Comments
SMS Customers Great Offers With Moblee
A while ago we were considering building a community site for Wellingtonians, the idea was only half discussed but one of our most exciting moments was realising the role of text messages in a real-time community portal. Imagine a friday night, a lot of people are out and about in town. A bar is noticing they are having a quiet night, so through the community portal, send out a text to all subscribers, that for the next half hour, drinks are half price. The business is happy, because it fills up, customers are happy because they now have half price drinks. Thats just one example. Text messaging has a fairly similar viral element as email, a good offer can be sent out to one hundred people, who forward it to another hundred, etc etc…
This morning I received an email from the makers of Simply Bill, talking about Moblee, a SMS service that allows people to do just that. The focus is on customers only ever receiving 'real offers' and having the ability to choose what they want to recieve offers about. The balance to find, as always, is adding value to your customers, not annoying them :)
Other potential Uses for SMS Tools
- sending out reminders to customers about a booking they have made
- Competitions ("the first 10 people to show us this text win a free pizza").
- "Mobile Soap Opera" - The only reason I'm listing it, is because it has worked before… Companies send out daily updates to a story via text.
I love it. I don't love that it's only available in the US and UK, but am assured by Craig that the service will become available in other locations soon.
Update: Also check out Cellfire
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
July 3rd, 2006 at 11:55 pm
Great ideas guys, I think that managing the network for your end client is the key to this. Here in Shanghai I am getting 10+ sms offers a day without signing up to anything. I know permission requirements are probably higher in NZ, but moving sms offers to relevant and compelling seems like the next big step. unsuprising that the telco’s have cottoned on to this…
July 4th, 2006 at 11:23 am
SMS alers are very functional. Some site admins integrate sms payment option into their dating sites.
Others try to make an option of sms alerts from the site when there are any changes in a profile or at the site.
It’s a fast and effective means. I suppose it’s worth doing that cause it’ll be extremely popular very soon.
July 4th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Yes, my only problem with SMS marketing is the fine line between offering desirable informative messages and promotions to unwanted product pushing. Because your mobile is not something you can simply browse away from, this is fairly intrusive marketing and needs to be performed in a welcomed way. I think Ben, your situation would drive me crazy!!! :)
November 25th, 2006 at 10:50 am
No, they are ok, not higher. I know permission requirements are probably higher in NZ