A little off topic, but noteworthy nonetheless; I’ve been using a free service called YouMail for several months now and love everything about it. It’s a service that allows you to divert your cell phone’s voicemail to a new system that allows for several levels of customization with new features added all the time. Of course, being a free service, there has to be advertising somewhere, and YouMail took the mobile marketing aspect to monetize their service in a unique way.
Among the many features YouMail offers, like custom greetings and notification options, is a feature that I find notably beneficial. You can opt to have all your voicemails transcribed and emailed to you or sent to you in a series of SMS messages. It’s great when you’re in a meeting or a situation where you can’t call to retrieve your messages. You can simply read the text messages or email to get the info instead.
What YouMail has done is attached a simple call to action to each text message it dispatches and every email it sends. The call-to-actions advertise a variety of things, but they always catch my attention. I think it’s a unique way to get ad impressions. When each message is transcibed, it’s broken up into 3-4 SMS messages sent in a series depending on how long the message is, and each SMS has a different call-to-action. It’s usually things like “Bet on the 2008 Derby. Reply BET” or something similar, but it’s usually something catchy. The email notifications are the same way.
You never know where you’ll find embedded mobile marketing. It’s slowly finding it’s way into our daily lives more and more to the point that we don’t even notice it anymore.