23 Places to Market your Phone Number

Customers are more likely to buy if they call you than if they visit your website, so here’s the big question: where should you advertise your phone number?

1.  Your Website – This is the most obvious place to put your phone number. Put it in a prominent place on your website. You would think that putting a phone number on your website would be a no-brainer. Well, it’s surprising then, how few people have brains, because there are many websites that do not have prominently displayed phone numbers on them.

2.  Your Facebook Page – What does all this ‘Like me on Facebook’ nonsense actually do for you? Seriously? Is a business Facebook page worth investing in or spending time on? Find out, by putting a phone number on your Facebook page. See if anyone calls you.

3.  Your LinkedIn Page – Does your company have a LinkedIn Profile? If not, you should create one. Once you do, put a phone number on that page.

4.  Your Business Cards – Put phone tracking numbers on your business cards. Companies spend thousands of dollars a year on business cards. They hand them out to leads and put them in jars at restaurants. Are they effective? Do they generate phone calls?

5.  Your Brochures and Literature – You probably have a brochure you give prospects, or a letterhead with a phone number. You should put phone numbers on each of those things. Because, what’s the point of that nice letter you sent them if they don’t call you?

6.  Fliers – Maybe you’re a business that attends tradeshows, or you host community events, or you have fliers available in your store. Every business has used fliers. Was it a waste of money? Did anyone who picked up a flier actually call you? If not…why would you create fliers in the future?

7.  Goodies – Every Christmas, millions of businesses send out a bunch of junk to leads and current customers. They send stuff like calendars, pens, mousepads, etc. Why not put a phone number on those and see if anyone actually calls because they looked up and saw your 2012 calendar?

8.  Direct Mailer – Even as the economy becomes increasingly paperless, direct mail ads are actually gaining popularity in some sectors. Direct mail gets your business in front of consumers immediately. But does it work? You should put a tracking phone number on your direct mailers.

9.  Valpak – These are the little coupon books that come in the mail.

10.  Classified – Many businesses run classified ads in newspapers and magazines. They should all have a tracking phone number. Why? Because you don’t want to waste money running advertising that doesn’t work.

11.  Newspaper Inserts – Every local and national paper has ads and coupons that pull out of the paper. Put a tracking number on these.

12.  Magazine and Print Advertising – This is your standard, old-school advertising. Most businesses have run a print ad somewhere at some point. Did the print ad work? Did it generate phone calls? Use a tracking number and find out.

13.  Billboards – What’s better than a giant billboard with your logo and a tracking phone number? Not much.

14.  Craigslist – It’s easy, it’s free and you can put a phone number on the listing. (Yes, a tracking phone number).

15.  BBB, Chamber of Commerce, etc. – Most businesses pay to be a part of local or national directories. Is it worth it? Find out with tracking phone numbers on those listings.

16.  TV or Radio– We had a client who had, for years, had advertised on TV and radio. He spent $4000 – $5000 every few months on a fresh batch of TV and radio ads. He assumed they were working. Then he bought some tracking phone numbers from us. Well, it turned out that his 6 radio ads and 2 TV ads didn’t generate one phone call! Not one! You’re welcome. (Now, we have other clients that say TV and radio ads generate lots of phone calls. Again, they know this because they have tracking numbers on these ads.

17.  Emails – Many businesses send regular emails. These could be newsletters or some sort of a nurture campaign. Why not put a tracking phone number on these emails to see if anyone picks up the phone to call?

18.  Newsletters – You know that quarterly newsletter you send to everyone on your mailing list. Does it do any good? Do they read it? Put a phone number in the newsletter to find out.

19.  Yellow Page Listings – Listing your business in the Yellow Pages is a necessity. Why? Because many people still use the phone book and an increasing number of people search the yellow pages online. When they see your business, they see a phone number too.

20.  Online Listings – We are writing entire articles about online listings and local SEO. There’s a lot to talk about here. But, suffice it to say that when someone types ‘tires San Jose’ into Google, they had better see your shop come up. And there had better be a tracking phone number associated with it.

21.  Internet Banner Ads – Most medium and large companies run Internet banner ads. You could put a phone number directly on them or, using a sophisticated tool called Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI), a click on a banner ad would actually generate a specific tracking number on your website. Let me say that a different way. A unique—and fully trackable—phone number is actually automatically generated on a website depending upon how the website is accessed. What does that mean? It means that you could actually see how many people clicked on your banner ad and then called you. Wow.

22.  Facebook Ads – Using the same principles and DNI technology as Internet banner ads you can actually buy ads on Facebook and measure the calls that each specific ad generates.

23.  PPC Campaigns – Google Adwords – You could place a phone number within the Google Ad itself or, with DNI, generate a unique number on your website. This allows you to track how effective your Google Adwords campaign is.