Effective Marketing of VoIP Services

By: Richard “Zippy” Grigonis

Unlike the “good old days” when you almost solely dealt with the Bell System monopoly for phone service, today’s VoIP services are subject to more dramatic competition and their successful marketing tend to rely on direct sales, or a channel of VARs, MSOs service providers and agents, or a combination of both. Thus, promoting IP Communications services that save money and provide greater functionality over old TDM services more resembles the marketing of any other product or service, which means that providers must take into account the time-honored factors of Product, Price, Distribution, and Promotion. No service is so popular that a provider can escape the usual business problems of dealing with customer acquisition and retention initiatives including brand management, demand generation, direct and online marketing, advertising, promotions, marketing communications and public relations.

In contrast to the advanced communications environment providers can offer their customers, hunting for ideal channel partners is more of an art than a science. Similarly, marketing communications that speaks to the concerns of many types of smaller businesses can be more of an exercise in psychology than number-crunching.

Some time ago, a Level 3 study revealed that the top five reasons for not switching to VoIP include the following:

• Already satisfied with current service;
• Never received a special offer to switch;
• Don’t know the cost of the new service;
• Not familiar with who sells the service; and
• Concerns with the quality/reliability of VoIP.

Offers that can actually spur people to adopt VoIP were determined to involve such things as receiving something free (an interval of free service, extended discount or a free gift) with the purchase of a long-term VoIP service plan.

Of course, since the small business IP communications market tends to be highly fragmented, it helps if a provider can offer a wide range of services and plans to potential customers to begin with. One company that does offer a huge assortment of voice and video Internet-based telephony services and plans for business and residential customers is 8x8 (News - Alert), Inc., who market their wares under the Packet8 brand name. Originally introduced in November 2002 for residential subscribers, the Packet8 VoIP phone service was quickly followed by 8x8’s Packet8 videophone service, then the Packet8 Virtual Office hosted business phone system for small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs), the Packet8 Complete Contact Center call center solution, the Packet8 MobileTalk mobile international calling service and, most recently, Packet8 Virtual Trunking and Hosted Key System business phone services.

8x8’s most famous offering is undoubtedly the Packet8 Virtual Office solution, currently used by over 12,000 U.S. businesses. It eliminates the need for traditional business phone systems by delivering all telephony services over managed or unmanaged Internet connections. Subscribers experience an inexpensive, friendly alternative to traditional PBX (News - Alert) systems or Centrex class services, a virtual PBX deliverable anywhere you can tap into high-speed Internet. Since the service arrives via an office's existing broadband Internet connection, there’s no need for additional phone lines or digital subscriber lines for extensions, in contrast to traditional Centrex or PBX products. Users have access to automated attendants, conference bridges, extension-to-extension dialing and ring groups, in addition to various other business class features transplanted from the world of dedicated PBX equipment.

Other Packet8 business phone services include the fully integrated Packet8 Complete Contact Center for businesses with call center operations of less than 100 seats, Packet8 Virtual Trunking service for larger enterprises who wish to reap the cost benefits of VoIP phone service while retaining previously acquired on-premise equipment and Packet8 Hosted Key System service for companies whose size or structure dictate the sharing of multiple phone lines.

In 2007 8x8 debuted the Packet8 MobileTalk service which can seamlessly connects overseas calls from the mobile phone to the Packet8 digital VoIP network, enabling cell phone users to reduce their international phone bills while still able to experience the convenience of mobile calling. Users dial calls directly/natively from their mobile handset, contact list or speed dial directory without any additional keystrokes that you encounter with calling card and other reduced rate international calling services. Once the destination number is dialed or selected, the Packet8 MobileTalk software application identifies the international prefix being called and redirects the call to a local Packet8 network access number.

Even Packet8 residential Internet phone services are quite expansive. You can chose a direct-dial phone number from any of the rate centers offered by the service, and then use an 8x8-supplied terminal adapter to connect your existing phone to a broadband Internet connection. All Packet8 residential accounts come with voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, call waiting caller ID, call forwarding, hold, line-alternate, 3-way conferencing, web and voice-prompt access to account controls, and online billing. Aside from their digital voice solutions, 8x8 offers videophones and video telephony software that connects to a customer's broadband Internet connection to deliver all of the voice mentioned above, as well as unlimited video calls to any other Packet8 videophone customer worldwide.

