Monthly subscription reminder messages

The Consumer Best Practices Guidelines, issued by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), specify that all subscription campaigns require a monthly reminder message. Before a program is renewed, a renewal message needs to be sent to the subscriber reminding him/her that the subscription is about to be renewed. The reminder message needs to specify the pricing as well as opt-out instructions. The guidelines are silent on how much lead time a content provider needs to give the consumer before actually renewing the subscription.

All US carriers require content providers to implement the MMA guidelines, but some carriers impose additional restrictions.

Verizon Wireless announces that consumers should be given at least a 2 business day lead time before a subscription gets renewed. This means that the monthly notification message needs to be sent out 2 business days before the renewal Premium SMS message is initiated.

Many content providers have been sending out renewal messages 10 or 20 minutes before sending out the premium sms message. This is no longer allowed by Verizon.

New MMA documents

The MMA has released a new version of its Consumer Best Practices Guidelines, which can be downloaded here. The key changes are:

• Use of 'Free' has been relaxed. It used to be the case that the word FREE could not be associated in any way with a premium billed campaign (e.g. 'sign up now and receive the first 5 alerts FREE'). This is now possible, with certain restrictions.


• Marketing to children (anyone under the age of 13). The MMA requires content providers to adhere to COPPA, and also imposes additional restrictions in how mobile campaigns are being promoted.


• Restrictions on use of single opt-in for Participation TV programs has been made more specific. Restrictions include maximum price ($1.49), transaction-only billing, and use of both verbal and visual pricing instructions during the call-to-action.


• The Best Practices document now also includes guidelines for WAP services and IVR based opt-in mechanisms.


• Further restrictions on running chat programs.

The MMA has also released two interesting documents providing some background information about running off-deck services and creating successful mobile marketing campaigns.

• 'Off Portal - An introduction to the Market Opportunity' introduces the reader to the world of direct-to-consumer mobile services, the market opportunity, and the best practices on how to create an off-portal service.


• 'Understanding Mobile Marketing - Technology and Reach' describes the opportunity of using short codes and mobile technology to create interactive marketing campaigns.

While these documents are certainly useful, it is good to keep in mind that these are 'sales documents', mainly written to promote the use of mobile services, hence not necessarily very objective, and most definitely overly optimistic in describing the overall market potential. One example: the mobile marketing case studies tend to be very long on descriptions, but very short on actual results. Hmmm.... now, why would that be ?