property.

The same goes for 800#. They ain’t makin’ any more of them. And the people who own the good Vanity Numbers know it.

In life, it’s not about what you own, it is about what you control. Would you buy the Empire State Building for $800 Million if you could lease it for $99 a month?

That’s about what it costs for the average Toll Free Vanity Number per area code in the US.

It costs you * $0 * to include a Vanity Number in your advertising - you have a phone number in there anyway. But your old number is impossible for someone to memorize. In todays crazy, impulse driven world, would you remember 1-800-Contacts - or 1-800-266-8228……be honest. Is that worth $99 a month?

If you are concerned about spending money on someone elses number just remember, your agreement says you have unlimted rights to the number as long as you pay the bill. And you would pay your bill anyway, right? No one can take the number from you if you do.

Don’t forget to check with your local phone company to see if you can get a local vanity number. No one talks about these, but they cost no more than your regular phone number and work great. As long as 100% of your market is in your area code.

But then you probably would not be looking here if it was.

A domain name is one of the first things to check when you considering getting a toll free number.

These days it is best to protect every asset you have. And your Toll Free Vanity Number is tops on that list.

Get all the domain name permutations of your Vanity Number.
1-800
1800
800-
800
and all the other hypenated permutations that makes your number readable

PS……I know this is in the middle but it is important. Don’t use NetworkSolutions to check on an available URL. If you do they will put it on “reserve to protect you” and charge you $34 to get it back. This is called “Front-Running” and really sucks.

A toll free number domain name and matching vanity number combines the advantages of the Internet with the power of a memorable phone number and more than doubles your chance of creating a memorable and favorable impression with the consumer. Why more than doubled? Calls Close!

Owning and using an intelligently created toll free domain name is just smart business.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Whether you’re building a business around your number, marketing a shared use program for multiple smaller businesses to share your number, or just looking for someone interested in the number, we need to market each differently. Here I refer mainly to the later two, selling your number or marketing shared use since the marketing involved with building your business may be totally different.

The first thing that we’ve learned from watching and working with several different numbers and programs, is to start with just one number in a business or industry that you know. This is obviously much more appropriate if you have multiple numbers. But niche programs also seem to do better than generic programs, and people trying to be everything to everyone or to do everything at once often get nothing done in the end.

The next general thing I’ve learned is simply not to spend too much money up front. Leverage your experience and some relatively inexpensive technology tools to get started and then expand your efforts as things progress. This should allow you to maintain a more positive cash flow while you learn what works and what doesn’t. One good way to do this for many people will be the Internet. If you have not looked into Pay Per Call marketing and using your Vanity Number in Pay Per Click marketing, stay tuned for later posts.

More traditional methods such as advertising, even within your industry and direct mail usually shouldn’t be attempted until after you’ve exhausted other possibilities.