In order to build a database of consumers interested in getting a value-added service,Take 5 Oil Change ran a mobile campaign.

There were thirty-second television commercial spots on Cox Media’s cable network asked viewers to text the keyword TAKE5 to 269411 for a chance to win four suite Hornets’ tickets, a CP3 signed jersey and a chance to win and get a $10 off coupon from 5 minute oil.

“Our mobile text advertising campaigns with Cox Media and Cox Sports Television have been a successful part of our overall goals, which are to reach more customers, engage them with new and immediate appeals and be seen in the community as an innovator,” said Pete Frey, spokesman for Take 5 and 5 Minute Oil Change.

“We find the various sweepstakes, alerts and trivia games as important tools that compliment all the other marketing activities we employ,” he said.
Ping Mobile powered the campaign.

Consumers that texted in received a text message that said, “Congrats! U r entered to win 4 suite Hornets’ tickets and a CP3 signed jersey. Double chances to win and get a $10 off coupon from 5 minute oil. Rply YES.”

Consumers that replied yes got a text message that said, “Reply YES for 10 more entries to Win the Tix+Signed Jersey & B sbscrbd to Take5 & Cox Xclusives! max4msgs/mo. std txt rts aply. Reply YES Now!”

The challenge for Take 5 was maintaining the momentum and continuing to provide added value to their customers after the promotional spots had stopped airing.

Mobile was the ideal medium to reach this goal because it enabled Take 5 to send out cost-effective mobile reminders alerting opted-in respondents that it was time to change their oil, thus driving sales.

Respondents were sent highly targeted messages that pertained to their local Take5 oil change location.

According to Ping Mobile , more than 60 percent of respondents double opted-in to receive the mobile alerts. The company did not say how many respondents there were.  

 “Take 5’s enthusiasm to integrate the mobile component into all existing marketing channels coupled with Cox Media’s ability to deliver targeted spots to the right viewers made this campaign extremely successful,” said Isaac Naor, client services manager at Ping Mobile, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. “All of the client’s goals were accomplished, and ultimately the consumer benefits most from all of the added value – a true win/win situation.”

An important update for marketers of spirits, tobacco and other adult-oriented products. Even if consumers opt in to an SMS campaign and verify their age, marketers of spirits, tobacco and other adult-oriented products may be penalized for breaking the law in two states of Utah and Michigan.

That is because of do-not-contact programs and related laws in Utah and Michigan. These state programs, which extend to SMS, states that marketers who advertise adult products and services such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling and pornography cannot market to any registered phone number or address with those states.

“I realize that mobile marketing is what email marketing was over five years ago—it’s a fast-growing trend that many companies are taking advantage of,” said Rachelle Milbank, head of corporate and public relations for Unspam Technologies Inc., Salt Lake City, UT.

“In reaching out to companies and marketers about these laws and how it may affect their practices, I have been also trying to work with different publications and associations to help get the word out,” she said.

“Especially in Utah, we are trying to educate as many companies and service providers as possible and have already sent advisory letters to many of the major companies and marketers across the U.S.”

These two states started this do-not-contact programs keeping the families in mind.

There are more than 320,000 registered contact points in the state of Utah including emails, mobile phone numbers, instant messenger IDs and fax numbers.

The registry comprises of private, family, children and school domains. Anyone is allowed to register an address where a minor is present.

Utah and Michigan are the only states who have do-not-contact laws that apply to SMS.

One notable aspect of the laws enforcing these programs is that even if a consumer double-opts-in for an SMS campaign and verifies that he or she is 21 or older, marketers would still be in violation if that person previously submitted their mobile phone number to either state’s do-not-contact list.

According to Utah’s Web site, the criminal and civil penalties are alarming: “Marketers who fail to comply with the law face potential felony charges and civil and criminal penalties from $1,000 to $5,000 per message sent in violation of the law

Wyndham hotel chain revealed its new mobile commerce test strategy for its Days Inn brand customer relationship management and to increase revenue.

They reached in an agreement with Ping Mobile to formulate the two-fold strategy which included an umbrella campaign that covered 54 of Days Inn’s 1,800 properties, encouraging consumers to opt-in for monthly text updates and a site-specific campaign focused on customer service for in-house guests. Tina Perry, regional director at Wyndham Hotel Group and Days Inn Worldwide, offered her insight at Mobile Commerce Spotlight, an event co-hosted by Mobile Marketer and the Direct Marketing Association.

“Our goal was not just acquiring new customers, but retention was also key,” Ms. Perry said. “We see a lot of people shopping on the mobile site and then calling the 800 number to book.”

“We’ve actually established a separate 800 number on the mobile site to determine which have come through the mobile site,” she said. “Right now it’s obvious that there aren’t many people who are comfortable giving out credit card information via mobile.”

