Think about your countless Internet passwords. Are they all random jumbles of letters, numbers, and characters? Or are they well-thought-out messages in words, phrases, or abbreviations that mean something to you (and hopefully you alone)?
We’re guessing that, even though cybersecurity experts caution against it, your passwords form words, meaningful number combinations, or messages created for memorability. Why? Because you’d quickly forget random alphanumeric passwords.
That’s the strategy behind vanity phone numbers for businesses. They’re meaningful, not random, and that increases memorability. One study found that vanity numbers (and letters) such as 800-FLOWERS, 800-DENTIST and 800-GO-FEDEX are 14 times more memorable than generic phone numbers, those consisting of random accumulations of digits.
That’s just one finding showing the marketing power of vanity phone numbers for commercial enterprises. Here are several statistics that show the phone number value of one or more vanity phone numbers that can increase your customer engagement.
First, let’s first address the most basic issue of all.
Why It’s So Important to Remember a Commercial Phone Number
You see marketing messages constantly during your day. Computer ads, billboards, radio commercials, TV spots, emails, and outdoor signs are only the tip of the iceberg. Most have a call to action, requesting that you press a button, consider a cause, stop in, or…pick up your phone and place a call.
That’s where the importance of vanity numbers comes in. Because your customers aren’t always near a phone when they get your marketing message. They’re on the bus or train or in their cars. They’re taking care of the kids, running errands, in a rush to get to meetings, or confronting a million other obstacles.
By the time they do have a little time on their hands, they’ve long forgotten the response phone number they saw in your digital ad or outdoor billboard or heard on the radio or podcast. Unless that is, the response number was 800-PROGRESSIVE or 800-PET-MEDS.
The point is vanity phone numbers are much more memorable than random sequences. That’s especially true if the message behind the vanity number cleverly relates to your business. Think 800-FLOWERS or 800-GO-FEDEX (remember, while all of these examples use the toll-free 800 number as a prefix, you can also use an expanding choice of toll-free prefixes or make your vanity number a local dial).
More Statistics Showing the Strength of Vanity Phone Numbers
Do you think business by phone is passe in our Internet world when eCommerce is just a click away? Not even close. Consider a Google study that showed that 61 percent of mobile searchers for products or services prefer to speak with someone on the phone when making a purchase decision rather than completing the sale online.
Think about it. Those shoppers are just a few smartphone clicks away from making the buy, but they want to talk to an actual human being. Approximately 59 percent say that’s because they’d think they can get quick answers to their questions that way. Nearly as many simply prefer talking to a human.
That’s not all.
Vanity phone numbers also:
- Boost phone call rates, compared to random phone numbers, as much as 84 percent for billboard and print ads, 58 percent for radio and television commercials, and 20 percent for online ads.
- Double word-of-mouth advertising results. That’s when a satisfied customer recommends a business to someone else. That statistic means that it’s much easier to take a friend’s advice to call 800-FLOWERS before Mother’s Day than to somehow make contact with a recommended local florist at a phone number your friend likely can’t remember. So vanity phone numbers boost word-of-mouth results by 200 percent over a competitor with a randomly generated number.
- Increase customer call volume. The number of calls goes up more than 33 percent when businesses get vanity phone numbers.
- Are especially appreciated by your younger customers. When four generations of American consumers were asked if they thought vanity phone numbers would be memorable, the biggest cheerleaders were millennials and the Gen Z crowd. Those are your customers born in 1981 and later…and they’re especially eager to get your business’s vanity phone number.
Contact 800.com For a Relevant and Effective Vanity Phone Number
At 800.com, it’s our business to provide your business with memorable, brand-building, and measurably effective vanity phone numbers. Call us at the memorable (800) 800-4321, which is also a vanity number. We’ll show you how to choose a vanity phone number that will help your customers reach you.
