SMS Marketing Blog

Lessons Learned From Trump Mobile Alerts

17th August 2011 - Posted by Derek Johnson in category Text Message Marketing #FAIL

Recently Trump Hotels have been beefing up their mobile marketing initiatives, first with mobile check-in services, and most recently launching Trump Mobile Alerts with a chance to win the “Ultimate Chicago Getaway”.

After reviewing their new SMS campaign, I was a little disappointed in their execution, which brings up a good lesson when selecting an SMS provider. Most SMS providers can get a text message to a mobile phone, yet only a select few providers have the expertise and knowledge to help their clients do so in compliance with the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) Consumer Best Practices.

There are 4 specific issues with this campaign that violate the MMA Consumer Best Practices that the experts at Tatango could have pointed out to Trump Hotels. The issues are as follow, with our recommendations as fixes.

1. SMS campaign should not be deceptive in any nature nor lead to an indirect subscription of services (section 1.2-2).

This is actually one of the most common mistakes made in any SMS campaign that offers an incentive for subscribing. Read Common SMS Promotion Mistakes to get two examples of how to execute this type of promotion properly.

What makes this SMS campaign deceptive? The fact that the only mention of receiving future marketing messages is at the bottom of the website, in extremely small font as you can see below.

While I applaud Trump Hotels for at least including this information on their website, as you can see below, 9% or less of people are even able to see that information without scrolling down the page on their computer.

This is a simple fix, all Trump Hotels would need to do is add a clarification that in addition to entering to win, they will also be enrolled in Trump Mobile Alerts.

2. “Msg&Data Rates May Apply” should be clear and conspicuous on the call to action (section 1.2-2).

Nowhere within the call to action does it tell subscribers that “Msg&Data Rates May Apply”.

This is another easy fix as I would recommend they add this line of text right below the mobile phone number field. Simple.

3. After opt-in to a recurring program, a confirmation Mobile Terminating message must be sent to the subscriber (Section 1.5-7).

When I submitted my mobile phone number, I received no text message confirmation.

To fix this, they need to send a text message to the mobile phone number with the following information, service description, additional carrier costs, frequency of messaging, customer support information and opt-out information as required by the MMA.

4. For web-based opt-ins, the use of a PIN code, although not required, is suggested to confirm possession of the handset (Section 1.5-6).

While this one isn’t required, it’s still a good idea to avoid sending text messages to the wrong mobile phones. The way this works is after someone types in their mobile phone number, a text message will be sent to that phone with a unique pin, which is then entered back into the website, confirming possession of that mobile phone.

This is an easy fix as most SMS providers should already have this feature built into their systems.