SMS Spamming 101 – What telcos should know about SMS spam

I read SMS spam. It doesn’t abhor me like email spam. Plus it gives me a chance to read something during those waiting times.

That boring introduction is meant to bring a point across: It takes a lot to make me sick of SMS spam. But then again, I underestimated the power of the Philippine telcos to annoy their users. A few seconds ago, I finally ended by year-long relationship with SMS spam.

In the Philippines, almost 95% of SMS spams are sent by the telecommunication companies themselves. Unfortunately, as their direct marketing capabilities are not up to par with their technical ones, I feel as if I owe these idiots a brief runthrough of some spamming/marketing essentials

FYI:

  1. Timing. SMS spams should be sent during office hours. This should be a no-brainer. But then again, since they send SMS spam even at 2AM, this basically means they have no brains.

    Kids, repeat after me: “I will not send spam past 6PM.”

  2. Repetition. Surprisingly, this annoyed me more than timing, & was impetus for my unsubscription.

    I have received almost 10 messages in the past week informing me of my chances to win a Nintendo Wii. You sent it. I read it.

    When I didn’t join your contest, it is not a go-signal for you to persist. It is a signal for you to stop.

  3. Frequency. My limit is about two SMS spams per day. Anything more & irritation start to seeps in.

    But the human mind can be deceiving: It can actually ingest more spam if the spammer play his cards right with intervals (next).

  4. Interval. Last August 30, I received 3 spams in a span of 1 hour. Whoever is the marketing genius behind this strategy probably attended the seminar on “How to Achieve Ultimate Death to your SMS Marketing Campaigns.”

    Needless to say, I typed ALERTs OFF, and happily sent it to 211.

P.S.

Dear Marketing Geniuses of the Telco Industry:

If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, kindly leave your cellphone numbers in the comment section of this post. We will be more than happy to forward to you all the spam that you infest on our cellphones.

7 thoughts on “SMS Spamming 101 – What telcos should know about SMS spam”

  1. why is it that every time i unsubscribe to a ‘service’ i never signed up for, some other one pops up with a new number that i will have to try and get rid off all over again?

    i believe that subscribers should opt in before receiving anything from the telcos.

    >:(

  2. Lisa, I couldn’t agree more. Thankfully in the US the SMS spamming hasn’t become a daily occurrence… “yet.” I’m lucky if I get 2 a year.

    On the other hand the thing that eats me up inside and makes me feel terrible is the amount of paper mail I get. Tons of fliers and store catalogs I never look at. They might as well be mailing this stuff to me with a note on it saying “here, throw this away for me.” I mean save a tree and start bugging me electronically like the rest of the world. :'(

  3. i hate sms spam damn philippine telcos >:( if they could make it interesting i could bear their “info marketing” but all i receive from my telco’s are trash and crappy services :( … you got it right ma’am sticky for this blog ;)

  4. well look at it on the bright side atleast they’re not doing the voice info calls like they do back in the states…

  5. Unfortunately, as their direct marketing capabilities are not up to par with their technical ones, I feel as if I owe these idiots a brief runthrough of some spamming/marketing essentials.

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