Courting the ‘young and the wireless’
By KRYSTLE CHOW
Published in the Ottawa Business Journal newspaper and website.
Dec. 10, 2007 (Dec. 12 on OttawaBusinessJournal.com)
Click here to view this article on OttawaBusinessJournal.com.
Picture this: you’re walking down the street when your cellphone beeps. It’s a message alerting you that tickets to that sought-after hockey game are now available. You go online, purchase the tickets instantly without waiting in line and voila! You’re on your way.
That immediate jump to action is what marketing departments are hoping for with this pervasive and interactive new method of reaching out to customers, especially with the tech-savvy 18-to-24 age group.
Forget e-mail marketing if you’re looking to court today’s generation, says Isabelle Perrault, director of marketing for the Ottawa Senators – the way of the future lies with mobile marketing.
“Print or TV are pretty static media, but as soon as you add mobile, it’s very interactive. It engages people, it’s relatively easy, and it’s immediate,” Ms. Perrault says.
The Ottawa Senators started using wireless marketing before the 2006-07 NHL playoffs, first registering a vanity short code to which wireless users would send a text message in order to opt into the Senators’ database.
After the playoffs, Ms. Perrault says, the hockey team’s wireless service got 800 subscribers simply from (more…)
