Pretty recently usshortcodes.com (aka the CSCA) announced a deal where you get 10% off on short codes. Sounds great right? Here are the program details:
Program: If a Customer registers ten (10) or more New Codes during the Program Term, Customer shall receive an account credit in the amount equal to ten percent (10%) of the amount of all new codes registered.
Look CSCA, don’t get me wrong we appreciate the effort but seriously, 10% on 10 short codes? I consider my company to be a pretty well known player in the mobile space, we work with some very large brands and we host lots of short codes on behalf of these brands. The most codes I believe we have ordered at any given time is 2, 3 tops. We help businesses launch their mobile marketing strategies on a daily basis and I have never in 10 years in business been in a situation where we needed to buy 10 codes at the same time. Not every business needs or can afford a short code. We do mobile deals all day long and not that we are not good at sales, but bringing on 10 clients at the same time, that all need short codes might be a record for a mobile marketing company. I am just saying… Now mobileStorm doesn’t play in the premium SMS space, so maybe this is a vertical where someone wants 10 codes at once? A huge brand like Coke only has one code (at least that’s whats listed in the directory). Could a major brand like Coke need 10 codes? Ok how about an aggreagtor? I mean they need codes for testing right? But every aggregator I have worked with only offers one or two codes, and we are talking about the Tier 1 guys.
I need some help here because everyone I have talked to would love a discount (Lord knows short codes aren’t cheap), but how can we get a discount if we need to buy 10 codes? Which by the way equates to $120,000 a year for a vanity code or $60,000 a year for a random code. Hey CSCA, why don’t you lower the bar a bit, so you can really stimulate some business? Why not offer 10% off on any new single code licensed? I just find this odd that you can only get a discount if you spend $60,000 or more. If we truly want mobile marketing to succeed in this country we need to break down some of these cost barriers and let more business start to play. Why are domain names so cheap but short codes so expensive? Is it because there is a limited amount of them? I wrote a whitepaper recently called “The Ultimate Guide to Common Short Codes” that covers a lot of this, feel free to download it here.
Looking forward to hearing what the mobile community has to say about this. Maybe I am out of line, I don’t know…
