Marketing By Numbers

The previously fixed date for the changes to 0870 numbers of 1 February 2008 is no more! OFCOM has announced a delay in the implementation of the new 0870 regulations due to concerns over pre-call announcements. No firm date for eventual implementation has been given.

With the rise in popularity of the 0844 range of marketing numbers, I thought it time to give some explanation of what they are and how they work.

To all intents and purposes, they are much the same in operation as 0845 numbers but may cost slightly more to call than an 0845. As indicated in my previous post, they are being used often to replace 0870 numbers which are much costlier to call.

0844 numbers are non-geographic, in other words they are not confined to a fixed location like most 01 and 02 numbers. This makes them very suitable for businesses that wish to take calls on different numbers at different locations, or to switch calls to different numbers to provide for busier periods. It also means that businesses locating to a new area do not need to change their telephone number thus minimising costs of reprinting, repainting vehice signage etc. It also eliminates problems with customer contact as the customer continues to call the same telephone number.

Some, providers of 0844 services also include a Virtual Office or Call Management System with their numbers which enables enhanced customer service provision. Take a look at the Marketing By Numbers Call Manager for an example of the facilities available.

So, is there really much difference between 0844 and 0845?

Both are able to give the caller an improved customer service by reducing the chance of getting an engaged tone and by routing the call to the right person as quickly as possible. This does depend on effective management of the number by the business using it. It does, however, cost money to provide enhanced customer services in this way.

The only real difference is in the pricing of the service. Callers will usually pay a little more for calls to an 0844 than for an 0845, organisations using the numbers should find the cost of operating the 0844 a little lower than the 0845.

You can find specific details of the Marketing By Numbers services here:

0844 Numbers

0845 Numbers

Call Manager

Reviewing the situation since my post on the future of 0870 numbers in March, I find the following:

There has still been no progress on the new pricing model for 0870 numbers when they change in February 2008.

Provision and take up of the new 03 range has been almost non-existant with very few operators even offering the option. Price uncertainty still prevails here.

There has, however, been a noticeable increase in the take up of 0844 numbers across all market sectors, both public and private. As always, the market will find its own preferred solution to any problem and voting seems to be going the way of 0844s.

Businesses and other organisations currently using 0870 numbers need to be aware of changes to pricing of these numbers due to come in to effect on 1st February 2008.

From this date revenue share (outpayments) will cease and at the same time the cost of calling 0870 numbers will be brought into line with the cost of calling normal 01 and 02 numbers.

The result of this for the owners of 0870 numbers will be as follows:

High volume users currently receiving outpayments from their 0870 service provider, will cease to receive such payments and instead be likely to face a per minute charge to continue to receive calls to their numbers.

Low volume users who currently enjoy the benefit of free or very low flat rate costs to use these numbers will from February 2008 face per minute call charges or monthly rentals of even both.

Full information on such charges may not be available until as late as 31 December 2007. This leaves very little time for owners of 0870 numbers to make a sensible decision as to the best way forward. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m often asked “what’s the difference between Marketing and Selling?” Isn’t it all the same thing?

The conventional answer to this is……

“Selling is part of marketing. Marketing is about seeing the ‘Big Picture’, the marketplace, the product etc…   Selling is the part about finding the customers and introducing them to the product in a convincing way so that they are inclined to buy.”

Now, I’ve always considered this ‘Marketing the Hard Way!’ It’s the way most people seem to go about their business. They come up with what they think is a good idea for a product, produce the best version of it they can and then go out to find people to sell it to. Sometimes it works, some times it doesn’t and, in any event, it proves time consuming and costly. If you can afford high profile, continuous TV advertising or the high commissions expected by ‘High Closing’ salesmen, you can probably get the sales - but will you make a profit?

I look upon Marketing as ‘Selling the Easy Way!’. The trick is to turn the whole process on its head. Read the rest of this entry »

The “quality” of a website can be measured in two main ways, the quality of actual content as determined by both search engine algorithms and human reviewers and the popularity of the website as measured by the number of other websites linking to yours.

Remember that your site has to appeal to your human visitors once they find you, as well as to the search engines they use to find you!

The most important measure of quality as far as the search engines are concerned is the quality, relevance and importance of the sites that link to yours. Their quality is assessed by their page rank, their relevance relates their content topic to yours - in other words they need to be on the same or closely related theme. Their importance is judged by factors such as “authority” e.g. University sites, professional organisations, media etc are the kinds of sites that are considered authoritative, as a websites run by people with acknowledged expertise in their field. The quantity of visitor traffic to a given site also has a bearing on its importance in this respect. Read the rest of this entry »

Here I am again with the promised continuation of the “Earn It!” section of web marketing basics. I’ve been in sunny Spain since I wrote the last piece and, somehow, things don’t seem to get done quite as quickly over here!!

As previously mentioned, the theory of good website optimisation is simply to provide the search engines, especially Google, with what they say they want - namely relevant, quality, up to date content. You also need to ensure the search spiders (robots) know what your webpages are all about so they can index and rank them effectively. Let’s take these three areas one at a time…. Read the rest of this entry »

 In theory you earn traffic as a result of a good ranking in search engines.

This is the way most people think they know how to get visitor traffic to their website. They know that they need to get in the search engines & they know that they need to get to the top of the search engines. But they don’t know how!

Once upon a time all you had to do was get a few pages of half decent information, tweak a few meta tags, put in a good title and headline and submit your website and wait. Sooner or later you would end up listed in Alta Vista, or Yahoo or the “newcomer”, Google. With very little competition your website would soon float up the charts.

But that was way back then, and this is right here and now - and things are just a little bit different! Read the rest of this entry »

Now that most businesses have realised that a website has become an essential part of their marketing armoury, there is a growing realisation that a website alone is about as visible as a speck of dandruff in a snowstorm.

Web Marketing is not about building a website, it is about bringing visitors to that website and then giving them something worth having when they get there!

It is about making your offer as irresistable as possible, and making it as easy as possible to find and to buy.

It is about standing out from the millions of other websites out there in a very crowded market place. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a well known saying in advertising that has been variously attributed to Lord Leverhulme, Henry Ford, John Paul Getty and countless other marketers. I guess most of us have said something like it at one time or another:

“50% of my advertising budget is wasted - I just don’t know which half!”

In fact some recent research has indicated that, especially amongst smaller businesses, the waste factor may even be nearer to 90% than 50%! That’s a frightening statistic, particularly when you consider just how expensive advertising can be these days. So what can be done about it? Read the rest of this entry »