How hard do you think it would be to get strangers to give you their private cell phone numbers over the Internet?
Sounds like a pretty tall mountain to climb.
Here’s a company that does it masterfully.
First, they offer you the answer to a question.If you bite, they ask you two very simple multiple-choice questions, only showing you one question at a time. They’ve streamlined the process so beautifully, you don’t even need to hit the send button after you’ve selected your answer.
If you answer the questions, THEN the system gives you a way to get the answer to the question you were originally attracted to the site to in the first place. And to get the answer, you have to give them your cell phone so they can text it to you.
Devilish.
And I’m sure it works because I see the ad everywhere. In fact, the last stats I saw show the site has moved from the 370th most visited site to the 147th. Well over 1.5 million uniques per month.
Here’s the AdWords ad that they’re using now:”Who has a crush onyou?
Calculate their exact name now.
It’s scary how accurate it is.
www.yourdestinyrevealed.com”
Not surprisingly the market for this service is young females. Perfect medium/message/market match. (Most young females seem to have their cell phone surgically attached to their heads these days.)
By the way, I did NOT take the bait. If I did, I’m sure I’d be pitched (mercilessly) on their horoscope service.
Look at their numbers for the people they sell into this:
Sprint, Nextel and Boost customers are billed $5.99 per week!
Cellular One customers are billed $9.99 per month.
Virgin Mobile, Verison and AT&T customers get whacked $19.99 per month.
Looks like they’ve cut deals with cell providers who may also handle (and take their cut) of the billing. Anybody know anything about this?
In the meanwhile, there’s a lot to learn from from this opt-in process:
1. Offer enticing bait first
2. Get some data by asking questions, but keep it short and sweet
3. Make the opt-in process as painless and glitch-free as possible
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