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With Christmas fast approaching, there will be plenty of people hoping for smartphones in stockings this year. Amongst them will be Google, who’ve just shelled out £449 million on Admob, a mobile advertising company. Dumping such a huge pot of cash on mobile has been seen as preparing for mass market adoption of smartphones. It’s expected that soon there will be millions more smartphone owners eagerly consuming content, and the ads to go with it. But in all this anticipation for smartphones, are some companies missing out on a mass market mobile marketing opportunity that already exists?
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m as excited as the next marketer about the opportunities offered by touchscreens, mobile apps and miniature web browsers. I just think that, in all the excitement, many companies are ignoring a way of engaging people on mobiles that’s popular, is already proven and offers one of the most immediate response mechanisms around.
What am I talking about? Why, the humble text message of course.
Marketing with short codes
Whilst some wait eagerly for the age of the smartphone, many smart marketers are already taking advantage of everyday, run of the mill text messaging technology.
You might by now be used to seeing five digit text numbers on TV shows, like X Factor, and on print ads (e.g. the Times’ 7am delivery ad on the London tube). These numbers are known as short codes, and they’re earmarked for massive growth (irrespective of what’s happening on smartphones).
These are just some of the benefits:
- More easily remembered than a telephone number or website address, particularly when the numbers spell out a word e.g. 62262 = OBAMA
- Virtually all mobiles can text
- People can take part in polls, receive coupons, register for news alerts and respond immediately to marketing messages
- All responses demonstrate interest
- Mobile numbers can be fed into a database for follow up activity
- Low deployment costs and fast delivery make short codes particularly suitable for time sensitive campaigns
But do people really want to receive floods of texted coupons, special offers and marketing messages I hear you ask? Well, according to research released by the Direct Marketing Association – yes, they do.
The DMA’s survey, of 270 people, found that 70% would be happy to receive messages from brands and 55% would welcome texts of sales and special offers. However, these findings shouldn’t be seen as an excuse to open the floodgates and start flooding people with text messages. Being useful and timely, rather than an annoyance, will be the key.
So whilst some companies sit watching the horizon for the dawn of the age of the smartphone, you can be engaging people with a simple technology that virtually everyone can already use.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
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