How to advertise to cell phone users with music on hold

Most messaging-on-hold companies will promise a creative advertising experience with CD quality music when your customer is put on-hold. That’s not going to happen, folks. Here’s why: Audio productions are recorded in the studio at sampling rate of 44,000 samples per second, and while that is indeed CD quality, the best sampling rate your landline phone can playback is just 8,000 samples per second…AND LESS FOR CELL PHONE USERS. Here are some comparisons:

8khz: Telephone quality (300 – 3k hz)

11khz: AM radio

22khz: FM radio

44khz: CD quality

At Hold Time Studios, the productions sounds awesome in our voiceover room, but by the time it’s played back over a ¾” speakers on a phone line that is designed for less-than AM radio quality – we’d say put your time and energy in to what’s being said about your company.. It’s not about the music, it’s about what your saying.

Occasionally we’ll put in sound FX to create an audio picture, but in the case of www.powellvet.com, they have to very clean. Barking dogs are great sound FX for veterinarians, but for messaging-on-hold, let’s keep it to one dog otherwise it sounds like static. For the rave workout music we use for www.nelsonsnautilus.com, we’ll pick music that is less-busy or it will only sound like a rushing waterfall by the time it gets to your customers ear.

Bottom line: Whether your telephone system is a Nortel, NEC, Avaya, or Lucent: the onhold messaging quality your customer gets will be no better than AM radio. Musical nuances will not come through – so use this creative advertising channel to focus on what you want your customer to learn about your company through messaging-on-hold.