Raising money for soldiers charity with the help of 03 numbers

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Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

If you an avid reader of The Sun newspaper (or an occasional/secret reader!) you may have perhaps seen its Auction for Heroes charity event this month (April 2009). Auction for Heroes aims to raise £20m for the Help the Heroes organisation – a national charity set up to raise money for injured soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The tabloid’s fundraiser sold unwanted items from its readers on an eBay site dedicated to the cause and it also used an 03 phone number as its main donation line: 0300 200 1066. At last count the auction had nearly smashed its target - raising a fantastic £19m.

Here are 6 ways an 03 phone number helped to achieve this:

1. 03 phone numbers cost the same to call as standard 01/02 phone numbers even from a mobile phone (40% of all calls are now made from mobiles).

2. The public trust 03 numbers because of their transparent call costs. This makes 03 numbers caller friendly and therefore not subject to negative publicity.

3. There’s a range of 03 numbers that are exclusively for public bodies and charities: 0300 numbers.

4. Like all non-geographic numbers, 03 numbers gave the auction a national presence – meaning The Sun was able to publish one single memorable number throughout the UK – which is not location specific.

5. An 03 number donation line can have intelligent call systems added to it easily. For example, welcome messages and caller options. E.g. “Welcome to the Auction for Heroes donation line, press 1 to donate, press to for more information about where your donation goes etc.)

6. 03 phone numbers can often be inexpensive to run if you seek out the provider with the most competitive offering in the market.

It’s also for these reasons that calls to the British Heart Foundation’s 03 Heart Helpline have increased by 500% following a recent advertising campaign. Additionally, Comic Relief beat its fundraising record by 40% with its new 03 number appeal line.

So, it’s clear that the uptake of 03 numbers continues to rocket and it’s not just charities and public bodies that are using them. UK businesses of all shapes and sizes are now choosing 03 numbers, including Pioneer, Nikon and Absolute Radio (formerly Virgin Radio). It will be interesting to see who’s next in line…

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