SMS Advertising

This type together with fax advertising has been in practice nowadays. How can this be compared to email marketing?

Originally Posted by matefork This type together with fax advertising has been in practice nowadays. How can this be compared to email marketing?

All three, SMS Text Messaging, Fax Advertising, and Email Marketing fall under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

What are the criteria in order for your campaign not to be categorized as spam. I heard there some requirements like an opt-out clause in your email.

Just SMS to those people who have wished to get your messages, dont go on sending messages to everyone, that way you can prevent yourself from spamming

SMS requires opt in from the user. However, depending on the service it can be quite effective.

For example, we recently ran a campaign in Denmark for a mobile games producer. We offered a free game download with each purchase. We had a 34% response rate.

Another example is in the Adult Mobile Chat business - they typically get 24% response rates to their SMS campaigns.

SMS also seems to work better in Europe than North America.

Whilst SMS can be a useful part of a cross media campaign it is rarely effective in it's own right IMO. It seems to be used more often in 'corporate' rather than 'marketing' comminications in the UK. For example I always get an SMS from my car dealership reminding my car is booked in for service the next day. Not a bad touch but would it influence my decision on where to take my car for service..... not really!

One of the most widely touted SMS campaigns in the UK was a venture between Orange (mobile phone providers) and UCI Cinemas. Basically it revolved around Orange sending SMS messages offering 1/2 price seats in UCI Cinemas on a quiet Tuesday evening. You showed the cinema receptionist your Orange text message and they gave your ticket half price. It was very effective and had a good take-up........but....... Did it make people switch to Orange as a service provider just so they could get these SMS? Did it mean people going to see a film at UCI that they wouldn't have paid full price for anyway?

Originally Posted by Corona One of the most widely touted SMS campaigns in the UK was a venture between Orange (mobile phone providers) and UCI Cinemas. Basically it revolved around Orange sending SMS messages offering 1/2 price seats in UCI Cinemas on a quiet Tuesday evening. You showed the cinema receptionist your Orange text message and they gave your ticket half price. It was very effective and had a good take-up........but....... Did it make people switch to Orange as a service provider just so they could get these SMS? Did it mean people going to see a film at UCI that they wouldn't have paid full price for anyway?

Good example Corona.

The CANSPAM ACT "permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it adheres to 3 basic types of compliance defined in the CAN-SPAM Act: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior compliance:
Unsubscribe Compliance:

• A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails.
• Consumer opt-out requests are honored within 10 days.
• Opt-out lists also known as suppression lists are only used for compliance purposes.

Content Compliance:

• Accurate from lines (including "friendly froms")
• Relevant subject lines (relative to offer in body content and not deceptive)
• A legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser is present.
• A label is present if the content is adult.

Sending Behavior Compliance:

• A message can not be sent through an open relay
• A message can not be sent to a harvested email address
• A message can not contain a false header

Note that falsifying header information is a serious violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and generally is an indicator of criminal or malicious intent which can bring the attention of other law enforcement agencies besides the FTC, including but not limited to the FBI, DOJ and US Postal Inspectors.
The content is exempt if it consists of:

• religious messages;
• political messages;
• content that broadly complies with the marketing mechanisms specified in the law; or
• national security messages."