A great summary from ST Louis Dispatch on how and why SMS (text messaging) is taking off as a vehicle for mobile marketing.
Some of the highlights:
Coming to a small screen near you: Coupons, recipes and marketing messages galore.
Polls on TV programs, including "American Idol" and the Super Bowl
Marketers use codes to sell cell-phone content - ringtones, screen savers, wallpaper and text alerts - related to topics such as sports or name brands.
Last year, the number of shortcodes issued grew by a factor of six
Customers who take the trouble to key in a code tend to be more interested in - and more likely to buy - products than people passively viewing a commercial or print ad
Advertisers can get immediate feedback on a commercial or ad campaign.
Mobile marketing helps companies get more mileage out of their marketing dollars.
When advertisers see that kind of market penetration, they start drooling.
Marketers can drive buyers directly to their content by publicizing a code in print ads or in other media.
Some marketers believe that short codes eventually will become as pervasive in advertising as Web site addresses are now
A lengthy read, but there are a lot of mobile marketing nuggets in this story Read the whole thing.
Here's what I see:
The only problem? There are limited amount of short codes available, then what do you use?
In my opinion, there will either be ONE SMS portal that is used and companies will buy keywords from that company (think GOOGL 46645) OR there will be an application that allows companies to create, or use their own existing "shortcode", but not a 5 digit number.
Every company has one of the following: (a logo, trademark, slogan, barcode, phone number). Think about what you could offer as a mobile marketing application with those "short codes".
2 comments:
I found it interesting that CTIA said that the number of codes issued grew by a factor of six last year. If so, where are they are all? And how are they marketing themselves? CTIA also said looking into six digit codes because of popularity. I think we are still long way from using the 79,999 possible 5 digit codes. If they introduce 6 digit codes, it would be to allow more brands to implement vanity codes.
I have found less than 110 common short codes implemented thru US carriers so far and posted all in list on www.usshortcodeswhois.com. The other "directories" on the web have less than 25 short codes listed on their sites.
PP says:
OR there will be an application that allows companies to create, or use their own existing "shortcode"
I say:
That application already exists (Paperclick) and has a registry which allows companies to reserve those "shortcodes" - add Mobot into the mix, and, well, it's gonna turn the mobile marketing industry on it's ear!
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