SMS marketing helps McDonalds

NEWS Marketing products to mobile phones using SMS messages has been proven to increase sales, according to a test study carried out in Sweden. Named e-street, the project signed up 2,500 mobile phone-users in the town of Lulea to receive SMS messages of special offers from 150 local organisations. After the volunteers were sent an SMS for a McDonalds burger offer, 25 per cent of the targeted users took up the offer. The McDonalds in question broke its turnover records during the test period and it jumped to the top of the McDonalds league table in Sweden. The users were part of a scheme carried out by research company Makitalo on behalf of Ericsson to tweak SMS standards and formats for content providers. e-street also enabled volunteers to buy goods from shops after closing hours and order cinema tickets over the internet which were then sent to them in SMS format.