Wakerupper is a free online service that delivers reminders to your phone. I’ve tested several voice services and found two that are very useful for sending myself voice messages. For now, I decided Wakerupper edges out the runner-up Braincast because it’s easier to use. Both services are free.
How voice ads can help you
It’s always good to remind yourself about the benefits of a behavior you want to adopt. The scheduling feature of Wakerupper gives you the power to remind yourself right at the time you might need that support the most. For example:
- A call right before a scheduled workout that reminds you why you want to get in shape.
- A call in the middle of the afternoon or late at night, or whenever is your snack time, to remind you of the most important benefits to you of losing weight.
- A call right after payday reminding you why you want your long term financial goals and encouraging you to put away money for those goals first.
- A call in the morning reminding you about the benefits of riding your bike to work, such as improving your health and the environment.
You can also schedule calls anytime to remind you about qualities you want to embody more, such as patience, courage and kindness.
Get started immediately
Sending a message with Wakerupper’s basic service could not be easier:
- Go to the website at www.wakerupper.com.
- Choose a date and time to deliver your message.
- Enter your phone number.
- Type the text of a short message.
- Type in a couple of human-readable words to foil spammers
- Click the “Schedule my call” button.
That’s it. At the appointed time your phone will ring, and a pleasant male robotic voice will deliver the message you typed.
Add more features with a free account
For the purposes of personal marketing it would be more useful to be able to schedule delivery of the same message multiple times. Fortunately, you can get access to this functionality by requesting a free beta account.
To get an account, just send an email message to beta@wakerupper.com and wait a couple of days for them to send a link to sign up. Account setup requires a username, password, phone number and email address. You can login immediately, and they’ll also send you an activation email to complete the sign-up process.
I worry about the privacy of my phone number with a service like this, so I read their privacy policy carefully. This is what they claim:
“We do not sell, rent or otherwise share your personal information with any third parties except in the limited circumstance of when we are compelled to do so by a valid, binding court order or subpoena, and in such cases we will only provide such information as minimally required to comply with the request.”
Once you login you’ll have two important new options: you can record voice messages, and you can schedule your messages to deliver multiple times. Both of these features are good for advertising to yourself.
Scheduling an ad to deliver multiple times is good because you can leverage the effort required to set up a message into several reminders, and space them far enough apart to feel helpful instead of annoying. There are several options for scheduling repeat calls, such as “Weekdays” and “Monthly”.
My wish list for the service would be the ability to deliver a message at random, unexpected times. I love the feature of Backpack’s reminder service that gives you the option to send yourself a text message “Tomorrow afternoon”, “In a couple of days”, or “In 2 weeks”.
Setting up an account also gives you the ability to record voice messages, in addition to the text-to-speech functionality of the basic service. This is pretty cool. You’ll need to attach a microphone to your computer if you want to record a message. The message form finds your mic automatically, and asks you to click a button allow it.
A human voice potentially adds a very compelling new dimension to your ads. You can either record them yourself, or use someone who’s a celebrity spokesmodel in your life. For example, depending on the goal you’re advertising how about recording messages from your coach, your therapist, your spouse, or your kids? Or if you have a coaching role in someone else’s life, consider scheduling a few messages during the week to support the work you’re doing together.
Mobile version
Wakerupper also offers a Mobile interface, so you can schedule messages when you’re away from your computer. So far the mobile version can only do text-to-speech messages, but if you’ve set up a free account you are able to schedule repeating messages. Mobile access might be useful in a therapy or coaching situation, where you and your coach or client could agree on the content of your messages and set them up together on the spot. The mobile URL is m.wakerupper.com.
Related articles
- How does your marketing stack up to Super Bowl ads?
- Aren’t these just affirmations?
- The psychology of persuasion – consistency
- Automate text messages with Serenitext
- How to rotate text ads with The Quote gadget
- How to send yourself text messages with Backpack
- How to write an effective ad on a Post-It note
3 Comments
Lynn,
You’re just full of cool ideas. I hadn’t heard of this. It’s better than sending yourself voice mail reminders (the manual kind), like when you know you need to call so and so first thing in the morning. Email/calendar reminders have pretty much replaced that for me.
So now I have plans for my future and they require me to move into areas where I feel a little insecure. I am going to use this tool to both send myself affirmations and to remind myself to work on some area of my current project(s).
Alas, I still have a job that demands my time during the day (where I need no reminders). This is when the affirmations need to be the strongest.
Thank you!
Cheryl
I am enjoying your articles. These techniques are really helping me take steps to get back into the swing of life after the death of my father.
I wanted to let you know that as of January 2009 http://www.wakerupper.com, functionality to send messages in your voice, is no longer free except for the first few minutes. You need to pay by the minute for this feature.
Braincast, however, is still free.
I’ve never given this a try, but I think it’s about time I do.