Virtual phone numbers certainly have their uses for business purposes. These numbers effectively ‘mask’ your organisation’s true phone number, giving your business the number that it desires to better market itself to its target audience.
You may have invested in a virtual phone number due to a wish to make your company appear bigger than it is – for example, to give the impression that it is based in central London rather than Leeds.
Indeed, you may also use a virtual phone number to appeal specifically to those in a certain geographical area, in light of the fact that people tend to trust local businesses more than national or international businesses. Alternatively, your virtual number may have been chosen for simple reasons of memorability.
But once your business actually has its virtual phone number – which can be purchased through a wide range of providers such as Planet Numbers – how can you spread the word about it to your prospective audience?
Invest in business cards
The business card may be an old-fashioned promotion method, but it has most definitely not ‘gone away’ – even in today’s highly technological age, more than 27 million business cards are produced around the world each day, with prospective clients holding onto a colour card 10 times longer than a standard card.
You therefore know what you need to do – get some eye-catching colour business cards featuring your company’s virtual phone number printed out! Just make sure the design of your cards corresponds well with the rest of your brand’s marketing materials for maximum impact.
Update your online details
There are obviously many places online where you can promote your firm’s virtual number, including your company website and social media pages. However, keeping your business contact number up to date in the various online directories is especially crucial.
If you update your business phone number in just one place, make it your Google My Business listing, as this is the first place where many of today’s more casual searchers will find your number.
Don’t forget that deal sites like Groupon often have their own directories, with the same phone number published across multiple respected directories helping to validate that number in the eyes of customers and search engine spiders alike.
Sponsor a local event
A lot of smaller businesses don’t even think about sponsoring an event to get their brand and virtual phone number out there, perhaps presuming this to be the preserve of major international corporations.
However, pretty much any business can sponsor a local event, conference or fundraiser for less outlay than you might think, with more locally-oriented and charitable events likely to bring particular benefit to your business’s image by association.
Perpetuate your brand consistently
Whether you revamp the livery of your company vehicle or invest in branded clothing or other merchandise, you will have a much better chance of really hammering your brand into people’s memories if you use the same, consistent brand colours, fonts, logos and other signifiers across the various media that you use.
Eventually, customers will come to associate your distinctive 01 or 02 virtual number, for example, with that green and yellow company with a circular logo, much more than if you had adopted a completely different aesthetic for every new marketing campaign.
Virtual phone numbers may be greatly impactful on their own for all manner of reasons, but you will almost definitely get greater promotional value out of yours when you follow the aforementioned tips.
