Smartphones Now Account for 55% of Sales

admin    Cell Phones, QR Codes     QR Codes, smarphone growth, smartphone use, usa

55% of Americans that purchased a new handset in the past three months, purchased a smartphone.  The continued proliferation of the purchase of smartphones is leading to a huge  increase in the number of Americans who will soon be using a smartphone device.  38% of Americans currently own a smartphone, but that number will increase to 55% by May, 2011, according to Nielsen.

Based on the ever increasing number of Americans now using smartphones, its easy to see why marketers are increasingly excited about using QR Codes in their promotions.  In fact, with custom QR Codes, advertisers can brand their product as well as offer a convenient access point to their marketing message.

Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.

Love is On the Air

admin    Dating     online dating, radio stations

Philadelphia — We use the internet for a lot of things…paying bills, reading the news, watching videos, and keeping in touch with old friends from high school.  We are also increasingly using it for dating and finding our soul mates.

Love through the radio

In fact, 17% of all marriages that occurred last year were between people that first met at an online dating site.  Online dating is an industry that is worth $1.049 billion annually in the USA and 40 million Americans participate in it!

So, what does this have to do with radio stations?  Opportunity!

MatchLink is a singles dating network that served the radio industry for many years.  The Evanston, Illinois company Spark Network Services provided an IVR-based dating service to radio stations.  Radio listeners called a phone number and paid to interact with other singles through a sophisticated voice mail system.  Payment was made through credit card or a 900 number.  Some stations were earning a half million dollars per year with the service.

In 2005, Spark Network Services, a division of CBS Radio, was sold to Advanced Telecom Services which had been supplying dating services to newspapers, including the New York Times, for over a dozen years. 

“The IVR dating system was in decline for several years and it was clearly a legacy product,” said Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services.  “So, we began moving the Spark customer base to an online dating solution.”

Today, the MatchLink.com online dating solution is used by over 250 radio station affiliates.  The company provides an online dating site that is customized to the look and feel of the radio station, but with the power of the largest singles database in the USA from Match.com.

“It’s a great way for a radio station to build community and it’s a valuable new source of NTR,” added Bentz.

Valuable indeed.  The average online dating site user invests $239 per year.  MatchLink pays its affiliates 40% of the gross sales made on the online dating service for the lifetime of the customer.  The bulk of the revenue goes to Match.com and Spark takes a small share for its providing the online dating site design and operation.  It also provides banner ads for the radio station web site, commercials for various radio station formats, and on-air liners for the jocks.

“As far as revenue goes, there is a real cumulative effect for the service for the radio station,” said Bentz.  “Users will start going steady and drop out of the online dating pool for a while, but then they breakup three months later and are back using the service again.”

The average age for an online dating user is a surprisingly older than expected 48-years-old.  Most online dating users are divorced or separated and online dating best suits their busy lifestyle.  At age 26, women have twice as many male users contacting them, but at age 48, men have twice as many women contacting them.

The service is compatible for all formats, although Bentz indicated that the company has had its best success with country formats.

“Country listeners want to date other country listeners, but a CHR listener could date a classic rock listener.”

I guess that’s what compatibility is all about.

Click here to see a sample radio station online dating site.  To get in touch with MatchLink, you can contact Bentz at sales@advancedtele.com or call him at 610-688-6000.

Sports Info Text

admin    Text Message Marketing     college sports, info text, sports, sports information directors

Using text message marketing is a great way for college sports information directors to reach their fans and alumni with the most timely information available about your sports program.

Advanced Telecom Services is using its 84444.com technology to provide text message marketing solutions to sports teams and college sports information directors.  It’s the best way for SID’s to reach their fans and alumni in the most cost efficient and time efficient fashion.

Watch our video below and learn more about Sports Info Text from Advanced Telecom Services.

Miss Virginia Text Message Voting

admin    Text Message Marketing     Miss Virginia, text message voting

Advanced Telecom Services will once again be providing premium SMS text message voting for the Miss Virginia Pageant on Saturday night.  ATS also provided the text message voting for the 2010 Miss Virginia pageant.

