PlusOne - Musings of a marketer

Here is a great example of SMS being used in marketing. The only caveat for businesses in Australia and some other countries in the Spam Act - you can only send to people who have agreed to receive text messages from you - the grey area is if they agreed while members, does this imply agreement now they are non-members…

The original and full blog entry can be found here

On Friday I received the following SMS message from Crunch Fitness Gym in Clonsilla, Dublin that I used to be a member of. It said “ST PATRICKS SPECIAL. Rejoin Crunch fitness before 7pm Mon 19th and receive a free Nike Rockstar course and no membership joining fee. Ltd spaces avail. 01 8025906″

This is a good example of using SMS marketing to try and reactivate dormant customers using a direct response mechanism. As we know it is much easier to sell to past and existing customers than it is to sell to new ones.

Also at present response rates for SMS marketing in Ireland can sometimes be as high as 40%, I think people are much more likely to read an sms message than they are to sift through the junk mail at home. Receiving a SMS message is still something that is very hard to ignore as opposed to receiving a ‘junk’ mailing piece.

This SMS message was also good as it made some attempt to give a reason for the promotion. People like to know the reason why you are making them an offer and a St Patrick’s day offer is as good as any.