Blyk continues to sign up new users

A pitch email with some interesting stats.

The Pitch

This was a standard press release, in the usual corporate language, about how Blyk has now signed up 100k users 6 months ahead of the stated schedule. Blyk is a mobile network that is targeted at 16-26 year olds. They get free minutes and text from the network in return for getting “ six highly targeted advertising messages per day from brands including Xbox, Adidas, STA Travel, Penguin, Brylcreem, Boots, COI and RSPCA.” Wow, that’s a lot to the phone. BUt it obviously works for some people

What I think of the product?

It’s a good idea, a good exchange. When mobiles are considered essential to life at that age but money can be scare, having the choice of this service is brilliant. Unlike other ads, such as posters and print, this is completely opt-in. Each user completes a profile so the ads would be useful for them as well as being more efficient for the advertisers. I’ve used a similar service in the US, Virgin SugarMoma, as an content channel and it performed well, with a good take up, so I know it can work.

What I think of the Pitch?

It’s a standard press release via one of the few services I’ve signed up for, so is generic and mass. However, it does contain whole of of info I find really useful, so not that intrusive. So let’s pull some of the interesting stuff out of the release.

• They give average response rates and costs for various channels, pulling the data from E-Consultancy, showing that targets ads like Blyk are most efficient.
  • Online advertising – response 0.5%, cost £1.50 (that’s a higher rate from what I’ve seen)
  • Email – response 2.5% cost, £2.00 (and that’s a very low response rate from what I’ve seen, I’m assuming it includes bought in/non-opted in lists.
  • Direct mail – response 2%, cost £12.50
  • Mobile SMS unprofiles – response 4.5%, costs £2.22
  • Blyk – response 29%, cost £0.53
• Blyk is signing deals with bands to marketing directly to fans and to get music. The phone is replacing the mp3 player and this type of partnerships bypass the web stores.
• The give a great example of a Penguin campaign, to promote Nick Hornby’s novel Slam. A two parter, if you accepted, you got a 90sec audio track of the first few paragraphs, read by Nicholas Hoult, star of Channel 4’s ‘Skins’ . It got a 67% response rate.

Mobile is getting bigger and bigger and Blyk is at the forefront of providing useful services. Watch for the bigger networks to promote similar services.