When one mobile advertising platform just isn’t suited for your industry, look to advertising platforms focused on your niche. That’s what Omnilert is hoping sports-industry advertisers will think when searching for ways to reach out to sport-loving audiences. Yesterday, the Virginia-based company announced a sports-focused mobile advertising medium to pair with their RainedOut text message service for sports leagues and clubs to tell those involved with “today’s” game — you guessed it — “you’re rained out.”
In focusing on a simple, useful service, Omnilert and RainedOut have gained a loyal following of more than 2,000 organizations since 2004, and they’ve decided it’s time to monatize that network of sports leagues, Boy Scouts, recreation departments, sports teams, fans and more. Every text message sent by RainedOut will now contain a national sponsor incorporated at the end of each notification.
“Mobile advertising up to this point has required brands to hire expensive mobile marketing firms and slowly grow their own opt-in list,” said J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., the Principal Analyst at MobileTrax LLC. “RainedOut offers one of the first mobile marketing opportunities that bring willing participants to the table – and at a very low cost of entry.”
While their concept isn’t a play on innovation, leveraging a targeted SMS community built around a useful mobile tool and then adding a small amount of advertising is a simple way to effectively use mobile advertising without all the bells and whistles, and still have it work. In the case of RainedOut, 95% of the messages sent by the platform are read within 4 minutes. And each read message means secured eyeball time for advertisers reaching their target audience.
Players, parents, and fans opt in to RainedOut for relevant content, not spam or unsolicited ‘coupons,’ to be sent to their cell phone via SMS text messages. RainedOut delivers time-sensitive news such as game cancellations, field changes, requests for volunteers, and much more. Each text message is 160 characters long with the last 20 characters displaying a national sponsor.