Online Fax Services - Have You Used One?

Yes, I have. The work quite well. I like them.

- J

I've used virtual fax services for years.

Getting a PDF in your email will change your relationship with your fax machine.

Brian

People still fax? Why?

I have used myfax for the last several years after I grew tired of refilling ink cartridges and chasing down the right paper.

Cost is around $10 per month, and I receive a toll free fax number that I can pass out to my clients.

All of my faxes now arrive as PDFs in my email which makes it easy for me to print them, send them to someone else or to store them electronically on my desktop. I really like the electronic storage option and I have pretty much eliminated paper in my office. I went from 3 or 4 cases of legal sized paper a year to less than 2 reams of letter sized. The savings bought a backup hard drive so I know my electronic files are safe.

Yeah there's loads of free fax offerings out there that can get your docs delivered instantly without paying a penny. The problem is that they insert ads, sometimes as the cover page, and you don't know what they are slipping in. In my case I was using faxzer0, and I worried they may even offer some competing service and really confuse my customers so I stopped using the free stuff and switched to MetroHiSpeed's email fax service (dirt cheap anyways) after reading a few glowing reviews over on this fax review site.

The only thing I miss is the "beep" I hear when a fax comes in, but the techs swear they could make my PC "beep" when a fax comes in if I want. It can even be setup to print the faxes as they arrive, but I don't want to bother. :p

I have tried Fax blasting as well as voice broadcasting.

Voice broadcasting worked for some things, but fax blasting got me no response.

Here's the way to make a fax work:

So many people want to market, "all internet", or "Straight faxing for getting call ins" (doesn't work) The best way to use these tools (ie; fax, internet, phone, print, ads...) is to get them to work synergistically together.

Lets try to blend:
A: The Internet
B: A Fax
C: A Phone call

Here's how faxing works in marketing.

You call a business owner and say:

"Hey we are offering this great deal, I know you don't have to talk now, but will you take a look at a fax if I send it..."?

Biz Owner: Sure

You: Okay I'm gonna send that right now and you can look at all our great deals... then if you don't mind I'm gonna call you back later after you have had a chance to look at it, and see what you think is that okay"?

Biz Owner: Okay, I will look forward to receiving it... talk to you later..."

Later: You call them back, and ask them what they thought of the fax, point out different features and benefits on it... all while they are holding it in their hand looking at it and talking to you".

Using this method you don't have to have meetings face to face necessarily, because the guy is holding something tangible, a lot of times you can close him and get billing info right there on the phone.

This is the approach my call center used when we were selling advertising space for a local free employment rag (the kind you see in stands outside of Blockbuster's...) at 300 bucks per pop. Each of the telemarketers minimum quota was 2 sales per day... some did 5 or 6.

Here's the system:

1: Call-permission to fax and call back.
2: Send Fax
3: Call back and pitch with owner having fax in hand.

Most importantly, create deals that no one can say "No" to.


Hope this helps.

I've used efax for years - I only receive faxes. Since I don't care for scanners, I never bothered to set anything up to fax out. There are probably better ones out there but efax suits me fine.

Recently I added an 800 number for my copywriting biz - the number accepts faxes too. Again they don't fax out.

A week or so ago, I had to send a document via fax so I signed up for one of the free companies (I didn't care about the ads for this purpose). It worked but I have no idea what company I used.

What you end up with depends on what you need to do. Receive faxes? Efax or someone else (I'd go with someone who renders the fax to pdf - efax does not) is fine. If you have to send faxes on a regular basis, I'd buy a machine and use it just to send faxes. I would still receive faxes online where I control what I print and I print it on my b&w laser printer.

God bless,

Andy

My company has used Echosign for about a year now. We LOVE them. It's been a life saver, especially considering that many of my clients want NDA's signed AND all of my staff have to sign NDA's, and contracts to work for us. I'm honestly not sure we could run such a tight ship without it.

I encourage online fax companies!

~Shelby

I have a small company and we are using Internet fax service from Popfax.com for a while. I have to say that it is more cost-effective and reliable than a traditional fax machine. You don't need fax hardware and office supplies, a simple Internet connection is required. It's a great solution for small business: 4,99 $/month is a great price.

I use Toll Free Numbers, Virtual PBX, Business 800 Phone Service - RingCentral Virtual Phone System
Love it.

I've had the free plan from eFax where they give you a number to receive faxes. It's convenient sure but I don't fax enough to make it worth the $12/month or whatever it was they charged.

I use MetroFax. $7.95/mth for 500 pages per month.