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.

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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.

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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.

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Debunking the myths about mobile advertising

Alright; I’m back in my pavilion. I was just reading some articles on mobile marketing and this one caught my attention. The author has written something about eMarketer’s Mobile Advertising Report. The report focused on the impact of mobile advertising in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) market and its possible implications in the US market.

Now, the article says that by subsidizing mobile data plans by advertising, mobile advertisers are trying to turn mobile phones into TV sets. I wonder how on earth he came up with this correlation. Even I feel bored to say this again, but then…

Mobile advertising has something called ‘opt-in’ facility. You have to opt in for a mobile advertising campaign to get ads in your mobile phone. In other words, you have the choice to keep your phone away from ads. Do you have such options in TV? Advertisements in TV, whether you like them or not, will always be there and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. So, please don’t compare TV to mobile phones.

Some of you must have heard about Sugar Mama from Virgin Mobile, which gives you free talk time for watching mobile ads. Now, the author even mocks this by coming up with this gem.

“I’m sure you’re ad creative is impressive, but I’d venture to guess that they went there to get free air cell phone minutes, not view ads.”

Oh yeah? People don’t watch TV to view ads either, you know?. They watch sitcoms and movies, in which they are served with ads, which they cannot escape from. The point is - It doesn’t matter. People are open to mobile ads as long as they gain something from them.

At last, he comes up with something about Americans getting tricked by mobile advertisers.

“You may have tricked us with TV commercials and OLAs, but we typically don’t fall for the same tricks twice (except for George W).”

Really?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, Rant.

2 comments.