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It could be lurking in your home. More special reports Video report th annual Brooksville Raid Watch Civil War re enactors return to the summer of . More video reports Multimedia report Idol quiz Relive seasons past with our quiz. More mutimedia reports Print Email story Comment Letter to the editor Money Business Fill out this form to email this article to a friend Your name Your email Friend s name Friend s email Your message RU ready for text message ads Cell phone promotions and alerts begin gaining U.S. momentum. Don t worry It s fairly spam proof. By Paul Swider Times Staff Writer Published February ADVERTISEMENT Visitors to V s Martini Bar in Clearwater have their fingers on the pulse of st century marketing coming soon to a cell phone near you if you haven t seen it. It works great said Vincenzo Longo the bar s owner who for a year has been using text message marketing to tell his clients what s new at the V. Nobody complains and it s cost effective. Longo sends sho! rt messages to the cell phones of about of his customers once or twice a week telling them about drink specials or upcoming events. Sometimes they get a coupon for a free drink. At cents per message it doesn t take too many customers buying that second drink for Longo to get his money back. While European and Asian cell phone users have let advertisers send information to their mobile phones for years the practice is only now catching on in the United States. Many heard their phones chime with offers during Sunday s Super Bowl and the dam is about to burst on what some research says will be a multibillion dollar channel in the next few years. Sending text messages to hundreds of people at a time is more than thumbs can bear so companies like Tampa s Agile Communications provide Web interfaces to simplify the process. They maintain databases of customers who have given permission so as not to run afoul of the law or good customer service by cell spamming the unsuspecting. Longo uses Agile which serves text messages to patrons of the Tampa Bay P! erforming Arts Center the Florida Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry said chief operating officer Rick Bowen. He said text is being applied in many novel ways from emergency notifications to political organizing. As the industry moves to unlimited messaging the practice will only grow. It s almost impossible today to buy a cell phone package without unlimited text messaging said Bowen who cites research that million messages are sent in the United States every day and that number is doubling annually. Pizza and other fast food chains are pushing hard on this form of mobile marketing. Domino s has million cell phone numbers on its list to which it sends promotions about once a month. Pizza Hut is gearing up while Papa John s has an NFL playoff promotion that gears discounts to points scored but only for those signed up to its text service. Imagine you re sitting there on Super Bowl Sunday and you get a text message with a pizza special said Jenn Greacen head of ! Red Frog Marketing of Largo which is working with pizza places and other clients on rolling out text based services. Greacen said she has seen the service used by hotels to notify conventioners about a schedule change or a new event. She has heard of bars and restaurants developing speed dating activities around text messaging. She s talking to a home improvement client who wants to have billboards that include a code people can text for information and discounts. Cox Cable is experimenting in some markets with a similar service only the codes are shown on TV ads. Text message marketing doesn t work in all cases. Bella Brava in downtown St. Petersburg tried texting coupons but didn t get many takers. It was a little complicated for our customers and required them to do too much owner Robert Sanderson said. But Sanderson changed tactics and uses texts to tell people about exclusive events. He sent out a message about a limited space free wine tasting and his phone started ringing. We d rather move toward announcements he said than try to get so! meone to come in to save . Text message marketing has been slow to catch on in this country in part because of the bad experiences people have had with e mail said Mark Wenzow ski president and CEO of new Tampa firm Cellghost Media. But unlike wide open e mail text messaging has stricter controls to prevent abuse. It s actually a very passive form of marketing because you have to opt in and in some cases double opt in he said referring to users asking to receive messages not just having them come unsolicited. The standards of wireless carriers and the Mobile Marketing Association make it easy to opt out when users change their minds. It s a much more airtight system Wenzowski said. Some scams slip through. Though permission is required some third party companies sign up customers covertly and charge them monthly fees for things like daily text jokes. The wireless industry is clamping down on such deals and hoping to fend off federal regulation. With the variety of text mark! eting applications growing some describe it as the Wild West One firm invites people to send a camera phone picture of print ads in exchange for a discount on merchandise mentioned in the ad. Dentists use text messages to remind their patients of appointments. Virgin Mobile USA offers its customers free cell phone minutes if they ll accept text message ads. Half a million people have accepted the offer. Wenzowski is giving service to his church for a monthly text prayer and targeting real estate agents who want to text instant info on homes for sale as shoppers drive by. Agile made text messaging available to adventurer Roz Savage when she rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in Bowen said. People who wanted to follow her progress would get messages she sent via satellite phone from the middle of the sea to countries. Leukemia patient Pat Pedraja used text messages to keep people informed about his progress around the country last year as he raised money for and awareness of bone marrow transplants. With text messages you can t ignore them Greacen ! said. People are about to see a lot of it. Paul Swider can be reached at pswidersptimes.com or . Last modified February Share your thoughts on this story Read our guidelines for comments First Name only Location Comment May be published online and or in print You have characters left to comment. Comments on this article Subscribe to the Times Click here for daily delivery of the St. Petersburg Times. Email Newsletters Be the first to know. Register for free breaking news alerts and morning headlines . 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Source: http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/04/Business/RU_ready_for_text_mes.shtml


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