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12 posts from May 2009

May 27, 2009

Mobile Marketer Profiles Ez Texting Client, UAS Properties

Mobile Marketer recently profiled UAS Properties, an Ez Texting client:

UAS Properties, a housing development company recently used mobile to save company costs and provide a quicker, simpler way to stay in touch with tenants and perspective renters.
...
Text messaging is a cheaper and more efficient way to reach a lot of people,” said Atukwe Newell, managing partner at UAS Properties, Chicago, IL. “We use EZ Texting in both our leasing business and our property management business.
“In both cases it was a much more efficient way to get out information,” he said. 


Read the entire article @ Mobile Marketer.

Head over to Ez Texting to read our UAS Properties Case Study.

Posted at 11:37 AM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 26, 2009

Puerto Rican Fast Food Chain Scores Big Profits With Mobile Marketing

Ad Age has a great mobile marketing success story:

You don't have to have a nine-figure ad budget to boost sales and get your brand noticed -- but it could require some ingenuity. The Taco Maker, a Puerto Rico-based fast-food chain, saw 21% same-store sales increases in central Florida following a combination radio and mobile-marketing promotion in which it offered free burritos.

The Taco Maker's agency, BxP Marketing, created a character it called Juan Maker, a gruff, mouthy guy with a thick accent, to make radio appearances and chat with DJs about freebies. The appearances were recorded live and then crafted into a series of 10 60-second spots that ran in central Florida for six weeks and offered a free one-pound Maker burrito to consumers who sent in a text as instructed by the commercial. The Taco Maker received nearly 5,000 texts and gave away nearly 2,500 burritos, a response rate of about 50%. The promotion sent same-store sales up 21% in the region, the chain said. Taco Maker CEO Carlos Budet said the character connected so well that consumers called the radio station asking to speak to Juan Maker.

Read more @ Ad Age.

Posted at 11:38 AM in Food | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 22, 2009

FarmsReach Uses Smartphones & The Web To Help Revolutionize The Food Distribution Chain

Wired has an interesting article about a new service called FarmsReach, which hopes to connect small farmers with restaurant chefs. While the locavore movement has recently taken off, seeing it spread on a wide scale is unlikely, due to the uncertainties of bypassing a traditional food distributer like Sysco:

The current distribution of edibles works the way it does, though, because it’s brutally effective at reliably delivering low-cost food all over the country. Sysco, the dominant $13 billion American food distributor, works and restaurants know that.

“The big problem in small agriculture is supply chain resiliency,” Croll said. “Chefs order from Sysco because they know, no matter what, they’ll get their orders or there is an account rep they can strangle.”

Enter FarmsReach:

FarmsReach wants to make ordering from local, small farms as easy and reliable as ordering from Sysco. Farmers with smartphones would snap quick photos of their produce, then upload their products into their “virtual stalls.” Restaurants could cruise through the vegetables online and pick what they wanted. It’s a classic farmer’s market with a high-tech twist.


Read the entire, interesting article @ Wired, or head over to Ez Texting to read about how Let's Eat, relies on text messaging to streamline the production and delivery of prepared meals to Atlanta-area consumers.

Posted at 3:19 PM in Food | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 21, 2009

Ez Texting Helps Power Coop Keep It Green

Green Check out our new case study about Choptank Electric, a non-profit energy cooperative that serves the entire Eastern Shore of Maryland. The co-op is owned by its members and provides electricity to more than 52,000 customers. They've partnered with Ez Texting to promote an innovative program that sends text messages to interested customers reminding them to cut back on power usage during 'peak' hours, when wholesale costs are the highest:

The company created an energy-saving initiative called “Beat The Peak." This is how they explained the program to their members: "Beat the Peak" is a voluntary program where members are encouraged to conserve or limit energy usage during peak times. "Peak" times are those when the Cooperative is purchasing wholesale power at the highest prices. By cutting back on the amount of wholesale power purchased during these peak, high-priced periods, the Cooperative can reduce its total wholesale power costs. Reductions in wholesale power costs are passed through directly to the members in our power cost adjustment.

Check out the entire cost effective, environmentally friendly case study @ Ez Texting.

