Research has shown that over 89% of cellphone users use mobile applications like SMS. By comparison, South Africa boasts about 5 million fixed lines, 3.5 million Internet addresses and 4.2 million postal addresses, mostly belonging to businesses.
Value-added services (VAS) are any services that can be accessed using a cellphone handset and that are not related to voice services. Examples readers would be familiar with include the hugely popular SMS (Short Message Service) services, MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) technology allowing the transmission of picture and photo messages between mobile users and IVR (Integrated Voice Response) telephone lines such as customer care and competition lines.
Marketers are realising that the ability to directly target specific consumers far outweighs the limitations that 160 characters text messages have to offer. Mobile marketing is definitely about quality over quantity and SMS communication is a very personal, direct and timely media.
Unfortunately, most marketers currently understand VAS within fairly limited terms and get trapped in a bulk SMS mindset and never experience the full impact of VAS on their bottom lines.
Possibly the most important and relevant piece of South African legislation we need to put the spotlight on is the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act. This recently-promulgated Act is often quoted by overzealous consumer journalists who claim it prohibits the sending of unsolicited commercial text messages. This is not the case. The Act allows for the sending of unsolicited commercial SMS messages, provided there is an opt-out mechanism in the message. Is it therefore extremely important that marketers ensure that the recipients of commercial SMS messages always know who the messages are coming from and how they can unsubscribe from the service.
Last year, the Marketing Federation of SA (MFSA) and the three cellular networks launched a website called www.smscode.co.za. The website enables consumers to identify which company sent them a commercial SMS, contact the relevant company to ask to be unsubscribed from the sender's list and to report any unsolicited commercial SMS messages to the MFSA.
Finally, those of us who would prefer to limit the number of unsolicited text messages they receive should exercise caution when giving out their cellphone numbers, especially when opening retail credit accounts. When filling out applications for certain goods and services, consumers should also remember to tick the box asking that they not receive unsolicited marketing communications.
Marketers who make use of commercial SMS messages and who might have to deal with angry consumers demanding to know where they found the consumer's cellphone number, would do well to point out the above.
Do's and don'ts of mobile marketing:
