Learnability & The Value of Vanity Phone Numbers

The first experience that people have with anything “new” is learning about it and this is no different when it comes to marketing.   Everything requires learning. The more that users engage with and understand your service or product, the more easily they can see its value, and therefore the easier it should be to sell. So, then, why does selling seem so difficult? Why aren't more people beating down your door to give your company a try? Perhaps they never really, truly learned how to contact you!   Read more below....

Learnability Equals Memorability

  We learn behaviors from our experiences across the Web, devices and real-world places and objects. These experiences are what create our expectations, intrinsic assumptions and understanding of how things are supposed to work. When you create your marketing program to build upon set expectations, assumptions and understanding, you are queued up for success in teaching users about your company.   The concept of learnability is most often associated with user experience (UX)--how a consumer engages and relates to your services and products. It's important to realize these principles also apply to nearly everything we strive to accomplish in the realm of marketing and advertising too, making it a concept which warrants much closer examination. Essentially, when a prospect engages and relates to your marketing, they are having a user experience. If you can effectively guide that experience, the result will be a more interested and sales-ready audience.  

Defining Learnability

From a pure UX perspective, learnability is a loosely defined measure of how easy a website or application is to learn, and further, how quickly first time visitors can complete tasks set before them (e.g. finding specific information, completing a multi-step process or filling out a form). More and more, however, learnability is being seen as a quality of products and interfaces that allow users to quickly become familiar and able to make good use of all features and capabilities. Your company can apply these concepts of UX and learnability through a personalized vanity phone number.  

How Vanity Numbers Enhance User Experience

It’s not difficult to see why vanity numbers are easy to remember; they have qualities that make an impression. However, there’s more to it than that. Vanity phone numbers are “remembered” more easily for reasons that might initially escape you:   Repetition: Humans love patterns and order, and they gravitate naturally toward elements that have those qualities, like a navigation bar across the website or a phone number that repeats numbers in a clear pattern (222-2222 or 123-1212).   Association: The most distinct quality that vanity numbers have is that they enable users to make direct associations to a company and to the broader marketing experience of that brand. One possible way to improve learnability is to understand the users expectations about the quality of the product, the type of experience, or expectations of company interactions. Once marketers define these elements of the customer experience, choosing a phone number that reinforces the company purpose or service will build recognition of your brand.    Familiarity: Another way marketers increase the likelihood that their phone numbers are remembered is to increase its familiarity with users. When a brand operates consistently across all marketing elements and channels, it creates a reinforcing cycle that builds trust which leads to brand favorability.  

Mastering Learnability with Vanity Phone Numbers

Vanity phone numbers have been a central component of marketing programs for many, many decades but we’re only beginning to understand why interest in them continues to grow. Tony Buzan, a British psychologist and author of several books on the subject of memorizing and effectiveness, once said that “learning how to learn is life’s most important skill.”   Mastering learnability is critical because it is one of the best opportunities marketers have to help users instantly determine what a company does, what information they might discover, and most importantly, how to get in contact with the company. The faster you can help your prospects through this lifecycle, the faster you accelerate revenue.   Not yet a believer? Doubt that the ease of learnability is a big reason that companies large and small are using vanity numbers in their multi-channel marketing initiatives? Run your own test! Show a friend or a focus group, or set up an online survey, that measures the recall of generic phone numbers versus vanity phone numbers and you can nearly guarantee that 9 times out of 10 users will remember the latter.   Discover the RingBoost vanity phone number that will improve learnability within your company today.