SMS Marketing Explored
January 30th, 2006 by Jason Roe. Post is filed under Business, Marketing.
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As the popularity of mobile phones grows it seems that SMS marketing is going to be “the next big thing‿. As such a lot of the Irish mobile phone providers seem to be allowing the SME market to take full advantage of this marketing medium. Many smaller Irish companies have come onboard to be the middle man allowing themselves to be used as a “message gateway‿ of sorts.
This has allowed the operators to offer reduced rates for bulk messaging, some recent quotes for 100k + of messages range from €4000 to €7000. Best estimates being that an average text would cost as little as 4c. This opens up huge marketing opportunities for many SME’s.
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January 30th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Hopefully this won’t lead to SMS spam as is the case in other countries. I can’t see something like this working unless it was very much targeted by location. So, you’re in town and say Virgin have a sale on and your mobile is detected and they know from past experience (through some loyalty card scheme) what CDs you buy and hey presto they tell you of special offers targeted specifically at you.
It would have to be by request only, otherwise, you’re just going to get pissed off with a company that gives a false sense of hope that somebody out there cares enough to send you a text! (OK, taking it a bit far but ya know what I mean
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January 30th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
How would an SME be able to use SMS marketing ?
January 31st, 2006 at 1:45 am
With this kind of direct marketing the opt-in aspect in my opinion is really important, Most providers have strict policies regarding spam and will act quickly to prevent it. As Donal mentioned your SMS campaign would have to be quite targeted and must be location specific. But as a rule this is something that most companies should already be quite focused on achieving.
Michele, I will be doing a follow up article soon regarding the benefits of sms marketing and how a sms marketing strategy can be applied to different kinds of businesses.