Text messaging: quick, easy and, now, profitable for businesses.
Vesta Mobile Solutions, a Baltimore-based company co-founded by recent college graduates Brandon Davenport, Marcellus Alexander III and Elwood Green, is turning texting into dollars for area broadcast companies, schools, bars and restaurants.
The idea? Direct communication with customers via text-message alerts and coupons.
“The mobile phone, it?s like your right arm,” said Davenport, 24, Vesta?s chief operating officer. “You can?t go anywhere without it.”
Text messaging is becoming a preferred form of communication. About 7 billion text messages are sent per month in the United States, with about 80 percent of people ages 18 to 28 sending text messages on a daily basis, according to data from Airwide Solutions, a Massachusetts-based mobile communications firm.
The 25-to-34-year-old age group, a large portion of Vesta?s target market, already spends a large percentage of its annual income on food away from home ($2,694), entertainment ($2,455) and alcohol ($478) when compared with older age groups, according to a 2005 survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We see this as a legitimate form of advertising and really the most effective,” said Alexander, 23, the company?s account manager. “You don?t always pick up your phone, but you always check your text messages.”
Vesta offers to businesses a system by which customers may choose to receive text-message alerts, free of charge. The text alerts are only sent to people who want them, so the business is reaching its core customers.
“It?s a way to directly communicate with your customers,” Davenport said. “It?s not spam, it?s 100 percent opt-in.”
About a year and a half into the venture, Vesta has already signed contracts with several clients, including Perry Publishing & Broadcasting, Downtown Locker Room and Morgan State University.
Morgan State will use the service to market the university to prospective students and potential donors.
“We want to create the opportunity to communicate directly with people who want to hear our message and then know that they have received it,” said Jarrid Carter, assistant director of public relations for Morgan State.
Several bars and restaurants in the area, including Looney?s Pub in Canton and Mother?s Federal Hill Grille, have signed up for the service to let customers know of upcoming food and drink specials and events.
Mobile ad sales could total $2 billion ? nearly 1 percent of all U.S. ad sales ? by 2010, according to Yankee Group, a Boston-based research and consulting firm.
“This form of advertising is relatively new,” Alexander said. “The businesses are learning this is a great way to market to customers.”