A sweepstakes was the first campaign run by Days Inn, with a keycard holder that customers got on check-in that had the text-in information and posters of two different sizes that were put on display all over the hotel.
The posters told guests to text keyword DAYSGO to short code 74642 to win a free getaway.

The company began its umbrella test campaign to try and acquire numbers for its loyalty program database.

The acquisition rate of opt-ins for this campaign was slow, yet Ms. Perry claims that the opt-out rate is very minimal.

However, the results of Ping Mobile’s IVR campaign for Days Inn bore results: 26 percent of the guests that were pushed a message responded by sending a text message back and 30 percent pressed 1 to be connected to the call center to book a room.

The U.S. Department of State used text messaging to reach citizens worldwide during the speech given by President Obama on Monday from Accra, Ghana.

Mobile messaging provider Clickatell was tapped for this purpose who offered African and international/non-U.S. citizens around the world live speech highlights in English or French via SMS. The participants were given the option to enroll to send their speech comments via text message back to the U.S. Department of State, where selected responses were posted online at http://www.america.gov/ghana_comments.html.

“This program is a ‘mobile town hall without boarders’ open to all citizens outside the U.S. worldwide, in this case, especially African citizens,” said Chuck Drake, executive vice president of marketing for Clickatell, Redwood City, CA. “Text messaging is mobile communication—delivered anytime, anywhere—with distribution available to more than 4 billion handsets worldwide.

“The Obama Ghana speech SMS service makes use of this broad reach and instant communications of speech highlights going out ‘in real time’ to reach local citizens and provides a way for these people to respond immediately via SMS,” he said.

“If it were only TV, radio or other forms of traditional media, then some media sources would be in the middle, filtering and interpreting and delaying the message, and there would also be no way to support a ’send in your comments’ town-hall style interaction aspect to this using traditional media sources alone.”
Sequoia-backed Clickatell specializes in SaaS messaging services and bulk SMS gateway connectivity to small, medium and large enterprises in a variety of vertical markets.

Clickatell serves 8,300 customers including BBC, Continental Airlines, CNN, First National Bank, Metropolitan Life, Oracle and Shell, reaching 775-plus networks in more than 200 countries.

International/non-U.S. citizens were able to enroll in the Obama SMS speech highlights initiative online at http://www.america.gov/sms.html. Participants could comment during Obama’s speech via standard two-way SMS.
In addition to online enrollment, African citizens interested in receiving President Obama’s Ghana speech highlights via SMS could enroll directly through their mobile phone by entering a specified mobile service code number, depending on their African country of origin.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, better know as UNICEF,has added a mobile element to its 59th consecutive Trick-or-Treat campaign.

The campaign is aimed towards a new generation of youth who are growing up with technology at their fingertips. To date, the Trick-or-Treat campaign from UNICEF has raised over $148 million in its fight to end the deaths of the 25,000 children who die every day from preventable causes.

“The Trick-or-Treat campaign is the longest-running youth volunteer activity in the U.S., and we’ve recently updated it with a variety of tech-based ways of participating that we hope will appeal to a new generation of donors,” said Marci Greenberg, officer of public relations, United States Fund for UNICEF, New York.

Trick-or-Treat is one of the nation’s longest-running philanthropy programs is the first volunteering experiences for kids in the United States.

The mobile component of this campaign involves mobile giving via SMS, where the phone owner can text in to donate money that is taken directly from the user’s phone bill.

Those interested in donating money can text the keyword TOT to the short code 864233 (UNICEF) in order to make a $5 donation.

The opt-in also signs up the user to receive mobile alerts about UNICEF’s work across the globe.

Mobile giving works out in the consumer’s favor as there is no need to type in lengthy credit card information. The $5 donated in the SMS message is billed directly to the user’s phone bill.

The mobile component of this campaign is only one facet of its overall spread across different media channels.

Along with the mobile channel, UNICEF has also implemented other technologically savvy methods of donation and building awareness.

Supporters can host Halloween parties where the mobile call-to-action can be displayed or announced in order to further the donations.

UNICEF also made downloadable lesson plans, activity sheets, fundraising ideas and e-card reminders available online at http://www.unicefusa.org/trickortreat.

Trick-or-Treat prides itself on not only being a big-time fundraiser, but an educational event where children and their parents can learn about their peers worldwide who need money to survive.

The program stresses the importance of community service and gives children the tools to be active global citizens who make a difference.

“The goals of the campaign are fundraising in support of UNICEF’s lifesaving work, of course, and engagement of a younger demographic,” Ms. Greenberg said.

“Mobile is a good platform for this type of initiative because it is the preferred mode of communications for a segment of our target audience,” she said.

According to a study conducted by Cloudmark, nearly two-thirds of mobile users are concerned about the security of their devices.
After commissioning Harris Interactive to poll 1,800 mobile device owners, Cloudmark found that such concerns are preventing them from adopting new mobile platforms for financial services and making purchases.

