Today on multiple news sites was an announcement by a text messaging technology provider, promoting a white paper about a 30 point checklist for use in selecting an SMS vendor.
Without even reading the document, my immediate response was “nonsense.” Who has time to evaluate the hundreds of companies laying claims in the SMS technology/marketing sector along 30 dimensions? If it were worth the effort, then I might agree. Yet, there is a far simpler approach for businesses to investigate and choose an SMS partner more quickly and with greater confidence: Look for vendors with customer successes reflective of your business, industry or problem, then ask to speak with the actual customers on the phone. Then try out their service before taking the plunge on a full scale project.
In practice, speaking with a vendor’s customers illuminates immediately the viability of the company, the quality of their work and technology, and the results they have helped customers achieve. Naysayers will claim canned or prompted references are the norm, making this step less credible, but such people have rarely engaged in the actual process I suspect.
Looking at the paper, out of 12 criteria under the heading of “Expert Advice” is a reference to customer testimonials. The fact it’s 12 out of 12 speaks volumes about the importance of other factors relative to satisfied customers that other potential buyers can relate to.
So why would a company instead advance a 30 point checklist, that really describes characteristics of many text messaging technology marketing firms? You could argue it’s a measure of maturity, either of the company or the clients it hopes to acquire. I would argue that the majority of businesses are beyond their initial interest in text messaging and are rapidly moving toward identifying with true mobile channel marketing, inclusive of the entire customer experience. The details still matter, but the target has shifted from how to send a message, to what business problems doing so will solve.
As I said recently on MobileMarketer, the conversation has shifted from “Should I try mobile?” to “How do I go about building mobile most effectively into my plans? Funny enough, I finally got a full copy of Forrester Research’s report “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 To 2014,” which breaks out mobile as a distinct segment of high growth investment by marketers over the next five years. In it, they state “even laggard industries feel that they have enough experience and data to prove interactive marketing’s worth.”
That being said, I do like a concluding remark in the checkpoint paper: “One rule of thumb is an old adage in the annals of legal terminology and shopping etiquette: Caveat Emptor, or buyer beware.” I could not agree more.
