Blyk to Sign a Partnership Deal with Orange

Blyk, the popular ad-funded mobile operator from the UK, is about to sign a partnership deal with Orange. The deal, as you can easily guess, offers free talk time and SMS credit for users for getting ads on their mobile phones.

This marks a new direction for Blyk as a company, as it is focusing to get more partnership deals instead of catering to customers directly. A few months back, it was announced that Blyk will no longer accept new customers for its subscription programs.

According to the deal with Orange, customers will be given £15 worth of SMS and voice credit for getting ads on their phones. The target customer segment, as always, comprises teenagers and young adults (aged 16-24 years).

Blyk has about 200,000 subscribers and the company is looking for more partnerships like this to tap into their subscriber base. According to sources, a small team from Blyk has been working very actively to find more partners in the UK and around the world.

I don’t think Blyk will find it too hard to find potential partners to sign such deals with. After all, the company is quite popular and has a reasonably large subscriber base. Most importantly, its subscribers respond to mobile advertising campaigns. It is a fact which has been proved without a shadow of a doubt in the past. So, I think a lot of companies will be interested to join hands with the company. It will be interesting to see how things turn out for Blyk. Watch this space for more details folks.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Blyk.

0 comments.

Ad funded mobile operator Blyk has 200,000 subscribers now

It’s time for a little celebration in good old Blighty. Blyk, the London based ad funded mobile operator, has reached yet another milestone quietly. The company has increased the number of its subscribers to a whopping 200,000.

To understand the significance of this feat, we need to put things in perspective. Blyk is the first ad funded mobile operator in the world. When it started off, it had just one goal. It was to get 100,000 subscribers within the first year. However, since the company was funded completely by advertisements, no one really thought it was possible. The idea of people getting talk time in return for getting ads on their mobile phone didn’t sound majorly appealing at that point of time. However, the response was so good that it reached its goal in just six months.

Now, just a few months after reaching its goal of 100,000 subscribers, the company has crossed yet another milestone – 200,000 loyal customers – All of them willing to get ads on their mobile phone to get free talk time and free text messages.

The important thing to be noted here is that the response rate for these mobile ads has been nothing short of terrific. 25% of the customers who get ads on their mobile phone respond to them. In other words, it costs only around $0.85 per response, making it highly profitable for the advertisers.

200,000, when compared to the millions of subscribers in the UK, might seem like a small number. But you have to consider an important point here. This is the beginning of a trend. Mobile advertising is still in its infant stage and a lot of mobile users around the world are yet to realize its benefits. So, in a relatively new market, Blyk has been able to get 200,000 loyal subscribers within such a short span of time. And it has managed to achieve the highest response rates at the lowest costs possible. In other words, it has got a highly targeted customer base which is a dream for any advertiser. With the number of mobile users increasing by the day and people becoming aware of mobile advertising, you can only expect these numbers to up. To put it simply – watch out for Blyk.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Blyk.

0 comments.

Blyk to expand its market further

Blyk is one company which I’ve written a lot about in this blog, even at the risk of sounding like a paid blogger. But then, that’s me. If I like something – it might be a concept, a company, a person, or whatever – I’ll write about it.

The success story of Blyk is one of the most talked about stories in town right now. When the company first announced that it will offer free talk time and free text message facility to customers who opt in to mobile ads, not many thought it was a good idea. But then, it reached its target of 100,000 subscribers in the UK in just six months. The company’s customer base is full of young people who don’t mind getting targeted, relevant ads on their mobile phone. Now, thanks to this great success, Blyk has announced its plans to expand its virtual empire further.

The company will soon start its operations in Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and Belgium. If you remember, it announced its plans to further expand its network quite some time back when it got the much-needed funding from Goldman Sachs and Kuwait’s Industrial Financial Investments Company.

In my opinion, Blyk has set an example, a precedent for operators around the world. If you know your target customer segment and target them properly with the right plan, you will almost always succeed.

Categories: Blyk.

0 comments.

Blyk’s mobile advertising campaigns get great response

When I talk about mobile advertising being effective and all that jazz, I just mean one thing. That is the response rate. There are advertisements on TV, newspapers, magazines, radio, and the internet, but none of them has been as effective as ads on mobile phones. And to think that mobile advertising is still in its nascent stage!!!

Take for example, Blyk. Now, Blyk is a well-known name for regular readers of this blog, as I’ve talked about it quite a few times. Recently, Blyk reached the landmark of 100,000 subscribers in the U.K. in just six months after its start. Let’s take a look at some numbers here.

The average response rate of mobile advertising campaigns from Blyk is a whopping 29%. It is miles ahead of others in this aspect. Especially, for some ad campaigns, the response rate is just unbelievable. Some time back, Blyk did a promotional campaign for Nick Hornby’s novel Slam which was released by Penguin Books. The response rate was an astounding 69%. Can you even think of getting this kind of a response from newspaper ads or even online ads?

This is simply why I keep saying that when done well, a mobile advertising campaign could bring in phenomenal results. What say you?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Blyk.

0 comments.

Is Blyk the next big thing in mobile advertising?

Experts predict that mobile marketing will give conventional marketing methods a run for their money, Juniper Research and various other research firms predict that mobile advertising will be worth more than $13 billion in 2013, and Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are trying hard to take over the mobile market by storm. However, in the midst of all this, one company has been making strides quietly. It’s Blyk.

Blyk’s offer of 217 free text messages and 43 minutes of talk time to mobile users has become very popular and it’s evident from its growing user base. The response from their target segment, 16-24 year olds, has been phenomenal so far. When it started out in the UK, Blyk announced that getting 100,000 customers in the first year will be its target. However, the actual number will be a lot bigger than that, thanks to its overwhelming popularity.

Blyk has also taken a leaf out of Gmail and has come up with the idea of invites. From now on, Blyk users will be able to invite a number of friends to join the network.

One of the most important things about Blyk is that it is able to target its customers with the right kind of ads. Its mobile advertising campaigns are targeted at the right segment of users and so it almost always gets a good response from them. This is also the reason why experts consider Blyk a media agency which also happens to be an operator, instead of a mobile operator that sells advertising.

If mobile advertising industry were to grow at the rate experts have predicted, Blyk would be in an enviable position a few years from now. As of now, Blyk has a loyal customer base of 16-24 year olds which keeps growing steadily. In 2013, when mobile advertising is expected to grow real big, Blyk will have a loyal user base of 24-30 year olds which is open to mobile advertising with larger disposable incomes. What more can you ask for?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Blyk.

2 comments.