Marketing Phone Numbers | Creative Tactics to Use Virtual Phone Numbers for Marketing
Hey marketers!
Digital shoppers on their websites have long been asking for an email address upon signing up or logging in. Oh, and why not? This how they can guarantee the creation of a customer relationship and the promotion of sales through email marketing. “But smartphone ownership rates in emerging and developing nations are rising at an extraordinary rate,” for most individuals have a smartphone today. The technology has already exceeded landline capabilities. Ever back in time, the only two persons who owned the only two phones in the world were Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant. Today, they are more of marketing phone numbers.
Today, statistics show that “every fourth person in the region has two mobile connections.“ On one hand, this is how subscriptions for smartphones are growing. Also, by 2021, they project100% of the population in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore to adopt the technology, although they would be more than double in the Philippines and Indonesia.
On the other hand, Voice of Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become a popular technology that offers solutions for real-time communication. The increasing adoption of the cloud-based communication model in mid-to-large-sized companies is also boosting the growth of the VoIP industry. That is small businesses that switched to VoIP save 40% on local calls and 90% on international calls, (TechCo). Yet, most surprisingly, Forbes has stated that by 2025 that AI (artificial intelligence) Chatbots will do 95% of customer interactions over the phone.
Integrating VoIP technology pushes companies to rise by 20% in productivity. There is no reason not to exploit all these great technologies to boost your marketing strategies and techniques. This is through the use of marketing phone numbers working with VoIP technology, virtual phone numbers.
What is Virtual Phone Numbers?
A virtual number is a phone number of a different location that is provided to you by the VoIP service provider. You could live in the United States and have a number of India or Spain or Australia enabling you to create a virtual presence in a different country or continent. This is without having to set up an office, but you can track the performance of all your marketing campaigns using these marketing phone numbers. How does it work? And how to use them? Explore more from here.
How to Use Virtual Phone Numbers for Your Marketing?
You may feel scared to be that marketer who might never meet a customer from that other part of the world. But no need to feel afraid, for it is right that we are still living in the very same sized world today. However, technology is waving around and turning it all into hyper-connectivity. Now, how can you be the first in using marketing phone numbers whether for your company or for your skills and services?
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Using Numbers for Different Campaigns
Being able to attach phone numbers in seconds to your account means you can get as many numbers as campaigns require! Moreover, when setting a particular number or several numbers for each campaign, you can evaluate the results of each campaign and correlate them to other marketing campaigns. For example, you can associate a special number or a set of numbers for users to call
- when you run a competition
- redeem an offer
- to measure the call volume you get from your campaigns.
2. Understand Where Your Customers Are Coming From
It is vital for marketers to determine exactly where their clients are from. We can’t deny the role of Google Analytics in providing the data of your web traffic. But still, you can directly attribute the numbers in every single campaign to know for sure what is working and what is not. Assign local and international numbers to ascertain some data regarding:
- The best performance of each city-specific campaign.
- What time of day is the busiest for calls.
- How long the average call duration is
3. The marketer says, “don’t frame your campaigns locally”
If you are thinking of taking your business abroad, then you may be able to get a leg up on the competition.
Why?
- Let your callers feel more familiar and encouraging to order. You have been once in the place of your audience; had a keen to get a service or purchase a product but got disappointed for the unfamiliar area code or a foreign country. Why not avoid that while you are running your own marketing?
- Break the barriers preventing many customers from reaching your number due to restrictions from their telecom service provider. There are either a) charge long-distance fees or b) block the phone call outright.
Take, for example, your company is in Florida, and the process goes like this when launching your campaign targeting people in Dubai as:
- A caller based in Dubai can dial your virtual Dubai phone number.
- It is immediately routed to your call center located in Florida when the call goes.
After all, the location of where the call ends might not be known to callers. You are still penetrating new markets without the need for any extra localization process.
4. Perceiving Your Brand Globally
Is it only a one-location business with a limited number of employees and departments, but you still plan to increase your global branding and customer awareness of the company?
International virtual phone numbers can be used to:
- Enhance your business’ public brand and profile. You can control the expansion of the brand of your business when attaching it to several points of contact for multiple foreign nations for every ad and marketing campaign.
- Having distinct virtual numbers for various departments or functions, even though they end up at the same place, would make the organization sound greater. Consequently, more people will perceive your brand as a global one than it actually is and thus boosts its image.
5. Keep the Numbers Used in Marketing and Personal Affairs Separate
Don’t fall into the error most entrepreneurs have made when first starting out to direct customers to call their personal numbers. Keep It Safe! Why?
- Ensure better productivity and a clean history of contacts when keeping business and personal calls separate.
- Enjoy peace of mind and time to relax during your off-hours.
- Save your personal number from being exposed and vulnerable to numerous online threats and hackings. Even for WhatsApp, you need to keep your personal account security to protect your private data.
