What Connects Rapper Drake and Credit Card Protection?

As you might expect coming from us, the answer is "vanity phone numbers!" The same toll-free vanity number, as it happens, because Drake's summer hit 'Hotline Bling' is also proving to be a boon/burden [deleted as applicable] to fraud protection service, 1-800-HOTLINE. Hot-Line Credit Card Security is the company behind the 1-800-HOTLINE number, which is where anyone inspired to call Drake's extended version gets connected. A reporter at Thrillist, for example, who wrote an article chronicling his experience dialing the number. It seems the company receives a significant number of calls in the wake of the song's popularity and the merchandise it has launched, all of which puts the vanity number in front of a lot more eyeballs. While the increased exposure is raising awareness of Hot-Line's brand - and many of its staff who are fans of Drake don't mind the association! - the relevance of those calls is very limited. How many of the rapper's listeners also require credit card protection services after they listen to the song and dial the number? It's unlikely to be a high crossover rate, to say the least. This brings us back to the quality vs. quantity debate we discussed earlier this year. It applies to any inbound sales leads, whether calls to a sales line or visitors to a website. Your business needs not only the right volume of prospects, but the relevance that brings qualified leads to your sales team. As much as talking to enthusiastic Drake fans might entertain Hot_Line's sales staff, it isn't adding to the bottom line, even if it does speak to the memorable nature of toll free vanity numbers. It also raises another important point about vanity numbers, which is that you can add extra digits to make a memorable word or phrase, without losing any connection with customers.  When you dial those digits into your phone, it only registers the standard prefix plus seven digits, so those extra inputs that your caller taps in help them to memorize the number but don't make any difference to the call itself. Obviously shorter numbers are often preferable as they're easier to dial, but adding an eighth or even ninth digit is a perfectly acceptable option if you need it. Take numbers like 1-800-HOMECARE or  1-800-SWITCH-NOW, for example, and it's easy to see why a strong industry association or call to action could trump the desire to stick to seven digits. Vanity numbers are our passion, so it's exciting for us to see them get a little extra mainstream attention thanks to Drake. We can't guarantee your business will get a song from an international superstar when you select a memorable number from our database, but it will definitely be a business decision your sales team will sing the praises of after a few months of increased calls!