Today we can see businesses using SMS for different purposes - marketing, notification, news, text to win campaigns and so on. In those cases usually SMS is a small part of a big project. However, there are plenty of businesses where SMS is in the middle of the business case and sometimes gives the competitive advantage. I will introduce four innovative SMS-based business cases that have been extremely successful in Nordics during the past years.

1. SMS-auction

An SMS-auction is where user’s text in a bid for an advertised item. The system can be set for “highest bid wins” or “lowest unique bid wins” mode. Either way, the user receives a reply message acknowledging the bid and advising them of its position. There are different variations on that business model, which all have their own advantages. Get a general idea of SMS-auctions.
* Bimbaso is a good sample of lowest unique bid auction
* sms2bid is an Australian version of highest bid auction
* Sendioksjon is an Estonian neat version of SMS-auction, where every SMS increases the price per 0,006 EUR and extends the auction by 2,5 minutes. Last person who sends the message gets the product.

2. SMS-loan

It is probably the most profitable SMS-based business, which has also raised some ethical issues. Many countries have already regulated their market for SMS-loans and some countries are doing it right now. Business case is simple - give out loans for small sums with big interests in a really quick and easy to use way. Before creating your own SMS-loan office, read those two stories as well: SMS-loan sharking and loanshark 2.0.

3. Browser based games

Browser based games are quite popular among youth. Believe me, there are plenty of people who want to do something besides shooting someone or playing flash games. Business case here is this - if you want to get advantage over other players, use paid services. Get cool widgets, more money, fame, train yourself etc. Many Fortumo clients have said that for micro-payments SMS is the best one. Every player has a mobile phone these days and they are using it impulsively.

4. Social Networks

Who isn’t a member of some social network nowadays. Some of them have a strong business case behind the solution; some of them don’t have a business case at all. Smaller local social networks have solved it really easily. There are 5 simple steps:
1. you have a social network where people love to spend their time
2. think what could be the extra feature for what users are willing to pay small sums
3. monetize these features with SMS
4. let people know about new opportunities
5. start earning revenue even while you are sleeping

Some things that have been monetized: sending presents, changing the background theme of your profile, getting fame, giving higher points to users, highlight your account/ad/picture etc.

I am start getting more and more surprised about how the big companies are gathering interest in the bluetooth marketing. In Paris, for example, you can easily find “interactive” advertising box that ask customers to activate the bluetooth on their mobile phones, in order to send them some interesting content: maps of the city, discount coupons, etc etc.

The following is instead a more subtle promotion: to promote popular reality show Big Brother 2008 on Channel TEN in Australia, advertising agency Marketforce in Perth came up with a unique bluetooth SMS campaign that really caught people by surprise. The ads embodied the “Big Brother is watching” slogan, which is the essence of the show. The campaign installed Blue-tooth transmitters in over 20 high-traffic bus shelters around town. The transmitters automatically sent two anonymous messages to any bluetooth enabled phones in the area.

The first message was tailored specifically for the local location, with something along the lines of:

I’m watching u. Ur at the (customized current location)

The second message is received 30-40 seconds later with the big reveal, saying:

Big Brother is back. 7 PM weeknights on TEN

Hopefully people won’t get mad at them.

This is an idea that came out from Volkswagen, and it is somehow an extension of their policy about polling about all the usual customs of the people. For example, Volkswagen knows that 73% of the people want to take the tiny soap and shampoo from hotel rooms. They also know that 60% of ice cream buyers prefer cones over cups.

On an apparent quest to learn everything, Volkswagen’s launched SMS polls on a big screen on Times Square. In this picture, for example, you can see how VW asks for people preferences inflight.
Results are generally announced one day after, which is a nice invitation for the people to return to the store soon in order to see the results…