Text me with local ads
Eight out of ten mobile phone users in Europe wouldn’t mind receiving promotional offers and marketing messages via SMS. The surprising information comes out of a recent research by Empower Interactive, which found out that people will accept promotions about local entertainment and retail operations. Despite this trend, only few brands have started using mobile marketing as part of their promotional strategy. The news is reported on Revolution Magazine but the article lacks of important information to make the whole industry happy. People might be willing of receiving mobile coupons, messages concerning text & win campaigns, but we can’t consequently assume they want to get messages simply saying “the new XXX product is out” or “wash your hands with XXX they will be softer than ever”.
So the research doesn’t come up with good news for the entire mobile marketing industry, rather for small medium businesses with a local reach.
“Many people confuse the fact thatbut we can’t consequently assume they want to get messages simply saying “the new XXX product is out” or “wash your hands with XXX they will be softer than ever”.”
This is an excellent point. What many marketers don’t appreciate is that the mobile channel is a *promotional* one, not an advertising channel.
Having overseen 1500 of these types of location based camapigns, I’d say that this is pretty much established. If you use the channel, your point of view as a marketer must be how you can add value to the consumer with your communication. This can be a coupon, for sure. But if we start getting creative, there are other ways. News, information, jokes and inside knowledge of something, are all examples.
But if you simply send “Our brand is great” type of advertising, not only will it not do you any good, but you’ll end up harming your brand. “Why did you text me to tell me that?” they say.
And if you do go down the offer-led route, it needs to be an exclusive one, not just one available to anyone who happens to be passing the shop. Again, this leads to a negative, not a positive response.
But the overall findings of the research are very positive, if unsurprising. We had 85,000 people opting in for local messages when we launched this kind of service.