Making SMS Free For Marketing Purposes
Not quite sure how this works, so maybe someone in the UK can fill in the details. However, it looks as though mobile phone providers in the UK are all starting to offer “freephone shortcodes” in the UK, that will let users SMS with a company for free. I’m guessing this is similar to the way “toll free” phone numbers work in the US – though, it’s unclear if (like toll free numbers) the charges are simply reversed. So, instead of having the end-user pay, is the company doing the marketing paying instead? It makes sense that they would want to offer free SMS to (greatly) increase the incentive to use interactive messaging with a company – though, I also wonder if this only means that folks are going to be receiving a lot more mobile spam. If it really is a “reverse charge”, then maybe not – since the marketing company would be better off making sure that their message was well targeted.
