Des Moines Business Record
08-27-06
Mobile marketing
By Sharon Baltes
sharonbaltes@bpcdm.com
Kane Johnson is a good example of why advertisers are struggling to get their
messages out to young adults. The recent college graduate uses TiVo or a digital
video recorder to skip through commercials on TV and he listens to commercialfree satellite radio.
Johnson and Adam Kuperman, both 22-year-old West Des Moines natives, have
created a marketing business that uses non-traditional methods of getting
advertisements in the hands of people their age. Their main approach involves
text-message marketing to cellular phones.
"There are only a few things that a person has on them every day when they
leave the house, and a cell phone is one of them," Johnson said.
The two friends launched their business, Innovative Mediums, about six months
ago. One branch of their company is my-txt.com, which does text-messaging
marketing. Through the Web site, www.my-txt.com, people can sign up to receive
promotions and discounts from various businesses. Each business can then
send out text messages at any time to their database of users.
The people who opt in to receive the text message promotions customize their
account online to control not only which businesses they receive messages from,
but also how many messages they want to receive per day or week and blackout
times they do not want to receive any messages.
"We work on a no-spam policy," Kuperman said. "Every message you receive
holds value to you. There is really no sort of advertising that works as effectively
or measurably as this."
Russ Laczniak, a professor of marketing at Iowa State University, said mytxt.com sounds like an effective way to reach young adults, especially because
users can choose the time and context of the messages they receive.
"For people who live and die by their cell phones, it can be an effective means of
advertising," Laczniak said. "The demographic of people in their 20s has grown
up with cell phones and text messaging. This provides one alternative for
advertisers who have trouble reaching this age group through traditional media."
Most of my-txt.com's 32 clients are in Iowa City, where Johnson and Kuperman
started the business while studying finance at the University of Iowa. One HyVee store in Iowa City has used the service over the past several months to send
out messages about promotions ranging from gasoline discounts to deli specials.
The store recently extended its contract for another three months. Other Iowa
City businesses such as restaurants, bars and beauty and tanning salons also
use the service.
The campus community at U of I has also been supportive of my-txt.com,
Johnson said. The Alumni Association used the service last week to invite
returning students to a free lunch. The Athletic Department plans to use the
service for ticket promotions in hopes of expanding its student ticket sales.
Hancher Auditorium has signed a one-year contract with the company.
Kuperman said using my-txt.com instead of sending out mailings is not only more
environmentally friendly, but cost effective.
"A digital coupon or discount is really a lot more cost effective because you know
that the people who receive your special are people who want it," Johnson said.
"And every time they send a message out, it's measurable to see what kind of
response they get. They know how many messages are getting sent out to
people on their database, and they can count how many people come in and
show their phones to get the deal."
Businesses pay a monthly fee to use my-txt.com, along with a fee for each
message they send out. The fee to use the service for one month is $250, but
price breaks are given when businesses sign contracts for three months or
longer. The per-message fees are generally between 10 and 20 cents per
message, depending on the number of messages sent.
People who receive the text messages do not pay fees to my-txt.com. The only
charges they incur come from their cellular phone provider. Johnson said these
carrier charges are becoming less of an issue because an increasing number of
companies are not charging for incoming messages.
Up until now, my-txt.com has focused on building its client base in Iowa City as a
test market, but now the business is working on expanding to other markets.
Kuperman said my-txt.com plans to add its services in Des Moines, Oregon, New
Mexico and New Jersey by Oct. 1
In addition to my-txt.com, Innovative Mediums has two other subsidiaries, which
it is using to cross-promote the text-messaging business: OnCampus319, a
magazine for college students; and Impulse Window, an interactive billboard.
The first issue of OnCampus319 debuted in Iowa City Aug. 25. The magazine's
articles range from profiles of U of I athletes to advice for freshmen. Several of
the advertisers in the magazine are the same companies and organizations that
use my-txt.com. They include their five-digit key word in their magazine ads to tell
readers how to sign up to receive text messages from them. Kuperman said
Innovative Mediums wants to target 10 to 15 college campuses across the
country in the next year to offer the magazine on a national level.
Impulse Window is a partnership between Innovative Mediums and Mark
Ginsberg from M.C. Ginsberg Jewelers. Ginsberg created the Impulse Window,
which is a billboard made up of four 42-inch plasma TVs. It is capable of holding
500 business advertisements that continually cycle in 10-second intervals. The
person viewing the billboard chooses which media content they want to see by
touching the screens. These interactive billboards have been installed in the
Eastern Iowa Airport and the Sheraton Iowa City Hotel.
Kuperman said the Impulse Window could be used to display content for
MyCampus319 or connect to a site to sign up for my-txt.com.
"There are really a lot of synergies that exist between the window and our other
subsidiaries," he said. "The waves of the world right now are pointing to
technology and media that's user-interactive, and that's how we're going to build
our conglomerate."