http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Fresh news, ideas, reviews and feedback every Monday from the Mobivate team to share with the world. en-us Sunday, 20 May, 2012 13:14:10 AEST Sunday, 20 May, 2012 13:14:10 AEST RSS Feed By Mobivate Fresh news, ideas, reviews and feedback every Monday from the Mobivate team to share with the world. http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 14 May, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1336917600 skill games would be that the consumer would enter a competition that was advertised in various media, e.g. TV, Print online etc and join a service where they have a chance to win prizes by answering questions via their phone. This proved to be very successful giving players a reason to interact with the service on a regular basis. One of the key drivers for success here is that it provides the user with a real service, which they stay subscribed to for that chance to win big or be challenged. Therefore, producing a good revenue source for the service provider.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 7 May, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1336312800 Bulk SMS is one of the most efficient and effective ways of marketing for small businesses. A substantial benefit of bulk sms marketing is how quickly and cost effectively a campaign can be initiated and completed. Most marketing campaigns are time consuming and come with significant expenses such as graphic designers, web designers, video production, etc which makes it difficult for small businesses to market effectively. A bulk sms campaign does not require these large expenses. If for example a customer uses www.mobivatebulksms.com , they can simply choose the list of numbers they wish to send to, type in a 160 character message and press the send button. Customers receive the message immediately and based on the high general response rates of sms marketing the phone should start ringing.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 30 April, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1335708000 Premium SMS is a very powerful billing tool for the market place in the developing world. Social media sites and online dating sites are starting to use PSMS to be able to sign up customers who do not have access to credit cards and bank accounts to make payments. This billing tool is so effective it can open up new business opportunities and is a real opportunity for growth!]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 23 April, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1335103200 premium messaging services to place ads, to vote for candidates on TV shows, to chat or to receive content. Setting up services on premium billing shortcodes in African countries is not without its difficulties: And a few factors have to be considered: Certain networks only support MO billing, Setting up a new shortcode - from the date that the order is placed until the date that a shortcode is set up tested, and working on all networks may take up to 10 weeks or more. Very few industry regulations exist, but content is usually regulated – political or glamour content may be prohibited, where as competitions might be regulated by gambling or lottery legislation.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 16 April, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1334498400 Ringtones, videos etc.. Now we are starting to see similar growth in Africa. The big question will be, what next? Will service providers learn from past experiences or look for the short term gain? The later seems to be the case now, as places like Kenya, Uganda, Malawi etc are being successfully tested. The response so far has been positive, we certainly haven't seen much press describing stories of consumer harm. The trick here is to provide good content and reasonable pricing. The good news is that simple / basic content is acceptable, so ringtones, wallpapers, videos are all in demand. So we still must plan for the next thing, as this content could soon become obsolete. Text chat is certainly one option to consider, as it utilises existing billing (SMS) and contains relevant content. The great thing about this market is that the users are also searching for this basic content and it is easy to deliver to the handset. The competition is limited, as only a few companies actually offer billing capability there. Therefore, it is really the job of these organisations to keep the market accessible and ensure that service providers do not abuse the market.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 9 April, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1333893600 Premium Rate SMS is an effective and convenient means of micro-billing. All customers need to do is send a sms and either a charge will appear on their monthly bill or an amount will be deducted from their prepaid balance. The charge is collected by the network operator, who retain a % of the revenue and the remainder gets passed to the content / service provider. It’s that easy and simply!! Given the large penetration rate of mobile phones, premium rate should be the dominant mechanism for micropayments, however this is not the case. Why? The main reason is that PSMS is simply way too expensive for business to use as a billing mechanism. Credits cards and other billing methods cost businesses approximately 5% of revenue collected, and cash is received usually within 24 hours. PSMS on the other hand often costs 50% of revenue cash is often only received 60 days after the end of month. While this does work for many business models, for most businesses the costs and cash flow are to expensive. Mobile Network Operators need to significantly reduce their revenue share of PSMS which will enable content and service providers to incorporate PSMS as a micro billing payment on a larger scale. Ultimately with greater use and scale both content and service providers and Network Operators will make more money.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 2 April, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1333288800 http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 26 March, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1332680400 mobile content remains popular. The three Mobile Networks: Telecom, Vodafone and 2 Degrees share the market at a 45:45:10 ratio. All three networks support premium messaging, facilitating billing on either outgoing messages (MT billing), which is ideal for subscription services or on incoming messages ( MO billing) which is great for chat services or voting polls.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 19 March, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1332075600 chat services are amoung the services that continue to generate stable revenues in most markets around the world. Reports also suggest that this market could be worth billions by 2015, especially with video chat services becoming more popular as handsets and mobile networks improve. Chat services mainly come in the form of sms, voice or video. The services vary quite a bit from adult, through to psychic and even corporate support lines for example. These services allow the user to take more control of their costs. When the user wants to chat they make the call and are charged per minute, or when the user sends a text they are usually charges per text received. This service usually generates the least amount of customer services calls. A loyal user base is difficult to achieve, but chat allows the user to really take control. So when they use the service it usually means that they are happy with it. This could form a strong basis for generating loyal customers. However, regular marketing and great responses (content) from the virtual phone operators are essential.]]> http://www.mobivate.com/mondays Monday, 12 March, 2012 00:00:00 AEST 1331470800 Premium Rate SMS.]]>