Mobile marketing blog

Presently, media organisations such as radio stations, publishers, and TV stations use premium SMS as a way to generate revenue through audience participation, typically voting - think X-factor, Strictly, I'm a Celebrity... and who could blame them. With X-factor recently receiving 10m votes for the 2009 final, it's certainly lucrative. One issue that's always surrounded premium rate competitions is the uncertainty over cost to the audience. Wouldn't it be good if we could still have audience participation and make money for the organiser without it costing the audience an arm and leg? I think we can achieve this, but through a slightly different model - let me explain.

Lets pretend I'm a publisher producing a monthly magazine about the latest Computer Games, chances are my audience is primarily interested in new game releases, Consoles, news, and gaming peripherals. Secondary interests could range from Personal computers, gadgets, and general technology. Proof of this is the type of advertising in the magazine relating to these types of product. Now, once the reader has finished reading the magazine, how else can you contact them with advertising relating to them? SMS of course! If the reader has entered a competition, voted, or contacted the editor via an SMS campaign, you have a direct route to market back out to that reader with details on a product relevant to them.

To insure you have plenty of numbers to promote to, make entry to your call to action campaigns as cheap as possible to the end user, or charge a nominal value to cover operating costs, for example 25p. I spoke to the marketing director of a publishing firm this afternoon who agreed that in a few years, this will most likely be the approach taken by all publishers.

Now, sending the promotional messages. Media agencies, advertising firms, and brands are currently willing to pay up to 20 pence per message to send marketing messages or redeemable vouchers (think colour WAP vouchers, Web redeemable unique voucher codes). With the cost of sending free messages via such interfaces as The Text Works as low as 4 pence per message, you could be looking at a profit of 16 pence for every message sent. This starts to look interesting when you manage to build a list of 10,000 customers!

Let's look at an example. I'm a video game retailer looking to drive footfall to my store upon the release of a new computer game. The computer game company is set to run some high profile magazine, tv, and radio ads to drive sales. To cash in on this publicity, I need to drive potential customers to my chain of stores to buy the game.

I can do this by (1) broadcasting to my existing database of customers, or (2) working in conjunction with another company that already has a list of relevant numbers, providing of course they have permission (or opt in). The second option is where the publisher of computer game titles will make their money by charging me a per number rate for each mobile lead to which I will send my offer - providing of course they've built a mobile database!

Text marketing, or text message marketing as its more commonly know, is the process of contacting existing or potential customers with a marketing message contained within a text message. As a rule, marketing messages should only be sent to customers that have opted in to receive information by SMS, this could be a soft or hard opt in.

A soft opt in usually means that a customer has entered a related campaign, where the small print states something along the lines of "by entering this campaign you agree to receive future relevant offers from us or relevant third parties". A hard opt in asks the user to implicitly opt in by sending a message requesting permission to send future marketing messages.

Traditional forms of marketing, such as print, billboard, TV, and Radio can make use of mobile call to actions for customers to register an interest in the advertised product. This usually takes the form of call to action such as "Text KEYWORD to SHORTCODE to find out more!". Other forms of call-to-action can include competitions, texting pictures, sending views, or voting.

If you add a text response to any form of advertising, around 50 per cent of respondents will choose to make their initial contact by text if you give them the choice consistently - the key word here being consistency. Text Marketing will have the highest success rate if you target your customers with timely, relevant offers.

I recently helped plan and organise a broadcast on behalf of a music magazine. Previously, the magazine had run one or two SMS based competitions per month as a way to increase interaction with readers, and of course build a valuable customer database of mobile phone numbers. A targeted broadcast message was sent to all entrants from all campaigns, detailing a special offer on a music event which matched the profile of the magazine readers. What was the uptake? An incredible 25% - try getting that from any other form of marketing!

Social networking on-line entails using a web 2.0 website to build a reputation and contact list through regular contact and participation. Social media sites are unique in that they allow their users to freely mingle and interact over vast distances with little to no constraints. Social media sites include Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. These three major players have monopolised the micro blogging, viral applications and contact building concepts being closely followed by various other websites of a similar nature.

Using business text messaging or bulk SMS as part of the social networking platforms is incredibly difficult because of the cost to the user versus the free on-line alternatives of communication.

Twitter has managed to include one way text messaging enabling their users to add micro blogs via text message. None of the social networks have fully realised the potential behind two way messaging, but as the competitive edge thins will they be forced to diversify their service offerings.

The future of social networking sites is unclear especially when you consider that the cost of maintenance and traffic to power these social realms is increasingly expensive and the profit sought from advertising has been tentative of late. The advertising element of Facebook shows that they are trying to monetise their services through advertising, why not offer an SMS mobile marketing service for businesses and professionals?

Its a great way to leverage social media especially when you consider a number of Internet marketers already have a formidable profile of contacts with targeted promotions, services and products being delivered direct to their wall or inbox.

Its amazing that they haven't considered allowing the ability to send SMS messages to contact, it is more instant and personal than the social networks and, if the profiling is accurate, the message will drive interest and draw brand attention. The long tail of SMS mobile marketing is always a sale, but its still one of the best ways to get your brand noticed.