Most lawyers know by now that they need a custom vanity phone number to compete with – and stand out from – other attorneys in their field. However, the next question can be more complicated. How do you choose the ideal phone number for your law firm?

On the surface, it might seem easy… find your name or a legal term and buy the number, right? Not quite. There are a few important considerations to weigh before you choose the marketing asset that could define your firm for years to come.

Here are some of the questions you should factor into your decision:

With the importance of Internet advertising for lawyers, some attorneys have the misconception that the internet makes 1-800 vanity phone numbers less important then they used to be.

First of all, in the Internet age, phone numbers are still very relevant

According to a study of US customers by research agency eConsultancy, phone calls were the most preferred method of contact, slightly beating out email, live chat and click to call.

ConversionSciences, experts in website conversion, says “Calls are king” because:

• Phone calls are 10X more likely to convert into a sale
• 61% of mobile searches result in a phone call

Toll-free vanity phone numbers are not only easy to remember, but after the end of a long advertising campaign a good vanity phone number can be remembered for years. After a law firm discontinued a two-year advertising campaign with 1-800-HURT-911, calls continued to come in for another two years.

That’s the problem with the New York State DMV hotline 1-800-DIAL-DMV. Due to budget cuts, the toll-free vanity phone number was dropped by the state 18 months ago and that’s when the problem started.

UPDATE: 1-800-BUSINESS was sold

1-800-BUSINESS, LLC is being sold at auction together with the valuable toll free vanity phone number 1-800-BUSINESS and related domain names.  The auction was announced earlier this week and will be held on May 27, 2010 by Streambank LLC.

The company is including the domain name 1-800-BUSINESS.com, but 1800BUSINESS.com and 800BUSINESS.com were registered to someone else.

The President of 1-800-BUSINESS, LLC said a number of bidders have already registered. To become a registered bidder, a certified check which is refundable to the losers must be submitted by the bid deadline of May 25, 2010.

I received an e-mail today from Jerrold Parker, senior partner at Parker Waichman Allonso, LLP, the well-known New York personal injury law firm.  Jerry was writing to ask me to evaluate and list his new personal injury case management software called SmartAdvocate. Apparently, Jerry invested a substantial amount of money to develop custom case management software for personal injury and mass tort cases and is now licensing it to other personal injury lawyers.

I responded to Jerry’s e-mail and he called me back a few minutes later. During our telephone conversation, we began discussing my vanity phone number 1-800-HURT-911, vanity phone numbers for lawyers and Parker Waichman Alonso’s new vanity phone number 1-888-BIG-CASE.