“If users are receiving spam messages that are not legitimate mobile advertisings messages, the likelihood of them being receptive to mobile advertising messages are very low,” said Jamie de Guerre, chief technology officer of Cloudmark, San Francisco.

“It is likely consumers may even ignore these messages,” he said.

Consumer distrust answers the question why the majority of handset owners reported that they have never sent or received confidential information through their mobile devices.

Mobile spam has large impact on a significant portion of wireless customers, with 44 percent of owners reporting that they have received mobile spam.

Most of those who receive spam (95 percent) are ignoring or deleting spam messages, which could potentially impair the effectiveness of legitimate mobile marketing initiatives.

“We looked to see if there are technical solutions within wireless networks to address this security issue, and it turns out that there aren’t,” Mr. Guerre said. “They are designed to be very trusting.

“If a user in a partner network sends a message to a user in a home network, it is delivered directly to a base station that the user is connected to without going through the home network firewall,” he said. “That concept is astounding when you think about how things are done on the Internet.”

Of the 65 percent of adults who are at least somewhat concerned about the security of their mobile phones, more than 70 percent said that the security threat has prevented them from paying bills and conducting banking activities.

Fifty-six percent from that group said that their security concerns have prevented them from shopping and 36 percent said they wouldn’t download productivity applications, according to Cloudmark’s research.

Text messaging or SMS has been successfully used in the mobile phones and similar handheld devices for quite sometime. Now a days, the SMS technology is effectively implemented through the web. A website enabled with SMS can do a lot of things easier and faster. Web SMS is used for verification of user accounts, marketing campaigns etc. and the opportunities are endless. The SMS providers are making the implementation process so easy and it’s like simply jumping on a bandwagon.

Web SMS technology utilizes SMS messages by means of websites and similar web based applications. SMS are sent manually, automatically or by alerts or by triggers that are specified by the site administrator. This exceptional technology through the Web creates a whole new dimension to online activities. It also exposes the user’s online presence to the audience in a different platform. Web SMS are applied in websites and in overall business practice in various ways.

A message can be forwarded to a website’s owner if a new order needs to be placed by means of their online store using web SMS. When a new user join a website, th validity of details furnished are checked through web SMS by sending a verification code to their mobile . SMS text messages are used as effective marketing tool for marketing purposes. Web SMS is used for marketing competitions, product releases, give away’s and campaigns. If your website is community based, you can provide free SMS service to your users with limited number of SMS messages free per month. Due to any technical reason if any error occurs within your enterprise web based application level, you can send a web SMS message to your site administrator in order to notify about the problem’s occurrence. By using “Contact us form” many users will submit information and the reply can be sent through web SMS to the concerned person instead of sending emails. The users can also SMS to the website to update their details, response submission and for posting messages online.

The SMS marketing solutions an effective means of communication. SMS marketing is widely used for speeding up the sale of products. Text messages are sent to the consumer’s mobiles. This service can also be accessed on the internet and computers can be brought to use for messaging purpose.

There are several benefits of this service. The SMS service is used to send messages to international as well as national levels. The users just have to download some software and use them for sending and receiving messages from others. The benefits of SMS service can be listed below.

1.The users find it possible to send text messages in bulk.
2.Messages are sent to others and they are software based. Hardware is not required to send messages.
3.The system is known for its simplicity and convenience of use.
4.The processes involved are simplified and different modules are designed for increasing the convenience of users.5.The expenditure in SMS marketing is low and they are known to provide quality service when it comes to sending messages.
6.The charge is fixed and it is the same for a region.
7.The users can thus save a lot in their expenditures as they need not have to make calls anymore.
8.The transference of messages can be done at a very high speed.
9.The staffs employed by service providers are technically very sound. So, one never fails to send messages.
10.It is also possible for business houses to build their own brand with SMS marketing. This is because every SMS message has a sender ID.

So, this method of marketing is really beneficial for users who can send messages at an extremely low rate. The users find it very beneficial as now one can reach out to people in any city or country as may be the requirement. Thus marketing of products can be done at distant places of the world. Companies can advertise their products and services with this SMS delivery solution. It is possible for people to send the company information as well as product information with messages. Thus, the SMS gateways serves as a ideal means to send messages to customers.

The VoIP switch is what makes it possible for users to send messages to others. Every domain of a network is served with a switch and that is what makes it possible for people to transfer messages from one domain to another.

With the SMS delivery solutions it is possible for people to meet targets at a rapid scale. Introduction of SMS marketing has boosted the level of confidence among businessmen. Professionals found it as an ideal means to lure in customers for their products as well as services. The SMS service is looked at as a means to expand business with many self-employed people making use of this technology to start their own business.