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Brian Hecht is currently the CEO of Kikucall, Inc., a premier mobile services company helping brands, agencies, and media companies reach consumers through unique wireless promotions.
From 1996 until 2002, he was the CEO of enews, inc., the leading Internet-based magazine subscription agent. At the helm of enews, Brian managed a staff of nearly 150 and attracted investments from venture capitalists and strategic media partners, including Madison Dearborn Partners, Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, Time Inc., and Barnes & Noble. His client base included every major U.S. consumer magazine publisher. In 2001, Brian engineered the sale of the company to Barnes & Noble.
Brian is also an accomplished public speaker, and has made many television appearances, including Fox News Channel, CNNfn, and others.

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How Does Your Mobile Measure? A Few Wireless Whims on Overcoming Mobile Marketing Hype

Written on
October 31st 2006
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by Brian Hecht  |
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Even with text messaging’s impressive penetration number, you are only able to send a text message to a consumer who has specifically requested such communication. So how do you go about transforming those hypothetical usage numbers to power your own mobile marketing efforts? Here are five specific ideas for actions that make sense to consider right now:

1. Grab Your Own Short Code: Short codes — those five- and six—digit numbers that enable consumers to easily send a text message — are becoming ubiquitous. Having a short code is the key to letting consumers send a text message to you. And that’s the best way to get consumers to opt in engage with your brand via mobile. You can even get a “vanity code” that spells out a word that’s meaningful to your brand, so it’s easy for consumers to remember.

It’s comparable to reserving a URL for your brand’s Website. It’s not quite as easy or cheap, though: It will cost a few thousand dollars to start plus some ongoing monthly fees, and you’ll need to work through a mobile agency or aggregator. Still, the cost of entry is far smaller than, say, building a great Website or buying airtime, and it is undoubtedly worth the investment. In fact, it is the one fundamental action that you simply must take now if you want to engage in any sort of text-message marketing.

2. Start Collecting Numbers on your Website: If you’re like most marketers, you’re already collecting valuable opt-ins and user information on your Website. It’s simple to add a mobile phone field to your form. Even if you’re not quite sure what you’re going to do with these numbers yet, you’ll have a start in with a built-in audience for your mobile efforts.

3. Draft and Publicize Your Mobile Privacy Policy: Consumers are justifiably squeamish about giving out the mobile phone number. It’s an incredibly personal channel. As you begin collecting mobile numbers or advertising your short code, you simply must have a clear, unequivocal privacy policy available to consumers. If you can give your consumers a clear reason to opt-in, coupled with a rock solid privacy assurance, they’ll be far more likely to participate.

4. Watch the Marketplace: There’s enough mobile marketing going on right now that it’s likely another company in your competitive set is already testing mobile. Watch what they’re doing. Just because another company is doing something doesn’t mean it’s working, but it’s likely that some thought has gone into it. Of course, do not plagiarize anyone else’s marketing plan. But you can use this data to brainstorm your own ideas and pivot off of trends in the marketplace.

5. Start Talking About Mobile Internally: When our agency works with clients, the number-one barrier to getting started is a lack of internal consensus about the value of mobile. Even if your company is not quite ready to take the plunge, it is essential that someone take a leadership position and become the internal expert on mobile. Perhaps that person is you. The marketplace data in favor of text message marketing is compelling, and now is the perfect time to start the conversation.



Reader Comments.

This article is right on target.

Text messages not only reach the broadest audience, gathering this info helps marketers build a valuable database of users for future applications.

Posted by Laura Lombardi | 2:59 pm on October 31, 2006.

We at the Text Message Blog applaud well written articles about text messaging like this. It is amazing that the advertising world has been so slow moving to embrace this technology.

Posted by Anthony Wayne | 10:50 am on November 1, 2006.

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