Live Services

The caller speaks directly to professional in their chosen subject and benefits from a live 121 reading over the phone. These services can include Live Psychic and Medium Service, Angel Readers, Love and Romance Psychics, Mediums, Psychic Detectives Team and Tarot Readers.

Recorded horoscopes

These are where a professional horoscope reader has recorded their weekly or monthly reading for each star sign and the caller calls and listens to the reading for their start sign.

Interactive Joke Services

This is a great way to wind up your friends. The caller chooses the prank they wish to play on their victim from a selection of around 8 or 9 different pranks. Then they input the victim’s telephone number into the interactive joke service and the service calls the victims and plays the prank call on them. Usually the prankers can listen in on the victim getting prank called, which makes it even funnier.

Recorded weather services

These are recordings of weather forecasts for local, regional or national weather reports, they are updated automatically.

Recorded Sports Services

For example, horse betting tips. Bookies recorded their tips for the days’ races and callers can listen to the tips for the day and decide to make a bet or not.

For more details on various premium rate services, contact Bluewave Media or see www.premium-rate-business.co.uk

Firstly you should find a reputable Premium Rate provider. There are absolutely loads of services to choose from so be prepared, I will let you have some insider information on the most popular services.

Here are the types of services in order of popularity:

1. Live 121 adult services
2. Live non adult services like, psychic, horoscope.
3. Recorded adult / interactive adult services.
4. Recorded non adult services.

I would recommend you start your premium rate number portfolio with at least one live service. Normally you will need to complete a registration form and sign a standard contract, detailing the terms and conditions of the business. Be wary of companies that do not have contracts and strict processes. A good detailed contract is normally a sign that your provider takes this business seriously, will protect your interests and give good guidance.

Payments

Some companies charge simple one off payments and some have a monthly payment system, make sure you get all the information and choose the set up that works best for you. You should either be able to pay for your new premium rate services on their website or over the phone with a credit or debit card. And the majority of companies can have your services set up and ready to advertise within 72 hours from receiving your payment and documentation. You will normally have to provide the premium rate company with details of your bank account so you can have the revenue paid directly into your account. Most companies make their payments this way; however some will use PayPal or other similar system. Not many companies send cheques out now.

Advertising and Promotion

Once you have received your number(s), you need to think about advertising and promoting your new premium rate services. While you are waiting for your services to be made live and ready to use, get in contact with some advertising companies, agencies or try publications direct. Some of the places you can advertise are local newspapers, national newspapers, glossy magazines, free ads and on the internet. You may even choose TV advertising (this may be cheaper than you think too!). Whether you choose adult or non adult services you will need to go through most of the same companies to get your services advertised. Most of the advertising houses cater for adult and non adult publications although some only specialise in adult publications. You can do an easy search online for advertising agencies and get in contact to find out what their adverting costs and packages are. We can also advise on this if required.

If you are not happy creating the adverts / artwork yourself, you can ask the advertising agency to add it to your package, most of them will do it for free, so it’s worth asking, although some will charge you for this service. Alternatively your premium rate number provider may be able to offer you print ready adverts that you can just plug your number into and submit them directly to the magazine or newspaper.

When you get your numbers through from your company, check them. I know this may sound really obvious but just make sure they are working and the numbers are mapped to the correct service. Once you are happy that the numbers are live and correct you can give all the information to your advertising company to get the advert made into proofs. Please ensure you advertise all the correct terms and conditions on your promotional material as it is strict requirement from PhonepayPlus (formerly ICSTIS) regulations.

Make sure you check your advert proofs properly, as once they go through for printing, cannot be amended. And it will be a complete waste of time if something in the advert is wrong. The same applies to advertising in the newspaper; make sure you see your proof.

So now your services are live and your advertisments are out there, you are well on your way to generating your first month’s revenue. Now all you have to do is sit back and wait for the calls to come in.

For more information on print advertising, see our guide “Profit from Premium Rate using UK Print Advertising“

Once your website / advertising is in place, all the work is done. All you really need to maintain things is an internet connection and a UK bank account. This works best for internet promotion which can literally be done anywhere you can find an internet connection

We have some clients who spend most of the year working from remote beaches in the Phillipines. Not a bad lifestyle we think!

This lifestyle choice becomes even easier when you consider outsourcing your promotion to other people. Once you have gained the knowledge you need to succeed, you should be able to formularise it and outsource, perhaps to India or the Philippines.

