LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/06/13 -- Today, college football fans around the country will be fist-pumping, singing fight songs, whoopin' and hollerin', jumping for joy and drowning in defeat. But it's not touchdowns and interceptions, wins and losses that are cause for emotion. It's paperwork. The first Wednesday in February is National Signing Day, the moment when top high school recruits sign their letters of intent, signifying their allegiance to the college or university they'll play for come Fall. eFax®, a provider of online fax services since 1995 and a brand of technology leader j2 Global, Inc.™ (NASDAQ: JCOM), understands the importance of making sure athletes' letters of intent are signed and delivered on time -- before another school swoops in to intercept a prized recruit.

Today, on many college campuses, years of competitive recruiting will come down to tense moments of waiting, where recruits faxing letters of intent remain the rule rather than the exception. Due to NCAA rules, letters of intent have to be signed and faxed to athletic departments, sending waves of cheering from coaches and staff as each prized recruit finally makes his final confirmation via fax. The fax machine is so important to today's drama that many schools install a webcam fixated on their fax machine, allowing students, alumni and fans to follow the signing action as it happens.

"The future of entire athletic departments and the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that they generate are on the line on a single day," said Mike Pugh, vice president, marketing for j2 Global. "Why rely on costly and sometimes unreliable traditional fax machines when improved, modern services like eFax can ensure that signed letters of intent are received intact and on time?"

Here are five trusted game-day strategies that will ensure everything goes smoothly on signing day:

1. Simplify the Playbook - eFax offers customers toll-free fax numbers at no extra charge and has local fax numbers in every state and 49 countries around the world. For an across-the-country new recruit, faxing a letter of intent to a toll-free number -- as opposed to a local number -- carries the connotation of "professional" and "reputable" while making it easy -- and cost effective -- for a new recruit to sign on the dotted line.

2. Don't stay busy - In a perfect world, 10, 15, 20 faxes can come rolling in at 9 am, kick starting a successful signing day and raising a concern that some letters may not get through due to busy signals. With eFax, multiple faxes can be received at once, eliminating the need for multiple fax machines or the potential of missing signing a recruit due to an overworked fax machine. In addition, eFax offers unlimited online storage in the cloud for paid accounts, eliminating the clutter of hard copies and bulky filing systems, while making signed letters accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection.

3. Don't Lose Anyone in the Scrum - Lost paperwork has a way of changing an athlete's mind. A Wall Street Journal article recounted the story of a recruit in California who changed his mind after his first choice -- a school in Ohio -- lost his signed letter of intent. It seems that while administrators were scrambling to send a replacement contract, the student decided that he really didn't want to move across the country, and he signed with a local school the next day. Rather than spend time manually shuffling through file folders stuffed with contracts, forms and signed papers, the contents of online faxes are stored securely online and can be easily searched by using names, topics or other keywords to find a specific document or group of documents.

4. Draw Up a Long-Term Game Plan - eFax's Large File Sharing feature is extremely helpful for managing documentation such as transcripts, housing applications and financial aid forms. Administrators helping student athletes register can save all pertinent documentation together in one online repository where it is consolidated in one place. An added benefit for paid accounts is the capability to reliably and securely upload and share files well over 5MB (up to 1 G) to any email address -- like admissions officers or the housing department for instance. For a video on sharing large files with eFax, visit this page.

5. Digitally Sign on the Bottom Line - Using only a laptop, smartphone or tablet, recruits can paste a digitized signature into an online fax as an official signature, reducing the scramble to print, sign and scan contracts or other forms to fax. Once signed online, the "paperless" documents can then be returned or forwarded via email or fax. For more information about using a digitized signature with eFax, watch this video tutorial.

The eFax branded service is a pioneer in the fax business, with a string of technology and business firsts dating back to 1995. Individuals and small businesses can learn more about sending and receiving faxes online at www.efax.com. For medium to large businesses with 10 to 10,000 employees or high volume faxing needs, more information is available at www.efaxcorporate.com.

About eFax

eFax is a brand and registered trademark of j2 Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: JCOM) and is online at www.efax.com. Please visit the eFax blog at http://blog.efax.com/ for more information.

About j2 Global

j2 Global (JCOM) provides Internet services through its two divisions: Business Cloud Services and Digital Media. The Business Cloud Services Division offers Internet fax, virtual phone, hosted email, email marketing, online backup, unified communications and CRM solutions. It markets its services principally under the brand names eFax®, eVoice®, FuseMail®, Campaigner®, KeepItSafe® and Onebox® and operates a messaging network spanning 49 countries on six continents. The Digital Media Division, created with j2 Global's November 2012 acquisition of Ziff Davis, Inc., offers trusted news and reviews of technology products on its web properties, which include PCMag.com, ExtremeTech.com, ComputerShopper.com, Toolbox.com and Geek.com. The Digital Media Division also operates BuyerBase®, an advanced ad-targeting platform; LogicBuy.com, a leading provider of online deals; and Ziff Davis B2B, a leading provider of research to enterprise buyers and leads to IT vendors. As of December 31, 2011, j2 Global had achieved 16 consecutive fiscal years of revenue growth. For more information about j2 Global, please visit www.j2global.com.

Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine