By Bob Bentz
Radio stations have been actively promoting text message marketing for several years now. When you think about it, radio is an ideal medium for text message marketing. Since so much of radio listening is done away from the home and away from other forms of media, it?s easy to see why large and small market radio stations have embraced the most basic form of mobile marketing. But, what are radio stations doing with text message marketing? 84444.com, a provider of text message marketing solutions to radio stations, has analyzed the interactive and broadcast text messages that its station partners have done during the second quarter, 2011 and released the following results.
INTERACTIVE VS. BROADCAST TEXT MESSAGES
An interactive text message promotion is when the radio station broadcasts a promotion and the listeners respond. This involves sending a keyword to a short code (Text RESULTS to 84444) and then the listener immediately receives a text message back on his or her cell phone. Interactive text message promotions make up 72% of the overall text messages sent and received by radio stations. This is not surprising given the large amount of text messages that are done by radio station sweepstakes and contests.
Despite the urging of experts in the mobile marketing field, many text message promotions are surprisingly still not advertiser-sponsored. According to the study, a full 32% of radio text message promotions do not have an advertiser sponsor included.
Overwhelmingly, the major force in radio text message marketing is sweepstakes and contests. The response rate for radio station concert ticket giveaways dwarfs all other text message promotions done on the airwaves.
?Doing a contest for a pair of tickets is great, but if you really want to get response and maximize the size of your P-1 database, we have found that the best producing text message promotions are those that involve something special like an opportunity to meet the stars backstage,? said Scott Bronenberg, regional sales manager at Advanced Telecom Services. Although it?s a small number, apps downloads are included in the study as well. The category of apps downloads includes the consumer downloading an app from an interactive text message promotion or via a QR Code.
Once a consumer has provided a legitimate opt-in to a radio station database, the station can send broadcast text messages to the listener. Of the total broadcast messages sent to listeners, 83% are news, sports, weather, and traffic reports. Small and medium sized stations don?t do a lot in this category, but many large stations have listeners that subscribe to multiple broadcast messages and receive them daily. An example of a broadcast message is a traffic report that a listener would receive every day for his commute or a baseball score.
The study shows that about two-thirds of all radio text message marketing promotions are advertiser-sponsored. Sponsors of text message marketing promotions are from every major category of radio advertisers. While retailers are the most popular sponsors of radio text message promotions, categories such as nightclubs and education tend to be over-represented compared to actual radio advertising dollars due to their young cell-phone oriented customers.
Mobile marketing continues to evolve and mature. While apps and QR codes are certainly the sexy new members of the family, the lowly text remains the ubiquitous must-have element to make or break a radio station mobile marketing campaign.
Bob Bentz is the president of Advanced Telecom Services ?a mobile marketing company providing its www.84444.com text message marketing solution to radio stations. Advanced Telecom Services has offices in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
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