Posted at 5:00 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Rumors: New iPhone could go on sale July 17

cnet's Crave blog offers up some rumors regarding the potential for a new iPhone model. Once can hope:

Today's rumor--well, actually it's yesterday's rumor--comes courtesy of AppleiPhoneApps.com. Through its very own Deep Throat--aka a source who is "closely connected to Apple's hardware development team"--the Web site posted some details on just what the third-generation iPhone will offer. What's more, it names Friday, July 17, as the release date.

Details include 32GB of RAM, a 3.2 megapixel camera, and much more. Regardless, the the 3.0 firmware update (copy and paste, turn-by-turn directions) is definitely coming soon.

Read more @ cnet.

Posted at 3:02 PM in Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 20, 2009

Nissan Promotes Their New 'Cube' Via Multiple Mobile Channels

Nissan has a new car, the Cube, which they have oddly branded as a 'mobile device.' As such it is fitting that they have launched a serious mobile campaign to promote the car:

Carmaker Nissan has launched a campaign that uses the mobile Web, an iPhone app and SMS text messages to promote its new Cube car model. 

The first aspect of the promotion incorporates mobile into Nissan’s traditional marketing mix, which includes television, print, direct mail and interactive advertising. Ads encourage consumers to text in to get access to the Cube Mobile Hub, which has unique content such as wallpapers, videos, music, ringtones and a link to Nissan's mobile site. The hub can be viewed at http://www.nissanusa.com/mobicube.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer

Posted at 11:34 AM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 19, 2009

Texting from witness stand causes mistrial

techdirt reports on an amusing (depending on your perspective) texting newsbite:

We recently wrote about a trial where there were concerns that a jury member was sending Twitter messages during the trial, but that's nothing compared to text messaging while on the witness stand. Yes, apparently a guy who was being questioned as a witness, used a break in the action (as the judge spoke to the lawyers in the case) to text message with his boss, who was also in the court room and at the plaintiff table

Read more @ techdirt (via textually)

Posted at 11:25 AM in SMS News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Is Nokia Prepping An Advertising Subsidized Phone?

MobileCrunch asks the question:

If your carrier offered to take a hefty chunk of change off the cost of a mobile handset be it that you let them put advertisements on the home screen, would you take the deal? Nokia thinks you might.

Our source deep within Nokia’s headquarters has just leaked us a bunch of information about the company’s future operating system release, Maemo “Harmattan”. It’s jam-packed full of unexpected twists, including their new-found love for home screen ads.

Visit MobileCrunch to read through their evidence and analysis.

Posted at 11:20 AM in Advertising | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 13, 2009

Prepaid Cell Phone Networks Benefit From Recession

We've told you before that mobile marketing has done well through what some are calling the Great Recession. Another sector of the wireless industry has benefited as well:
Prepaid wireless providers are scooping up subscribers as cash strapped consumers downgrade to lower cost cell phone service.

First quarter earnings reports from MetroPCS Communications and Leap Wireless on Thursday provided further evidence that consumers are flocking toward no-contract, unlimited prepaid services. These carriers, which operate primarily in smaller urban areas, each reported they had nearly doubled their subscription rate compared to a year ago.

MetroPCS said its new subscriber additions increase 51 percent compared to the same quarter a year earlier. In total it added 684,000 new subscribers, bringing its customer base to 6 million. This was the third quarter in a row in which the company had a record breaking increase in subscribers.

Leap Wireless, which sells its service under the Cricket brand, also had a big quarter, increasing subscribership by 40 percent compared to the same quarter a year earlier. In total, the company added 493,000 new customers, ending the quarter with 4.3 million wireless subscribers. A year ago, Leap ended the first quarter with 3.1 million customers.

Read more @ cnet news.

Posted at 10:19 AM in Marketing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 08, 2009

Video: Samsung's New Phone With An E-Ink Keyboard

Engadget spotted some video of Samsung's new Alias 2 (for Verizon). What makes this phone so special is that it has got a dynamic e-ink keyboard (think Kindle):

JenJen, a forum jockey over at HowardForums, was lucky enough to coax a Verizon sales rep into selling her Samsung's new Alias 2 a few days early. Fortunately she did as any of us would and posted a video of her fresh out of box experience to YouTube. While this featurephone isn't much of a looker, it's nice to finally see the dynamically changing E Ink keypad in action.

And the very cool video:

Posted at 10:55 AM in Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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