Short codes, Tall returns

When marketers at Doordarshan decide that it is time to embrace this technology, you know it has already made its impact on marketers everywhere else. The magic four digits, which are changing the way brands talk to their audiences have forced Doordarshan out of its slumber and into relationship building exercise with their viewers.

You see them everywhere — in print advertisements, on hoardings, on your TV screen, on truck backs. The 4-digit numbers that you call from your mobile phone, sometimes, forming a word on your key pad (7827 – STAR or 6388 – NDTV); and sometimes, just easy to remember (8888 – indiatimes). These short code numbers are now the rage, allowing companies to easily build relationships with consumers in a super-cluttered media environment.

Marketers have never had it so good. As understanding of the medium increases and as consumers embrace this new form of targeting, the ubiquitous mobile phone has emerged as the super salesman, the saviour. SMS marketing is hardworking, efficient, measurable and unobtrusive. SMS is now a source of unprojected revenue for a number of services and businesses, especially media and telecom companies. For media companies, SMS is a new distribution channel and a consequent revenue source. For telecom companies, SMS Value Added Services yield higher margins than simple voice and data products.

As mobile phone instrument and usage costs plummet — resulting in higher penetration and acceptance — SMS, as a primary component of marketing and sales strategies, will continue to grow. These low costs are aided by the fact that technology is freely available and the entry barriers low .

Speed-to-market advantage of SMS

SMS marketing scores over any other available medium in one critical area: speed. Campaigns can be created in minutes and could reach the consumers as fast. The questions, which have to be answered, before embarking on such a campaign: Is the content relevant to the consumer; and is timeliness a virtue? The higher, the relevance and the need for timeliness — the greater are the chances of success for the campaign or the activity!

For media companies, the relevance and immediacy are obvious and the gains could be measured in terms of revenue or brand value. For exchange4media, the 3636 short code is another route to connect with the consumer — when the consumer wants to be reached, he messages “efm” to the short code. The TV Today network has similar objectives. Rajesh Sheshadri, Head of Marketing, TV Today, says, “We are not using wireless technology for the objective of revenue generation; our main objective has been to bridge the newsmaker-news-seeker divide.”

Wide range of applications, but Keep It Simple, Stupid

The versatility of the medium allows marketers to achieve several and diverse objectives using SMS. Different companies use SMS to acquire customers, strengthen existing customer relationships or even providing services to their customers. The most successful SMS based activities adopt the Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) principle, relying on incentives and interactivity to reach commercial and non-commercial goals.

While the number of areas and the number of applications are already endless and still growing, the usage in India is seen in three broad categories of SMS campaigns: Promotional (Pull) communication, Outbound (Push) marketing and CRM initiatives.

Pull the consumer, he wants you to!

The promotional campaigns are where the consumer is coaxed, through communication in other media (print, TV, POP, outdoor, Internet) to send a message to a short code, beginning a relationship with the brand. TV channels (mainly “SMS and win” promotions) and media houses (content sales) are currently the biggest users and beneficiaries of this mode, though the envelope is still way short of where it could be pushed to (See: Liverpool Football Club example, facing page).

Says Raj Singh, Executive Director, Activemedia Technology, who provided the support for the SMS promotion for ‘Indian Idol’, “Pull based SMS marketing is very effective in generating interactivity that otherwise, is typically not possible and for increasing existing response. We have seen across our clients base that SMS translates into new business almost immediately.”

To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated May 2-8, 2005