Life-Saving Instructions Delivered by Text Message

I know you've used your mobile phones to send simple messages:

--Honey, its 11pm. y rnt u home yet?

Or we've asked CHACHA to serve up the answer to our insatiable appetite for trivia:

--How many bones in the human body?

But have any of you used Text messaging to save a life? Well that's what happened a few weeks ago in Africa. A volunteer surgeon with the organization Doctors Without Borders performed a life-saving amputation on a sixteen year old boy using surgical instructions sent to him by a colleague in Britain.

According to the U.K. Daily Mail, the teen initially received an amputation just below his shoulder after a hippopotamus bit him. The boy, identified only as J, had suffered from a severe infection after the partial amputation and had just a few days to live, Dr. David Nott, told the newspaper.

Nott said he did not know how to amputate the infected part, and he asked his colleague Meirion Thomas for instructions via phone messages. Nott was unable to reach Thomas by phone or e-mail, but Thomas did respond to a text while away on vacation. Thomas sent two replies containing instructions and encouragement.

Thomas called the procedure "easy" and wished Nott luck, but Nott told the Daily Mail that he believed the teen stood an 80% chance of dying.

Nott said that the potential for complications was "enormous." With a pint of blood, a scalpel, forceps, and minimal anesthetic, Nott removed the entire shoulder, including the scapula. The young man is expected to make a full recovery despite the disarming procedure.

$1 Million in sales from a WAP site?

Pizza chain Papa John’s International Inc. has generated more than $1 million in sales from mobile Web orders in less than six months after offering that option to consumers.

Papa John’s focus on using interactive channels may be paying off.

The company claims that more than 20 percent of all sales come online or via SMS text, widget or smartphones. There is a belief within the company that these channels might someday surpass traditional telephone orders.

In line with that thinking, Papa John’s will be leveraging its existing assets to promote its mobile ordering system.

For example, Papa John’s pizza boxes and box toppers next year may include the 4PAPA (47272) common short code and a keyword on them.

Read the whole story from Mobile Marketer

Branding made Mobile

How does Mobile phone marketing (using text messages and a common short code like 27138) build a company’s brand?

• Creates a dialog and a relationship:: Voting, polling, requests for feedback, sweepstakes, and contests all require interactivity with the consumer and the brand. This interaction through a shortcode provides valuable information about target audiences, allowing organizations to even more closely tailor their products and associated marketing to evolving marketplace needs.
  
  
• Customer and employee communications:: Text messaging is being used by companies, organizations and schools to distribute information, such as employee alerts, school closings, prayer requests, airline reservation updates, and sales alerts.
  
  
• Increasing brand reach:: No one leaves their house without their keys, wallet and mobile phone. The ubiquity of the mobile phone and its innate function as a 2-way communication tool make reaching mass markets on an individual basis an unprecedented opportunity.
  
  
• Sales lead generation:: U.S. companies of all sizes are using shortcodes in their marketing efforts to generate interest and engagement with brands, which immediately or eventually turn into sales leads. Brands have reported that potential customers who signal their product interest through text messaging are often highly motivated, which can result in higher response rates.
  
  
• Fundraising:: New donor acquisition and overall donations have seen significant declines in 2008. Nonprofits are increasingly interested in shortcodes for fundraising efforts because it allows them to reach and cultivate newer, younger audiences and provides a high ROI. MobileCause has implemented many campaigns with non-profits to receive $5 donations via text message. The $5 shows up on the caller’s phone bill and the non-profit receives $4.50. The carriers take 0%.
  
  
• Content distribution:: Because of spam and a growing number of different email addresses per user (I have 5 different email accounts!) an increasingly smaller percentage of emails are read each day. In contrast, most people have only one mobile number and they read 90% of their text messages. Conversion rates are significantly higher and the growing use of web content on a mobile phone (WAP sites) make content distribution a major focus of brand developers.
  
  
• Mobile advertising:: New mobile advertising formats are coming onto the scene, including banner ads, sponsorships, product placement and idle screens, and pre- and post-roll video. However, unlike most mobile advertising, shortcodes require single or double opt-ins. Thus, brands know consumers are interested and receptive to text messages. In fact, text advertising can be added to a text message so that the confirming message the consumer receives from the brand can also have a line of advertising in it.
  
  
• Building databases:: Information is power, and savvy organizations are using text messaging to build powerful mobile information databases on existing and prospective customers, such as what promotions they respond to, which mobile coupons they actually redeem and when, and how often they respond to mobile alerts, by integrating CSC response data into existing databases. These databases can be used to develop and support loyalty programs, coupon and direct response offers, and Internet-like experiences with media ranging from print to radio.

For more on branding and fundraising via mobile, text STEVE to 27138 and have my contact info sent to your phone. It’s a lot easier than us meeting at Starbucks, me handing you a card and you losing it in your wallet. ;o)

Stats on Mobile Use

There are lots of studies out there and as more and more organizations realize the need to expand their marketing to include mobile, I thought I would compile some useful data for you:

• Close to 85% of U.S. consumers subscribed to mobile phone service as of 2007, making it a $139 billion industry. Source: SmartBrief
  
• In late 2007, American cellphone subscribers for the first time sent text messages more than they phoned, according to Nielsen Mobile. Since then, the average subscriber’s volume of text messages has shot upward by 64 percent, while the average number of calls has dropped slightly.
  
• By 2010, an estimated 2.3 trillion text messages will be sent and delivered globally. Those sure are some busy thumbs.
• US teens send or receive 1,742 messages per month, compared to the second-highest age group, 18 to 24 year olds, who send and receive about 790 messages.
• Parents and grand parents are fast growing segments for SMS because they’ve realized that in order to stay somewhat in touch with their kids and grand kids, they had to learn how to text. As a result, SMS adoption is penetrating all demographics and should no longer be considered a tween or teen obsession only
• 63% of people said that a coupon would be the most effective incentive to get them to respond to a mobile marketing message, followed by a store discount at 52%. Source: A recent survey from ABI Research
• The global mobile advertising market will be valued at over $16 billion by 2011.
• In August 2007, nearly 40 million US consumers received SMS advertisements, and 12 percent responded to them. Source: M:Metrics, Common Short Codes: Cracking the Mobile Marketing Code.
• 89% of major brands plan to market via mobile phones by 2008
• 40% of major brands have deployed text messaging (SMS) campaigns
• 18% of major brands have deployed multimedia messaging (MMS) campaigns. MMS is audio, video and other rich text. Source: Airwide Solutions independent survey of 50 brand name companies.

Open Doors enjoys 37% Response Rate on Text2Give Campaign

MobileCause and OpenDoors announce the successful launch of a mobile giving campaign to maximize the fundraising capabilities of the ministry. Millions of Christians around the world face daily the possible destruction of their property, their families and their very lives. For over fifty years, Open Doors has pursued a singular purpose: to stand with the persecuted church… building their courage, meeting their needs, sharing their stories and championing their faith.

The text donation campaign was first presented at a church event and 37% of the people in attendance used their mobile phones to text BIBLE to 20222 to donate $5. Each call (up to 5 calls per month) shows up on the donor's phone bill as a $5 charge.