Marketing goes small to reach young audience

<p>Forget junk mail.</p><p>Marketers are increasingly using cell phones to target younger generations by sending ads, coupons and contests as text messages.</p><p>The trend is not a huge surprise considering the average teen is more familiar with a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card than a letter opener.</p><p>FYI: A SIM card is a thumbnail-sized chip that fits into a cell phone and identifies your account and phone number to the cellular network.</p><p>FYI for teens: A letter opener looks like a fancy knife and is primarily used to open snail mail and to avoid paper cuts.</p><p>Text message marketing is gaining popularity with businesses because it connects them with an emerging market — the Millennial Generation.</p><p>After all, what better way to get a coupon in the hands of a teenager than by sending it to the device most likely to be in their hand.</p><p>Text messages provide a new way to advertise, establish brand identity and generate revenue.</p><p>Wine Country Radio is planning to launch text message marketing in 2009 for its four stations in Sonoma County, said general manager Debbie Morton.</p><p>“It’s a great way to integrate radio with people,” Morton said. “Connect with them on their cell phones.”</p><p>From local radio stations to the Sonoma County Fair, cell phones are proving an effective way to reach a younger, more diverse audience.</p><p>“It gave us a way to talk directly to a segment we might not have otherwise reached,” said Marlina Harrison, spokeswoman for the Sonoma County Fair.</p><p>Harrison posted trivia questions around the fair and gave people an opportunity to win cash and prizes by text messaging answers. The fair collected about 1,000 cell phone numbers from people who wanted to get updates, special offers or the inside track on contests through text messages.</p><p>In one contest, the fair and a sponsor gave away more than $700 cash.</p><p>“The people who participated seemed to love it,” Harrison said.</p><p>People could stop receiving updates by texting back the word “quit.”</p><p>After the success of this year’s trial run, fair officials are considering extending the text message campaign into next year. The text message experiment cost $4,500, but that included consulting fees, Harrison said. The fair hired St. Louis-based MessageBuzz to handle the text-message campaign.</p><p>Wine Country Radio is still researching the technology, Morton said. Initial cost estimates are $3,000 for a setup fee, $1,000 per month, and then $200 per campaign, such as sending people a coupon to Cold Stone Creamery.</p><p>“It’s very popular in some of the larger markets where it’s being done,” she said.</p><p>The radio station can create stronger relationships with its users by providing useful information via text messaging such as concert info, and also sell advertisers another channel to reach people, Morton said. Rather than cannibalizing current ad dollars, it presents a new opportunity to make money.</p><p>“I think it will generate additional revenues for us,” Morton said. “And it is revenue that would not be generated by selling 60-second spots.”</p><p>However, one major problem looms. People pay for text messages, meaning they might have to pay to read an advertisement. That doesn’t sit well with all consumers, said Edward Manzitti, vice president of research and market intelligence for the Direct Marketing Association.</p><p>Still, younger generations are more likely to pay a flat fee for unlimited text messaging and therefore be more likely to embrace the concept, Manzitti said.</p><p>The Direct Marketing Association released its first survey of text-message marketing in July, and the results showed Millennials were most likely to respond.</p><p>Also, among people who participated in some form of mobile marketing, 70 percent said they responded to a text message campaign — nearly double the next best mobile strategy.</p><p>For any form of direct marketing, a 70 percent response rate is extremely good, Manzitti said. However, keep in mind that only about 1 in 4 people participate in mobile marketing.</p><p>In Europe, where text messaging is more widespread and less expensive, the practice is more ubiquitous. Nearly half of Europe’s 224 million cell phone users have been marketed to through text messaging, according to M:Metrics, a research firm that tracks mobile behavior. In the United States, only 19 percent of the country’s 226 million cell phone subscribers have received ads via text messaging.</p><p>But as more people take to text messaging in the United States, the practice will likely grow, Manzitti said. Americans have been slower to adopt text messaging than people in other countries — in part because of higher costs.</p><p>U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., recently launched an inquiry into why U.S. carriers are charging twice as much for text messages as they did three years ago. In 2005, it cost 10 cents on average to send or receive a text — if a subscriber did not have a text plan. Now the four major U.S. carriers all charge 20 cents, according to Kohl.</p><p>If Kohl, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, succeeds in forcing the cellular companies to reduce rates, the marketing campaigns will likely gain momentum, Manzitti said.</p><p>Plus, once people start receiving offers via their cell phone, they usually don’t stop.</p><p>“It seems this type of mobile marketing is addictive,” Manzitti said. “Once people start, they usually respond to future offers as well.”</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 521-5494 or nathan.halverson@press</p><p>democrat.com.</p>