How Comic Relief used SMS

SMS is used considerably by the youth market. Research has found that 96 per cent of young people own mobile phones (Source: ABI Associates) and of them one in four seven to 10-year-olds own a mobile phone (Source: BBC).

Generating a response effectively from youths is a challenging task and one which is being increasingly achieved using SMS. SMS is much more than a broadcast channel. It is an interactive medium and with its reverse billing capability, it can also be a useful revenue generator.

Recently, Comic Relief used SMS to achieve both goals:

Competitions & Alerts supported by SMS

Encouraging the audience to vote within competitions for programs such as ‘Celebrity Driving School’, ‘Celebrity Fame Academy’, ‘Comic Relief’s Nationwide Football Challenge’ and ‘BBC Radio One’s Battle of the DJs’ allowed Comic Relief to engage with potential donors and also generate additional revenues to its normal appeal channels.

Entries cost £1, plus standard network charge, with at least 70p going to Comic Relief.

Results

Most votes for the programs were placed using SMS- for ‘Celebrity Driving School’ 64% of total entries were placed by SMS. For Fame Academy, over 232,000 mobile votes were cast. 343,000 entries for ‘Comic Relief Nationwide Football Challenge’. Listeners to the Radio One Battle of the DJs were encouraged to vote off the DJ they liked least- it attracted 19,557 entries.

With reverse billing technology in place, the incremental revenue being generated was considerable.

By using a ‘quirky’ text to win message, Comic Relief also reinforced their ‘fun’ branding and were able to interact and communicate their serious message to the youth market using SMS.

What can you learn from this SMS case study

Integrating an SMS number as a call to action within your campaigns allows people to get involved with your cause. It breaks down reasons for procrastination:

• Easy: billing goes direct to mobile bill meaning no fiddling with long credit card numbers
• Immediate: most people carry their mobile phones with them continuously ensuring they are able to respond there and then
• Accessible: reach people on the move
• Fun: SMS is typically a P2P (peer to peer) medium allowing you to ‘jump on the band wagon of campaigns which the audience sees as fun
• Future Proofed: collect a database of mobile numbers for future campaigns

Next Steps

Adestra are a digital marketing agency specialising on email, fax and SMS. We work with clients to build an SMS solution to meet their individual requirements. What are your plans? Contact us today to find out if we can help you to shape and achieve them!

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