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Text messaging to a different beat: radio stations are utilizing SMS to reach listeners and create one-on-one interaction.

Article Excerpt
You feel lucky as you call the radio station that is offering free Britney Spears concert tickets to caller number 25.You get a busy signal so you dial again, only to get another busy signal. By the time you get through the speed-dialers, the tickets are long gone.

Getting a busy signal on the phone is frustrating--especially for the 20 year-old concert-goer who really wants free Britney Spears tickets.

"It's a complaint we hear a lot," says one radio promotions specialist. "There are actually people who are experts at getting free concert tickets from radio stations because they're speed dialers. They shut out everyone else."

Callers aren't the only ones frustrated. Marketing promotions are measured by how many listeners they attract and keep on attracting. It's what allows stations to help quantify their audience to would-be advertisers. The busy signal means that radio station marketers and DJs are not capitalizing on opportunities to interact with listeners, build DJ followings, or increase listenership.

During the summer of 2003, KTTB/B96--"The Beat of the Twin Cities," in Minneapolis, was determined to make busy signals a sound of the past and improve its one-on-one relationship with individual listeners. In its search to set itself apart from the competition, the radio station's marketing promotion staff decided to try out a new type of radio promotion. The promotion would use text messaging as the basis of a free ticket giveaway.

Text messaging has become increasingly popular in the United States during the last few years, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the B96 marketing staff. Not only was the...