To vote for your favorite Miss Virginia contestant viewers will be able to text VA<number> to short code 56665.  Do not put a space in between the VA and the number.  All text messages cost .99 per vote.

More Minutes with Apps than Internet

admin    Internet Marketing, Mobile Apps     apps use, Mobile Apps

In June, 2011, for the first time ever, US mobile consumers with smartphones spent more time with mobile apps than they did with the internet itself.  Other studies have shown that more people will access the web from their mobile phone than through a computer by the end of 2013.  This study concerning the soaring use of apps seems to confirm this idea.

Executive Leaders Radio Show

admin    Company News     Bob Bentz, Executive Leaders Show, radio interview

Bob Bentz appeared on the Executive Leaders Radio Show on June 3, 2011.  Bob spoke about the early history of Advanced Telecom Services and what inspired him to become an entrepreneur.

Listen to the Executive Leaders Radio interview with Advanced Telecom Services’ Bob Bentz at about the 14:14 mark of this link.

Best of the Web Discount Code 2011 – CLICKZ15

admin    Cool Stuff     botw, CLICKZ15

CLICKZ15 for 15% off at BOTW.org

One of the most important aspects of  search engine optimization is link building.  If you want to rank higher in the search engines, you need to obtain links from highly respected sites.

It isn’t easy work contacting other sites in your field and getting them to link to you.  Perhaps, you can provide a unique article and hope that the site will publish it for you.  Or, maybe you can come up with some link bait that will entice the site to link to your unique content.

But, there is one way to obtain a highly respected link that doesn’t require a lot of work.  It only requires a quick write up about your site and a small financial investment for a permanent link.  That site is Best of the Web.

For most of the remainder of 2011, you can obtain a directory link from Best of the Web and get 15% off by using discount promo code CLICKZ15.  Just enter this discount promo code when you check out at Best of the Web for the 15% discount.  You won’t find this discount anywhere else.

This special Best of the Web discount code is brought to you by our friends at the Get Clickz internet marketing blog.

Custom QR Codes from Advanced Telecom Services

admin    QR Codes     branding, custom QR codes, St. Joseph's University

Custom QR codes for branding

Advanced Telecom Services announces its new ATS QR code service that provides 2D barcodes to businesses and organizations.

With ATS QR Codes, products and organizations can brand their QR codes with easily recognizable logos and graphics.  This gives added emphasis to the QR code and enables it to better represent the brand or product and stand out in the advertisement to secure larger amounts of scans from consumers.

“One of the raps against QR codes has been that it is nothing more than a square box of squiggly black and white lines that don’t represent one brand over another,” said Bob Bentz, president of Advanced Telecom Services.  “With ATS QR codes, we create appealing custom design QR codes that enhance the look and feel of the customer interaction.”

According to Bentz, QR codes have been one of the hottest sellers in its portfolio of mobile marketing products in the last few months.  Companies are purchasing them mostly because of the unique design, but also because Advanced Telecom Services can also provide turnkey mobile integration with capabilities to customize a mobile web site.

“We emphasize the importance of looking like your brand from the outside and the inside,” added Frank Mazza, lead designer for Advanced Telecom Services’ QR code division.

QR codes were invented by Denso-Ware, a subsidiary of Toyota, in 1994, to track parts for vehicle manufacturing in Japan.  The bar codes have been popular in Japan and Korea for many years, but are more recently becoming part of marketing efforts in the United States and Canada.

Canadian QR codes are used on the front page of the Canadian passport application to speed up the processing of new passports.  United Airlines, among other innovative airlines, use QR codes as boarding passes.  And, when you sign up for Google Places, you’ll receive a decal QR code for your front door that links visitors to your web site.

Advanced Telecom Services has developed QR code promotions for companies and organizations such as Radio One, Subway, and St. Joseph’s University.  The Wayne, Pennsylvania company has been in business since 1989 and operates international offices in Toronto, London, Dublin, Prague, and Bratislava.