Why call a Promotional Bulk Message a junk message?
Hello,
In today’s Times Of India, a front page article headline reads – 100 m JUNK SMSs FLOOD MOBILE INBOXES DAILY. It goes on to say that advertisers – builders, investment companies, FMCG companies, food & beverage companies, restaurants, automobile companies and dealers, even some government departments like the traffic police are using the bulk messaging medium to promote their services to general public.
Important to note here is that everyone terms these PROMOTIONAL messages as JUNK messages. However, the TRAI has stipulated that every such promotional message will have a prefixed sender id with two alphabet / letters indicating the telecom operator and the location where the sms messages originate from. This is done primarily for two reasons -
1. To identify the origination of the sms message, and
2. To tag the message with some legitimacy and credibility.
Steps are being taken from TRAI and the mobile operators to ensure that the abuse of bulk sms medium does not happen. However, it becomes difficult to regulate when the SMS aggregators and marketers misuse the bulk messaging medium and resort to spamming.
The main reason here being that many noted mobile marketing companies who provide bulk sms messaging services to their clients have appointed resellers in locations and areas in which these mobile marketing companies are not operating and yet see potential for generating business.
These resellers range from individuals to small companies who have the necessary infrastructure to do so, namely a computer with a fast internet connection. They purchase and install the bulk messaging module for a small fee.
These individual resellers abuse the medium to jam the inboxes with their client’s promotional messages so that they can earn even half a paise per sms. More messages they send, more half paises they earn, thus increasing their earnings significantly per sms campaign.
Another reason for the rampant abuse of bulk messaging medium is the complete disregard of the sms messaging rates set by the mobile operators.
Many mobile marketing companies sell one sms at as low as 2 paise or even 1 paise per sms to their clients, where as mobile operators like Airtel have set a minimum rate per sms between 0.5 to 0.6 paise for promotional messages.
This largely goes unregulated and ignored by even the mobile marketing companies who want to snatch the client at any cost even it means reduction in their earnings by providing sms at a lower cost than stipulated by the authorities.
A simple promotional message becomes JUNK message because of the above mentioned reasons. Another cause to worry about is the fact that many mobile operators offer a virtual number, which is a 10 digit mobile number, to any company that wants to use it for promotional activities.
These virtual numbers are not prefixed with the operator and location code and are very economical to purchase. The SMS rate are as per the standard sms tariff of the mobile operator.
We suggest that a strict regulation on these issues is a need of the hour not only by TRAI but also by the mobile operators themselves.
Bulk sms marketing is a very useful medium to promote goods and services in a country like India which has over 600 million mobile services subscribers. Subscribers are not yet well versed with the new generation mobile marketing services like MMS marketing, WAP marketing, Video marketing, mobile coupons.
Let us not use this medium to generate profits by unethical means and kill it.
