Friday, March 20, 2009

JitterGram builds mobile buzz with social media marketing tool

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

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Three entrepreneurs in New Hampshire are hoping to bring together social media and text messaging in a way that will allow consumer marketers — from restaurants to minor league baseball teams — instant access to potential customers, wherever they may be.

JitterGram Inc., based in Bedford, N.H., and founders Ric Pratte, Ed Mitchell and Matt Pierson have built the service around the basic principles of e-mail marketing, namely to leverage a simple communications medium to gain direct, one-to-one access to customers. But by applying those ideas to the mobile world, JitterGram is providing an immediacy and personal connection that e-mail cannot match.

“These days, even e-mail marketing is slow, compared to mobile,” said CEO Pratte, whose previous venture, Campagne Associates Ltd., made fundraising software for nonprofit organizations and was sold to North Carolina-based Blackbaud Inc. for $6 million in 2006.

The flagship application for JitterGram, according to officials, is for restaurants. By developing an opt-in-only list of loyal customers and other interested parties, an establishment can, within minutes, design and launch promotional offers. It’s Tuesday night and the dining room is nearly empty? The restaurant can send a JitterGram to its “Jitter-verse,” said Pratte, and try to drive immediate traffic.

The service has been operating since January, and according to officials, several similar promotions have returned a 7 percent to 10 percent redemption rate. Executives would not reveal revenue numbers, but said the company makes its money from the merchant side, where participating companies pay a fee per text. For consumers, the service is free.

Restaurants are not the company’s only target, however. Ski resorts, salons and even minor league baseball teams have all expressed interest, according to the company.

“At a ski resort, for example, if they can get a skier to spend $5 more per day on food or drinks or equipment, that’s $1 million a year for them,” said Pratte.

The idea of using mass, targeted text messaging for promotions is not a new one. Startups in the region have been applying the process to a number of different areas. Adva Mobile Corp. in Wayland, for example, launched earlier this year with an application for independent musicians, allowing them to build a contact list, while also offering the ability to send messages, and even music, directly to their fan base.

Jack Kelly, the CEO of Adva Mobile, said companies like his and JitterGram are just starting to scratch the surface of what direct access to a mobile device can do for marketers. The key for the industry, however, is to keep the connection personal.

“Today, consumers look at every text that comes through, because it hasn’t reached the point of being spam,” he said. “It is going to be increasingly important to keep that trust.”