Most people have trouble
remembering long numbers and on the whole they find it easier to recall a
phrase or words instead of a telephone number. This makes it harder for a
business to increase sales and profits since a customer cannot call in when he
cannot recall the number. To this end many businesses try to use catchy telephone numbers to attract
interest and to try and keep those catchy numbers in
the minds of potential customers.
Using catchy
phone numbers is an old tool used by marketing executives to catch
people’s attention and to hold it. Since advertising is not cheap, it makes
sense to try and maximise the impact of any advertising strategy you do employ,
whether it is on the television, radio, press or internet.
One of the ways to
memorise something is to use a mnemonic. This is an aide to committing
something to memory by associating a letter, phrase or word to something. Let
me give you an example:
If you were asked to say
the colours of the rainbow, in the correct order, your mind would have to think
hard as they are easy to mix up. However, at school you were probable taught to
remember that “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”
where the first letter of each word stands for the colour of the rainbow; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
This is a mnemonic which makes it easy to remember the colours of the rainbow
in the correct order.
Another popular mnemonic
is “Never Eat Shredded Wheat”
which helps you to remember the points of the compass in a clockwork direction; North, South, East, West.
When it comes to telephone numbers, you can try to use mnemonics to make catchy
numbers, for personal use as well as for use in the business world.
However, this is not always possible for two main reasons;
1.
Not all numbers have
letters associated with them, i.e.: 1 and 0 do not map to any letters.
2.
Relatively few of all
possible character combinations are actually meaningful words (in the
dictionary).
When you are watching
television you will notice that most of the commercials have music added to
them. This is because is also an important aide to memory and a person is more
likely to remember a catchy tune as a phone number than one which is just read
out or seen on the screen.
This is why you will
notice that most catchy telephone numbers have letters
and music attached to them so that they are more likely to stick in your mind.
The next time that you find yourself in a position of wanting to call an
insurance company, visit a toy store on the internet, or find a booking agent
for your vacation, you will probably find yourself recalling catchy phone numbers which you have
heard somewhere and most likely cannot even remember where you have heard them,
even though they have gotten lodged in to your brain.
