On his company's blog, Juanjo gives us some insights from a recent campaign Duplex Marketing has carried out for Sony. It was an on-pack promotion which urged people to text the shortcode they found on the CD pack to a special number, in order to win prizes. The initiative obtained a 10 percent redemption rate, with about 20 to 40 percent of the people submitting codes more than once.

I know text2win is just the simplest way to try mobile marketing and it's doesn't help much in building a relationship, but I do like it as a "way-in". On-pack promotions and SMS codes are a good solution to educate both advertisers and the public to the potentials of wireless marketing. It's a question of building trust: advertisers will learn there is a new, direct and personal channel to promote themselves, and users will understand they can enter mobile sweepstakes at no risk of being spammed with unwanted SMS.
Of course this is a delicate game that needs to be played by the rules. Cheat and die.

Tag = mobile marketing

Sometimes less is more. We have tried ourselves, and watch others, launch SMS promotions which are more complex than text2win. However, consumer response is usually much lower. It seems that quick, easy actions are the best if you are looking to maximize redemption. I agree with Martina that they do not excel at building a long-term relationship, but they probably appeal to a larger group of consumers.

Posted by: Juanjo Rodríguez at July 11, 2005 04:21 PM

I have run about 20 text 2 win campaigns and I find they work amazingly well so long as the company is known in the marketplace and doesn't try and rip off it's customers with reverse bill campaigns.

Posted by: SMS Marketing Man at September 16, 2005 11:36 AM