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Domain names vs. Vanity Numbers
Toll free numbers are similar or related in a lot of ways to domain names. They are both used in advertising, and are essentially the front door to your customers. They have to be easy to remember and use and should both reinforce your brand name, services, benefits and your message. 
People often ask me if a good vanity number really matters? Sometimes I answer them by asking them whether a good domain name would be valuable to them? The answer depends on how much you use it. If you use it a lot, and have a way to generate a profit from it, then it will be profitable. Assuming you have a product or service that is profitable and an offer that is attractive, the value is generally related to how much advertising and marketing in general that you do. This is generally true for vanity numbers the same way that it is for domain names, although it is more obvious or understood for domains, because toll free number transactions or acquisitions are usually not announced as publicly as they are for domain names.
Even more valuable than a good vanity phone number or a good domain name alone is the combination of a good vanity number and matching domain name. It can be difficult to come up with a good combination but it's a good example of the sum being greater than the parts.
Why do you need a matching domain name and toll free number?
Simpler more powerful marketing
You have a limited amount of time and space to make an indelible impression on your prospect. Your message must be simple, memorable and right to the point. Your phone number and domain name are the entry ways to your business and you need one easy to use way for prospects to reach you that connects you with your name or your service. And having the same name for both your domain and your phone number is always more memorable.
They take up less space or time in advertising
Whether it's saving a few seconds in a radio commercial or reducing a few words on your billboards, having a matching domain and phone number gives you more room for and strengthens your message and all of your advertising. It may make some types of advertising possible that wouldn't otherwise. Adopt-a-highway sponsorship, specialty advertising or event promotion may only give you space for a single word or two, and if you can combine who you are, what you do, your benefit and message and how to reach you both over the phone or the computer in one simple phrase, you have the potential for a killer marketing campaign.
Allows you to repeat both your domain name and phone number more often
Advertising is all about repetition. The more you repeat your message the more it will stick with your audience. Therefore the more you simplify the punch line of message, the more often you can repeat it and the more it will stick.
Reinforces the other contact vehicle
With a matching domain and number, every time someone dials your vanity number they are reinforcing your domain name and vice versa. Some people don't like "vanity" numbers because they take a few seconds more to dial. But that extra time helps to lock your name and phone number into your prospects mind and they will remember how to reach you much more than any other phone number could. This encourages repeat business and creates a highly positive image in most companies minds. It shows that you are both customer oriented with a toll free number and Internet oriented with a website.
A good vanity number can make a good domain name more readily available
Anyone in marketing on the internet knows the difficulty and importance of coming up with a good domain name. If you look for and decide on your domain name and then try to come up with a matching vanity number, you aren't making it twice as hard. You're multiplying the difficulty. But if you start with the phone numbers and narrow it down to a handful of options and then consider domain names it will make the process many times easier. This is why you should always start with a phone number first.
But the real magic trick is that when you add 800 or 1800 in front of your phrase, you will suddenly find that it is actually easier to come up with a combination of a good toll free number and a good domain name than it was to come up with a good domain name by itself! This doesn't work as well with 866 or 877 numbers since they are not brand names or as recognizable.
Network Solutions is obviously in the Internet business and wanted a good number/domain combination for domains. We did a lot of research and found that 1-800 GET DOMAINS might be possible. That was their first choice (see our 800 number acquisition assistance). And although GetDomains.com was obviously taken, 1800GetDomains.com wasn't! And in advertising 1800GetDomains.com may actually be better than GetDomains.com.
This may work well with local area codes for businesses that are regional or localized in nature, if the area code is easily recognized or memorable in your market. If you had a storage business in NYC, 212-STORAGE would be a great name and 212STORAGE.com would probably be even more valuable than Storage.com would be! (See Local Number section) Be creative and you can come up with powerful and valuable marketing combinations like that to propel your business to real marketing success.
How to get a good combination of matching domain names and toll free numbers
The first rule of phone numbers still applies. Always, always, always be creative. Use the Brainstorming Section and be thorough. As mentioned above, always start by looking for numbers first, then check potential matching domains. It works better in this direction because it's not as easy to find a phone number's owner since there is no whois database for them, and because a good phone number can often make a good domain name more readily available.
Check for numbers on our SMS lookup to find any readily available possibilities. Follow the instructions under the More Help section to dig deeper where appropriate. Then do some research and check for available domain names. You might try using GreatDomains.com to make an anonymous offer, or contact the owner directly to explore their willingness to negotiate. Lowball an offer and see how they respond, or find another domain name they own and inquire about that to find how firm they are. If you're a large company don't disclose that, but make sure you have a totally plausible explanation about what you're doing and why you're interested.
Research and contact the owners of domain names you can get the number for.
If you were starting with the domain names and then checking the phone numbers, you couldn't dig into and research the actual use and ultimate availability of all of the domain names. But if you can if you've done your homework on the phone number side first and narrowed the possibilities down first.
Doing all of the research thoroughly on the phone number side first to narrow all the possibilities down before will also make it easier to make reach a decision. That's especially important in large organizations with multiple people involved and why we work so hard to research projects so thoroughly (see our 800 number acquisition process). But this only works if you come up with ALL of the possibilities first, or you will you will wind up doing even more
work.
Which domain names do you need to have for a matching toll free number?
1800 and 800
There are over twenty thousand "800" dot-com domain names. Look through our directory to get an ide also what other people are using. The most important version for
(there are exceptions 1-800-flowers.com)
For non "800" toll free numbers, forget the 1, but threalize that it's not such a great brand name. If you're building or launching something really big, pick up all of the related versions with dashes and the 800 if it's available just for protection. At around one dollar per month, it's worth picking up almost anything related to your name or number just to protect yourself and to pick up any stray visitors. They may also be helpful for promotion or marketing purposes that you don't foresee in the
future
Above all Don't forget to be Creative!
Just like pursuing phone numbers, you need to really brainstorm to come up with ALL the possible options. (See the Brainstorming section) Lets say your company is Creative Concepts Inc. Don't just focus only on 8** CREATIVE. There are dozens of other good options. Think about 8** GET CREATIVE, 8** B CREATIVE, 8** 2 B CREATIVE, 8** TO BE CREATIVE, 8** 4 CREATIVITY, 8** WE ARE CREATIVE, 8** WE'RE CREATIVE, 8** 2 GET CREATIVE, 8** RING CREATIVE, 8** DIAL CREATIVE, 8** CALL CREATIVE, 8** REAL CREATIVE, 8** ONLY CREATIVE, 8** MY CREATIVE, 8** 800 CREATIVE, 8** USA CREATIVE etc... I always tell clients that you're not trying hard enough if you don't come up with 50 to 100 names. So spend some time to be sure you have ALL of the options to get the best possible number for your business. With the extreme scarcity of good toll free numbers, the dropping cost of long distance calls and the proliferation of local area codes and numbers, local vanity numbers are becoming both more readily available and more attractive, especially if your business is somewhat localized in nature. (A perfect example was my brother's pizzeria, which had the number 201 EXTRA-CHEESE!)
Additional Domain name resources:
StartName.com
is a great collection of powerful domain name tools.
Dropping 800 related domain names
Each week I review the 800
related domain names that are put on hold or deleted. I try to do
this regularly, although that's not always possible. And for as long
as it's possible, I'll provide the list here for you too. I've found
good domains here and hope that either you will or that you'll at least
realize how important a good matching domain name is.
2004:
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Vanity
Number Domain Names
