Thursday, June 11, 2009

Are short codes an easy way to provide marketing information over mobile?


Most of the marketers have signed up for short codes paying anywhere from $ 1500 to $2500 per year per short code (many of them have got multiple short codes).
Assumptions about shortcodes are
a. Short codes are easier for customers to remember and respond
b. Short codes would fetch additional revenue

Let’s see if that is true
Are short codes generating response?
a. Whether it is 5 digits or 10 digits people are not used to remembering number. Further in the case of short codes they also have to remember keyword which makes it difficult proposition
b. Generally short codes respond much less than 5000 responses a month and that too with an investment for educating users on the service
c. Short codes cost the premium to users (costs Rs 1 to Rs 3) creating huge entry barrier for users to respond.
Are Short codes fetching revenue?
Short code normally costs the users Rs 3 and most of this revenue goes to operators. 80% of this revenue would be held by operators and remaining 20% would be shared between the short code service provider and the brand launching the service. Considering 5000 messages the revenue earned is < $30 per month!

Cost associated with Short code

a. As mentioned earlier short codes cost users more than brands gain. Short code needs to be communicated to consumers through ATL, hoardings etc, that further adds to the cost.

Is there an alternative?

Yes! BluFi, a bluetooth based marketing platform from Telibrahma can make provide a convenient and fruitful mobile experience to both consumers and marketers.

- 200K to 500K engagements with the audience targeted based on location and handset profile

- 10-20K responses through SMS, embedded in a mobile form where users just need to press the button to send message without remembering the shortcode without additional investment for educating the users on short code (Refer the creative from our campaign which we carried out for India's leading brand Kingfisher)

- Zero cost and rich brand communication to consumers

To know more about BluFi visit http://blufimedia.com/

BluFi is a proprietary product of Telibrahma. Visit http://www.telibrahma.com/ for more details

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then why do people use short code in the first place. Is there a lack of education in BluFi Technology

TELiBrahma India said...

Its not like there is a lack of education for BluFi. Most of the time marketers are not able to distinguish between different offerings in mobile marketing! For instance, Shortcodes are very effective in the high bandwidth event like American Idol where voting decides the winner! But when it comes to location based relevancy marketers still limit themselves to short codes. BluFi can offer them a great brand connect and a better results.

But, slowly clients are showing interest in a response mechanism integrated with BluFi!

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