Have you ever seen a business card that included contact information appearing something like sip:name@businessname.com? It?s highly unlikely since almost no one uses their SIP URL as a form of contact. If you saw it, you might not even have realized that what you were getting was someone?s VoIP contact information. But as VoIP service providers start realizing the value of the SIP URL as a contact for small businesses, we could see this service become more prevalent.
As you can see from the above (generic) example, the SIP URL is the same thing as your professional email address with the ?sip:? code in front of it. The ?sip? indicates to your potential clients that you?re able to be reached via voice using this same address. That gives your customers more options for contacting you which increases the likelihood that they?re going to make the call. The more calls you get, the better business you?ll do.
So why don?t we see the SIP URL anywhere? For some reason, it hasn?t caught on as a promotional contact tool. Perhaps businesses assume that most people aren?t going to call them through VoIP. Or maybe businesses still don?t realize that they can use their email address as their VoIP URL. If it?s the latter, things could be changing as companies are beginning to give more attention to this service.
For example, VoIP Weblog recently pointed out that OnSip (a VoIP provider that?s making headlines in the VoIP-for-small-business market) is offering the SIP URL as part of their hosted VoIP service. This does one of the main things that VoIP is intended to do: streamlines communications. Using the same email address as your voice address makes it easier for people to figure out how to contact you. Those VoIP providers promoting this option may be satisfying a niche that businesses are only just starting to realize they?re interested in.
If you can remember back to the days when we first started seeing web addresses advertised, you might recall that most of us thought it was a little odd to see that www address on promotional material. Now it?s second nature to see a commercial that includes a fairly complex URL with back slashes and all. As communications get more integrated and the SIP URL gets more attention, we may start to see them cropping up on more promotional items in the same manner.
Question of the Day: What would it take for your business to begin advertising its SIP URL?
