"Mobile advertising" usually conjures up images of banner ads or maybe native advertising, but a few firms think the future is in the humble text message.
Brands including Ikea, Kellogg, Bloomingdales, Starbucks and TV networks ABC, Fox and CBS have launched marketing outreach programs designed for SMS and MMS. The latter is seen by some as an opportunity for multimedia ads, including video.
In a vote of confidence for the latter, Chicago's Iris Mobile announced this week that it received $3 million in Series A financing led by Chicago's Origin Ventures, Illinois Ventures, Hyde Park Angels and OCA Ventures. The funding will help the company expand its product offerings.
Deep Malik, Iris's co-founder and COO, says using his platform, brands can reach any phone, whether it's an iPhone 5S, a flip-phone or a Lumia. Why texting? Malik says consumers are more apt to open text messages than emails and more likely to redeem offers as well. Messages that use rich media are opened more often still because, as he says, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
Iris isn't the only one making the pitch. Mogreet, a unit of Payvia, is also preaching the multimedia MMS gospel as is Vehicle, a Seattle-based startup; and ePrize. "It's an app that every single person in the world has," says James Citron, the CMO of Payvia and former CEO of Mogreet. "
According to the CTIA, consumers sent some 74 billion MMS messages in 2012, a figure that rose as the number of minutes of talk and text messages fell.
Despite such stats, brands have been slow to exploit MMS. A May 2013 survey of 745 marketing pros by email marketer Strongivew found that 38% use SMS and MMS for mobile marketing outreach vs. 76% who use a mobile website and 49% who employ "mobile-optimized email." One industry insider told Mashable that marketers are wary of texting because open rates are a mystery (carriers don't report them) and the campaigns can be expensive. How expensive? In the UK at least, bulk messages sell for about $.08 in bulk. (Malik, however, says that carriers don't charge extra for video over MMS.)
When asked about the efficacy of text-based marketing messages, many proponents point to a 2010 Frost & Sullivan report that purportedly showed a 98% open rate for such messages. However, that report is unavailable. A Frost & Sullivan rep says that data came from a custom report for a client and the report is sealed. Another oft-quoted figure from Juniper Networks of a97% open rate could not be verified. Nevertheless, common sense dictates that a text will get more attention than another email.
Sometimes the programs are more elaborate than that. Iris hosted a promotion this summer in Chicago for the play Sunday in the Park With George that sent a short video to consumers to texted the word "Sunday" to 406-79. In addition to the video, the text message offered a phone number to call for tickets, let users share the video on Facebook and entered them in a contest to win tickets to Paris. Starbucks also ran a program in May that tapped MMS. The campaign was an SMS trivia contest offering prizes. After that, Starbucks was able to determine what kind of phone each consumer had and then send MMS messages if appropriate. The MMS messages with a short video and info about an in-store Happy Hour special offer.
ePrize touted the Starbucks promo as a success, but Zach Zimmerman, the company's account manager for mobile, says MMS isn't for everyone: "MMS is a way to get rich engagement content on your consumer's mobile devices, but it's not the only way," he says. "Not all mobile devices are MMS-enabled (yet) and MMS doesn't provide the tracking that an SMS with a URL to a mobile web site does. While MMS provides additional real estate — more than 160 characters and the use of images and short videos — it pales compared to the space and tracking of a mobile web landing page."
Zimmerman says that marketers have to determine for themselves whether MMS makes sense. Says Zimmerman: "MMS is a tactic, not a strategy."
Image: Getty/Christopher Furlong
Source : Mashable
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