- Touch the flexibility to work from anywhere. Whether you are in your office or on the road, you can take calls or forward them to another number or voicemail. You can set it up to hunt for you on the other lines and devices if you do not pick up on the first.
- No need for a second phone, but you can bring everything into one inbox. That is, your all business in one account and all your personal in another.
6. Market Your Ecommerce Site or Store Uniquely
In more ways than we could ever imagine, virtual phone systems are evolving the e-commerce industry. It is reported in Statistics, ” In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 3.53 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 6.54 trillion US dollars in 2022. Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities worldwide.”
Have you already created your fancy website, with the extremely useful and cool product (or service) description and characteristics? Great so far! But, have you provided your potential customers who will come over and desire to acquire something with a number easily reachable? Would he have additional questions to make oneself sure this is the real thing he was looking at, does it have this and that options available, if it is possible to make a refund, etc.?
Well, this global bloom is worth it, but how to stand out amongst the rest using virtual phone numbers?
- Contributing an absolute trust: virtual numbers on your website, social media platforms, and different ads will encourage your customers to contact you on the fly. BrightLocal has stated that 87% of consumers have looked for a phone number or address online. This shows the importance of finding out your audience and get to know their interests and feedback on the phone.
- Improving the percentage of website conversions and ad optimization when aligning your virtual numbers to each of them.
7. Toll-Free Numbers for Marketing Campaigns
Do you know what toll-free numbers are? At no cost to them, callers dial these numbers. The business that owns the number and accepts the calls is liable for the expense of these calls.
Are they important to business? Research studies have shown that, “ads with toll-free numbers see a 30% better response-rate than ads without. That same research showed that 86% of US consumers associate toll-free numbers with a quality business.”
How it can affect the spread of your brand? It’s a good idea to create a special toll-free number for each marketing channel. They help to analyze the effects of each one personally, whether for print, online, television or radio. Toll-free numbers are a trackable marketing tool that generates a larger proportion of inbound leads, revenues, and a higher return on investment (ROI). Also, getting a free of cost tool to help your customers reach you will drive customers to call back and invest further in the brand. This is especially when they refer the service to a friend or family member. After all, you can generate more traffic.
8. Shout Out Loud “Click to Call Me”
Social media presence is something your marketing can’t dispense with. Yet, how can you share your number on different social media platforms and entice your audience never to move on without clicking and ordering?
Have you come across a popular add-on bridging the gap between your audience and customers scrolling through your posts on their smartphones and actually contacting your business? It’s there! See how from here.
Use your virtual phone number to use this tactic to take advantage of the reach of your social media content and build a customer base quickly.
9. Re-direct Your Money to Better Routs
Do you want to implement retention or offer promotions back to your customers? But, at the same time, do you want to save loads of money over local carries on long distance and international calling fees when you need to talk to a potential customer? In other words, you can eliminate costs related to moving facilities, or changing locations, while still being able to target various segments globally. On the other hand, costs related to tracking the effectiveness of various marketing communication efforts are slashed. Instead, own diverse virtual phone numbers and just save thousands of dollars for more business growth. This is mainly because the call charges of the virtual phone systems are usually much cheaper in comparison to the conventional carrier-based calls.
Moreover, within your company, route regional and international calls to virtual numbers automatically via toll-free Internet links. After all, they can take you anywhere, anytime, on a variety of devices at little cost.
10. Marketing Phone Numbers and WhatsApp
When you’re thinking about different marketing channels to talk and engage with your ideal customers, you have good reasons to use WhatsApp:
- It’s free, and your target audience is already on WhatsApp.
- It lets you send images, eBooks, brochures, and catalogs.
- Survey tool! Ask for feedback directly from customers.
- As a messaging app, it lets you send alerts about new events and sales.
- Create broadcast lists related to a specific marketing campaign. Seize the many tricks in WhatsApp to use in your business, such as appealing stories, business profiles and automated messaging tools.
- It can be used on your WhatsApp to make clever offers and promotions. Here is how companies like Netflix and BookMyShow use it to direct people to promotions.
- You know you can use your WhatsApp to make money through sharing the short links and earning a commission according to the number of times the link is opened and the ad is viewed.
Still, if used your WhatsApp for your business and shared your number with your customers, where would you feel your comfort zone or your private spot?
When activating another WhatsApp account with another number free of SIM, you will not only apply all the previous ideas comfortably but also you can keep business and personal affairs separate. Let’s take this deeper.
Concluding Thoughts
After all, unlike any other traditional calling system, a virtual number will enhance the overall essence of your company with everything it has in store with the rich features the virtual numbers provide.
That said, give it a try. You’ll engage your followers in a whole new way. Good luck!
Get a virtual number and enjoy profitable marketing campaigns!
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