We are near year-end, could you tell us your comments
about the first months of activities ? What about SMS bulk in the
U.S.?
We have made fantastic progress in the last three months. We have
already agreed terms with on Fortune 500 client and had a very
successful trade show in November (Ad:Tech in New York). We also
have our first clients spinning up on the platform and have
launched our marketing campaign in the U.S. just last week.
We have a ways to go to match the success of my European
colleagues, but I feel that we have provided ourselves with an
exceptional foundation to make 2013 a very successful year.
What growth opportunities do you see in the US
market?
The U.S. Market for SMS is still maturing with carriers seeing
increased volumes each quarter (up to 15% growth this year).
In many ways, the market was created very differently from the
European market and this initial difference is still felt today.
The European SMS marketing model came about following the
consumer using SMS for peer to peer contact – businesses had to
create models to attract the consumers, but the technology
adoption was there. In the U.S. it was the opposite – businesses
copied the models of Europe in 2003/2004, but had to
"train" consumers to use SMS – this took longer and
consequently, we have not seen the dramatic rise in SMS use as we
saw in Europe. The U.S. text marketing and enterprise use of SMS
has been therefore much slower than Europe and has only matured
to an acceptable medium in the last three years. The spectrum of
opportunity for Mobyt is amazing. We have opportunities with
Fortune 500 companies down to one-person developers who want to
add authentication into their apps and across all verticals. It
is hard to find a company that we cannot help. We are truly
excited.
What are SMS' performances /redemption vs other
communication tools?
The most comparable technology would be email of course. Various
studies show that SMS is opened 97% of the time (compared with
5-10% for email marketing), which is a phenomenal statistic and
the relationship that people have with SMS means that the chance
of that individual acting on it is much higher.
In the U.S. the mobile operators (carriers) have been very strict
on opt in, so when a consumer receives a message here, the txt is
from a brand that they know and have had some relationship with
where they want to interact. Email filters are becoming better
all the time and companies such as Microsoft have been battling
bots in email for years and are getting better at it. Email
platform companies is actually one of our top verticals right now
with companies diversifying and looking to add SMS as an
alternate communication method when individuals leave companies
and their email address is orphaned – getting back in touch via
SMS and getting new contact info is a reliable method of
reengagement while SMS is being offered as a side by side
solution. Additionally, because the SMS culture is a much more
personal one than other mediums, consumers open them faster (83%
within one hour) and act on them more.
What can you reply to those arguing that SMS are
out-of-date?
Honestly – I never hear that. It isn't in the U.S. –
sometimes I feel like I am the first one ever to pitch SMS
Marketing and the enthusiasm that I am met with is amazing. That
is one of the things I love about it – there is always a new
client to talk about the possibilities with. I spend very little
time convincing people that they should use it – I usually work
with them to decide how to use it. Creating brand new concepts
and augmenting existing solutions that lack in certain areas is
definitely the fun part of my job.
Can you tell us about one of your best
practices?
There have been so many that is hard to choose one. My favorite
from a business perspective was a temporary staff recruitment
company. When they received a job from a company would reach out
by phone to each candidate – for example – if they needed a nurse
who specialized in Neo Natal, they might reach out to 20 people
by phone leaving messages and hearing constant voice mails as
nurses work variable hours and would not always have their phone
with them in work. Eventually, one would call back and they would
fill the role, but each job was taking around 45 minutes to fill
in terms of actual labor and 2 to 4 hours chronologically.
I created an SMS solution where each candidate would text in each
day with their available time eg 14:00 – 23:00 and the database
would match as soon as they got a request for placement. They
saved hundreds of hours a week on staff fulfillment and turned
that into calling potential new clients and existing to check on
their staffing needs. In one year, their revenues increased by
over 250%
From a personal perspective, the Barack Obama for America
campaign in 2008 was huge as it changed the face of political
campaigning in America to one of volume of contributors rather
than looking for those with the deepest pockets. In the 2012
election, most of Obama's contributions were under $200 (more
than 4x any other category), whereas most of Romneys were over
$2,000 (more than 2x the nearest level). This equates to more
people having a say and that has to be a good thing!
