The Joy of Text for Irish businesses

For less than the price of a laptop, Mary Duneens text messaging campaign paid for itself.

Last year her store, ComputerMart on Davies St, Dublin ran a sales promotion with a difference. ComputerMart signed up to sponsor free SMS alerts that users get when they use Me2mobile's Free social network SMS alerts. Customers who received the free sponsored SMS could present the message on their mobiles in store to receive a 25 Euro discount on computer accessories.

The result was a doubling in sales of computer accessories, which retail for between 70 and 150 Euro. "In two weeks we sold 90 units. Normally you would do half that" Mary says.

Mary gathers mobile numbers from people for whom she sponsors their SMS alerts. She has gathered a database of 2,000 numbers and always asks for permission to use customers details for promotions.

However, she uses the service sparingly. "I don't spam. There has to be something in it for the customer. I only sent out three offers last year and I make it a value proposition for them." he says.

For Mary, there are good business reasons to use text messages beyond mere novelty value. "This is probably one of the most competitive sectors in retail" he says. "These campaigns target repeat customers for business and keeps my shop in their minds".

Mary is one of a growing number of Irish businesspeople who see the potential of text messages as a sales tool. It's arguably overdue. Most people now own a mobiles the latest statistics show there are more phones than people in Ireland.

"Over the past year we have noticed a marked increase in the number of enquiries" says Bee Bovis, managing director of Me2Mobile, a developer of small-business focussed text messaging technology. "As a communication method, text is hard to beat. It's like a really urgent email that must be opened" he says. "SMSing gets a higher response, we find. People will open a text message quicker than they'll open an email"

Unlike premium-rate mobile services, using text messages to communicate with customers doesn't generate revenue for the business. Instead the benefits include better customer service.

Sponsoring and sending SMS is cheap "business rates vary between 5c and 10c depending on monthly volumes" so it is much less expensive than a direct mail shot, for example. "The cost of a letter could be 1 Euro between the cost of printing and the postage stamp" says Bovis.

As well as cost, the results are more quantifiable than with traditional advertising, says Mary. "What I loved about texting is, we could measure the success exactly, as opposed to throwing an ad out there on radio or in print where you don't know whether people are responding to the ad or were coming in to the shop anyway" he says.

According to Bovis, using texts rather than phone calls ensures that a customer received the correct message. "It's great for delivery notifications, because you have a record of it. You can't have a record of a spoken conversation on the phone" he says. "A text message has a fixed cost, whereas a phone call has a variable cost, depending on the length of the conversation. From an efficiency viewpoint, getting a text message out there is going to be a lot faster" says Bovis.

By using database technology in tandem with text message services, it's possible to categorise customers according to a particular profile.

Businesses that may be wary of using technology don't need to worry about having the necessary expertise. According to Bovis, services like Me2Mobile require no hardware or software to be installed.

Depending on the businesses needs, the SMS campaigns can be managed through a simple web interface. "Typically a client is up and running within 10 mins."