Imagine this:
You’re sitting at your desk slightly before noon on any given day and the hunger calls are loud from your stomach. Yes, it’s time for lunch. You head for the door and start thinking about what might taste good today as your cell phone notifies you that an incoming text message has arrived. With your mind still on food you reluctantly check the message…
…but wait…
The text message advertising is from the sandwhich deli two blocks down on the right. They’re having a special today that inludes a free cookie! All you have to do is show that text message at the deli and you get the cookie with your sandwhich. All of sudden, a sandwhich would taste really good today.
How about that for Local advertising? Can you get any more local?
An article I saw recently caught my attention and led me to look into location-based text advertising. The article profiled Julian Reytel of SuddenDeals.com. From the article:
Location-based services offer consumers something they want based on where they are. Reytel’s start-up company sends free electronic coupons he calls “Sudden Deals” to the cell phones of people who sign up to receive them. Coupons are delivered based on where in the city consumers plan to be that day. (His service can’t track their actual locations, though that’s coming soon from a competitor.)
Consumers can redeem a coupon, which is really a text message, by showing the merchant the coupon on the cell phone’s display screen.
This is by no means a new advertising technology, but I’ve seen more than a few articles talking about advertising via text in the last couple of months. The medium is definitely gaining momentum. As long as the texting content doesn’t go the way of spam, I think this is a win-win effort for advertiser and consumer.
What are your thoughts? Is text message advertising too intrusive or worth trying?
Tags: SuddenDeals.com, text message advertising
If it’s opt in, as long as there’s a way for the consumer to opt out if it does become too intrusive, then it should be a win-win situation.
I really like this idea, as long as there is an easy way for the customer to opt-out if they decide that they no longer want to receive these messages.
And, it should go without saying that no one should be receiving these messages if they didn’t knowingly opt-in (i.e.: don’t start sending text messages to any customer who has given you their cell number when they entered a contest or something like that, make sure they know what they’re signing up for, just as you would do with an email marketing campaign).
Patrick Schaber, thanks for the great write-up!
We provide multiple ways for shoppers to limit, or stop altogether, the reception of “Sudden Deals” at any time. We also promise not to sell, rent or otherwise give out the cell phone numbers of our shoppers to anyone. We only share anonymous demographic information with our merchants so that they can better target their “Sudden Deals” which benefits the shoppers as well.
I invite everyone in the Twin Cities to sign up and try it. It’s free, fun and saves you money. Provide your email address when you sign up to stay current on new merchants and events at SuddenDeals.com.
Like others have said, with opt-in (and opt-out) it’s fine. If it’s just a blanket sweet, it’s pure spam.
Certainly the more targeted and relevant these ads get, the more they’ll provide value. And it’s great to see Julian stopping by for the discussion
I think we’ll see more of this in the very near future… Some companies will get it right, some might blow it.
Simon/Adam,
Good point - I should have mentioned in the article opting in and opting out is very much in the consumers control. At least for SuddenDeals it is…I can’t speak for other similar services.
Julian,
Thanks for visiting and clarifying that point. You also add a great point - not selling the list is a huge benefit to the consumer. Good luck with your business! I hope it does well.
Ryan,
You raise an interesting question - for the companies that blow it, how much damage will that do to their brand? As an advertiser in this medium, picking and choosing the when and why to advertise will be important.
Thank you everyone for contributing to the post!
[…] Text Message Advertising Gaining Momentum The text message is from the sandwich deli two blocks down on the right. They’re having a special today that includes a free cookie! All you have to do is show that text message at the deli and you get the cookie with your sandwich. (tags: sms advertising cellphone) […]
One more clarification that I think needs to be made about SuddenDeals.com. The shoppers only receive Sudden Deals either on the day that they log in to their account, or on a future day that they specify after logging in. We do not constantly send out deals to our shoppers. This way we limit unwanted deals for the shopper and allow for better targeting for the merchant.
I actually got started in text coupons giving a discount on a beer via text coupon. Now I use all sorts of texting for my bar.