Putting a Good Face on It

Channel partners can often be encouraged to enter a market if they have the opportunity to quickly re-brand and the resell somebody else’s service with minimal upfront effort and expense, bringing them a level of distinction for a high-margin, low-maintenance recurring revenue stream that’s free of operational surprises or challenges. As it happens New Global Telecom (News - Alert), Inc. (NGT) offers a complete, simple-to-deploy, Private Label turnkey solution enabling the sale of VoIP services in 30 days or less.

NGT, by the way, is a major U.S. provider of hosted IP Communication solutions. NGT’s channel-ready solutions enables major VARs, MSOs, service providers and agents to provide nationwide, managed IP communication services. NGT’s Network Performance Platform is designed to deliver predictable end-user quality, and NGT’s service include a full range of telephony features, nationwide phone service, unified communications, worldwide audio/web conferencing, desktop fax services, E911 service, training and other sales and marketing support.

Recently, NGT announced that their NGT Hosted Digital Voice service is now available for its Agent Partner Program. The hosted VoIP solution is sold per line and includes more features than typical small business phone systems including simultaneous ring, remote office, and call and feature control from within Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook, Internet Explorer or Firefox. The service is sold in conjunction with Polycom VoIP phones.

Trading Places

Perhaps the most unconventional approach to garnering customers involves offering to make them part of the channel – a sort of “telephonic Amway”. This is the story being the Flat Planet Phone Company (FPPC) and its Flat Planet Phone System, which enables anyone to “open their own phone company in less than an hour” for only $199.00.

As Flat Planet says, “We do the Back Office - You Sell”. You sign up for The Flat Planet Phone service for $199 a year and you’re up and running in a short time. Rate plans are easily customizable, so you can design a program that will fit your customers needs.

There services include their most popular offering, Hosted PBX, which can serve small businesses (5 to 100 users) on a pay-as-you-use basis with no capex. FPPC gives you the coice of two Hosted PBX packages, The Complete Hosted PBX and the Ala Carte PBX. The Complete package encompasses all the features you’d find in a modern PBX , phone numbers and minutes in one package with a fixed flat monthly fee. The Ala Carte package includes all these features too, but doesn’t include phone numbers and minutes. The flexible Ala Carte allows you to go through a sort of Chinese menu and select the features of your package. You not only choose which features to include in your service, but whether to charge for them.

FPPC says that, in this way you can sell services at a lower-than-the-market price and still make a 100 percent markup. You can your customers can use any SIP (Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert)) compatible IP phone. FPPC’s system is web-based and you can provide DIDs (Direct Inward Dialing) from over 40 countries and sell worldwide.

Back in the 1990s many communications entrepreneurs offered calling cards, since businesses were intrigued with the idea of issuing such cards to their employees for making long distance calls when they were out of the office, particularly when they were placing calls from a hotel room or private pay phone at marked up rates, or calling back to the office collect.

The fact is, about 25 percent of all long distance calls are still made with some kind of calling card. It’s not surprising then, that FPPC also enables its customers to set up Calling Cards and Calling Shops (pinless renewable calling cards or open multiple call shops). You can easily open accounts or have customers sign on automatically. A full billing and invoicing solution is built in to the system. You decide what and how to charge your customers.

The Flat Planet Phone System also can provide Mobile to VoIP connectivity, Disposable Numbers, Virtual IVR and many more sub-services. Flat Planet partners receive their own branded website and your own marketing tools so that you can offer the Flat Planet services under your own brand name.

Whatever Works

A great IP Communications marketing strategy for providers is thus a blend of technology, channel partners, salesmanship, positioning and perhaps some out-of-the box thinking. IT

Richard Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC (News - Alert)’s IP Communications Group.

8x8 - (www.8x8.com)

Flat Planet Phone Company - (http://www.flatplanetphone.com/)

New Global Telecom - (www.gnt.com)

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