Imagine having a means at your disposal to immediately inform home buyers that you have the property they are looking for. Potential buyers have provided their details and preferences; Imagine that you can send this information to them no matter where they are or what they are doing, they can read it at a convenient time, and they can act on it in their own time. Imagine that you can do this quickly and easily, in a matter of minutes, regardless of the number of recipients.
It sounds too good to be true? Well it’s not, it’s available now, it’s inexpensive, and you can take advantage of it within minutes of reading this article. It’s called SMS text messaging, and of course you already knew that, didn’t you?
From a home buyer’s perspective, SMS is a very convenient way to get information. It is personal and discreet. There is immediacy in the message, but at the same time it is not intrusive and they can handle the response at their convenience.
So you decide that this is a great idea and you want your business to be ready for the 21st century. How do you start? Maybe your first thought is to have your friendly IT Consultant take a look at the problem, right?
Stop! Don’t pick up that phone until you’ve read the rest of this article. Like many of these types of problems, it’s easy to get so bogged down in technicalities that we don’t consider some of the other problems involved.
First, let’s look at the legalities.
By October 31, 2003, all member states of the European Union will implement Article 13 of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications (DPEC), and it was in effect for 12 weeks, closing on June 19, 2003. Currently they are being preparing final implementing regulations. taking into account the responses received. The DTI intends to publish details of these final measures in mid-September 2003. The new Directive:
Replaces existing definitions for telecommunications services and networks with new definitions for electronic communications and services to ensure technological neutrality and clarify the position of e-mail and Internet use;
Enables the provision of value-added services based on location and traffic data, subject to the consent of subscribers (for example, location-based advertising for mobile phone users);
Eliminates the possibility of a subscriber being charged for exercising the right not to appear in public directories;
Introduces new information and consent requirements for publicly available directory entries, including requirement that subscribers be informed of all possible uses of publicly available directories, for example, reverse lookup from a phone number to obtain a name and an address;
Extends controls on unsolicited direct marketing to all forms of electronic communications, including unsolicited commercial email (UCE or Spam) and SMS to mobile phones; UCE and SMS will be subject to a prior consent requirement, so the recipient must accept it in advance, except in the context of an existing customer relationship, where companies may continue to send emails or SMS on a voluntary basis. ;
Clarifies that the Directive does not prevent Member States from introducing provisions on the retention of traffic and location data for law enforcement purposes;
Enter controls on the use of cookies on websites. Cookies and similar tracking devices will be subject to a new transparency requirement: anyone using these types of devices must provide information about them and allow subscribers or users to refuse to accept them if they so wish.
So what does that mean for the possible implementation of your SMS service? Well, it seems pretty clear, we must obtain the permission of the recipient before sending any SMS message “unless there is a relationship with the customer”. However, the exact meaning of “existing customer relationship” is a gray area on the spot. For example, if it is interpreted as someone who at some point has bought a product from the supplier, would that mean that the product being marketed would have to be the same type of product? If this were the case, a supermarket could only send messages about a single product line to people who have bought that product and could not send messages about other goods or services. DTI’s position on this is that this particular topic is clearly covered in current UK law under the Data Protection Act 1998:
“This would restrict a company to directly market the type of products that the recipient would have reasonably expected to market at the time they gave or agreed to use their contact details, that is, a company could market the products available at that time, but not necessarily those of a company it acquired or a substantially new range of products. “
So it would appear that, for example, a large supermarket chain, which obtained your name and address, phone number, and email details while you were a grocery shopping customer, should not have a legal right to initiate any form of communication with you using information about Did you meet in this way if, for example, they started selling insurance services or, in fact, opened a Real Estate Agency business? It seems.
Therefore, in most cases, it would appear that your existing clients are open to you being able to send them SMS messages, as it would be reasonable to assume that they would expect you to send them information related to the property.
However, there are other gray areas in the document.
The following is an excerpt from the DTI document on Article 13: –
“Gray areas under current rules include the status of systems that send SMS automatically and power dialer-type systems that dial numbers automatically but are designed to establish a voice link with a live operator rather than a pre-recorded message. . Lack of certainty about The application of the TDPP Regulation (Telecommunications Data Protection Directive) has made it difficult to deal with the problems that these types of systems can cause. Power markers, for example, can cause problems for subscribers when are used without enough available call center staff to answer calls that are being dialed, resulting in one-time or repeated silent calls, or calls that are cut off after a few rings, plus any annoyance caused if they are used to call subscribers who have registered with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service).
Limiting the definition of automated calling system does not mean that these areas will not be regulated. Sending unsolicited SMS for advertising purposes is now explicitly covered by the Privacy Policy, which treats them in the same way as email messages. “
Anyone who receives SMS messages from you should have a clear indication of where the message came from and a clear method of unsubscribing from your service.
Therefore, it would appear that, apart from any other consideration, there are many potential legal pitfalls to creating your own electronic marketing system.
Looking at this from a slightly different perspective, the solution may be much easier than you might expect. From a consumer point of view, the approach to receiving SMS or emails about products and services is something that each of us would prefer to have much more personal control over. In 1998, my company at the time, Geoworks Corporation, conducted extensive focus group research on consumer reaction to e-marketing and, in particular, to SMS. This research was carried out both here in the UK and in the United States. At that time, SMS messaging had been available to mobile phone users for several years, but we had not achieved the massive volumes that were to be achieved in the phenomenon that took place 12-18 months later, when Pay As services You Go sparked a huge growth in SMS.
To illustrate the point, all UK mobile companies at this time probably only had one or two SMS controllers (a computer that handles the storage and routing of SMS messages) in their infrastructure. When the acceleration started suddenly, the growth caught most of them completely off guard and meant they had to try to order new SMSCs faster than the boxes could be ordered. What had been a fairly straight and flat line on a graph suddenly turned vertical. Our research at Geoworks indicated that consumers were enthusiastic about receiving SMS messages about products or services as long as they were not charged for receiving the message and they had some control over the products and services they were to receive messages about. The “permission marketing” was the key: what the consumer wants, when they want it and where they want it. Consumers indicated that they would be delighted to receive all kinds of advertising-supported information on the same basis, for example X-sponsored weather information or Y-sponsored Football Scores.
It would seem then that the key to success in this area is not in the hands of the innovations or exclusive products of the seller, but in giving control to the consumer. Without permission, any attempt to sell through this medium becomes annoying and intrusive, causing the prospective buyer to alienate against the marketer – a counterproductive exercise if there ever was!
So what should be your way forward? Look at other e-marketing success stories for a clue. Amazon.com is today a well-known and respected bookseller and much more, starting with humble roots in the Seattle area and growing to a multi-million dollar worldwide hit. Amazon’s success was built on giving you, the consumer, control and delivering first-class service the next day. You control from the comfort of your home or office, the parameters that determine what you get from Amazon. It’s easy and convenient, and it’s turned upside down. eBay is another example: it provides a worldwide auction service. Many other services provide access to the ‘Portal’ for the consumer to select the information they wish to receive.
So it seems that Portal services are the key to winning the hearts and minds of the consumer. But as a real estate agent, how does that help?
A portal could provide a single point of access for potential home buyers to register their interest in properties by location, price, and number of rooms. The consumer controls what he wants to get. It is open to all Real Estate Agents who can register, quickly and easily, any property that is coming onto the market. Any technical or legal problem is the responsibility of the Portal and not of the individual Real Estate Agent.
From a consumer perspective, it’s a go-to place, they sign up once, but potentially get messages from many real estate agencies as long as they match their criteria. It is free to the consumer and you have the control to change your criteria or unsubscribe if you wish.