One of the primary advantages businesses see when they go with vanity 800 numbers is simplicity. The marketing goal of any business person is removing every barrier possible between a customer and his or her money. Personal 800 numbers do that by providing an easy to remember, simple number for customers.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the phone number system could be replaced with something simple, like Facebook? With Facebook, you can just type in your friend’s name and communicate with them. Unfortunately, phone numbers don’t work that way. You can get a step closer to that kind of simplicity in communication, however, using 800 custom numbers.

Complex Numbers

In 1956, the legendary psychologist George A. Miller wrote a legendary paper called “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” The paper suggested that a human being can hold around seven digits in short term memory, plus or minus two.

Now pull out your business card and take a look at your phone number. How many digits do you see? Now, how on earth can you get your phone number to stick on your customers’ minds? When the current number-based telephone number system was introduced, businesses the world over began asking the very same question. Thankfully, the FCC quickly provided an answer.

A Simple System

The introduction of vanity 800 numbers gave corporations a quick and easy way to simplify the process of getting phone numbers into customers’ minds. Keep in mind that in the 60s, as is the case today, the telephone was often the first point of contact between businesses and their customers. When the numeric keypad was introduced, thankfully corresponding letters were placed on those numbers, allowing the introduction of vanity phone number ideas.

1-800-WANT-MTV, 1-800-MOW-LAWN, 1-800-BALLOON, 1-800-CLOWN-NOW became four word and number combinations that were easy—if we believe Mr. Miller’s paper, which the majority of the psychological and marketing world seems to—and simple to remember. The 1800 vanity number provided a simple system for turning phone numbers “sticky.”

The Human Algorithm

Marketing geeks and business professionals the world over want nothing more than to find simple, innovative ways of getting their business into their customers’ minds. One solution, however, has already been around for decades, a “human algorithm” for helping customers memorize complex phone numbers: the 1800 vanity number. This tool provides simplicity, which in the business realm simply cannot be replaced.