So, if you’re fed up with the typical British weather, its worth considering your lifestlye choices and looking at what is available out there for you!

Realistic Earnings Example

Here is a rough idea of the type of money you could earn from the advertising and promotion of premium rate telephone numbers.

From information gathered from premium rate companies, we know the average call time is around 6.5 minutes. If you are receiving 80p per minute in revenue, that works out at £5.20 per call, on average. Have a look at this earnings potential table to find out how much money you could make on a daily, monthly and annual basis. With the correct advertising and promotion of the premium rate services, these figures are very achievable.

So we have illustrated the earnings potential with one single number. Now imagine you have a whole portfolio or different services with different themes, advertised all over the web or in many magazines and newspaper. You can work out those sums but it is a very good way of generating revenue and is easily achievable with the correct information and advertising.

If you are looking for an investment that pretty much looks after itself and you just make the initial funding, then go for the print advertising. If you are looking for something to get into and work on, then web advertising will be harder work but may end up being cheaper and returning a revenue for a longer period of time, albeit with a slower increase in revenue from month to month.

Another thing to consider is how much money you have to put into advertising your services. If you have a large budget, then the print advertising can be really appealing as you can make more money very quickly. If you have limited funds but more time and effort, you can still make really good money from getting online and advertising your services there.

If you have no expertise or experience in either, I’d suggest starting in print advertising. If you have a large advertising budget for your premium rate numbers, then go for the glossy magazines or national newspapers, if your budget is much smaller, then go for the smaller local newspapers and advertisers, if they’ll take adult adverts.

Get in contact with some magazines and newspapers direct, for up to date information on advert pricing and packages. If you’re advertising premium rate numbers with an adult content, then go for the lad magazine types and men’s lifestyle magazines like Nuts, FHM, GQ, and Bizarre, these will take adverts of an adult nature but be aware that advertising in these magazines will be expensive, if they have any space at all. Sometimes certain companies will block book the space and basically price you out of the market, that’s why, in some cases it is cheaper to go through an advertising agency that already have a block of space booked that they them sell on to clients like you.

Both print advertising and web advertising is tried and tested and they both work, however print advertising can bring a return back quicker than setting up a new website. If you want to advertise online and can get your numbers onto an existing website with good traffic, then this might be a cheaper way of advertising your numbers.  Please bear in mind that advertising is not an exact science and sometimes it goes wrong, it cannot be guaranteed that an advert will work, even if a similar one has, there are so many variables to consider when advertising. The first thing to do is try to get a good deal from your advertising agency or the publication you are advertising with, thus meaning you have less far to go to break even.

If you have experience in advertising online, building or promoting websites or SEO, then I’d just advertise online as it seems to work out cheaper, with less risk and you can still make a lot of money. The down side to working online is you have to put the hours in. The more you advertise and promote your online numbers or portfolio, the more money you are going to make. It is a long old road to getting the big bucks from advertising online but once you’re there, you’re there and the money keeps rolling in pretty much regardless of whether you put in any more work onto the websites.

So, in conclusion, what are you the most comfortable with? They both work, just in different ways, do some research, make a few calls and try to speak to someone who is already advertising premium rate telephone services. Ask the questions and just try different things out, that’s the best way to find out for sure if something work or not.

Bluewave Media is on hand to offer advice and guidance on any of these issues. Contact us for more details.

Adult Live 121 Premium Rate Services

This type of service is a live service and the caller gets to speak to a real person in a 121 set up. After a short recorded introduction to the service (required by law) the caller will be connect to an operator where they can chat for up to 20mins. These services are arguably the most popular and can have really good hold times. Also with the live 121 services, callers are able to build up a rapport with their favourite operators and can initiate many repeat calls.

Adult Recorded Premium Rate Services

These are mainly recorded sex stories, where the caller just listens to the recorded story. These are really popular and can sometimes give better payouts than the live services.

Chat and Date or Virtual Chat Premium Rate Services

These are interactive communication services, where people call and record a message. They listen to other people message and decide if they like the sound of that person. They can then leave messages for that person and contact them.

Interactive Premium Rate Services

These are services where the caller can select from a choice of options. For example, they can select an option to make a recorded story change direction, or select from a library of stories.

Of course, you are only limited by your imagination when creating new services. If you have a good idea for a premium rate service, its always worth talking to an experienced company with knowledge of setting up custom services.

Bluaewave Media has setup various custom services for its clients and has advanced platforms to help put your ideas into reality. Contact us for more details.