A few minutes ago my Blackberry made that distinctive “You’ve got an SMS – Come Check Me!” sound. I’m not one of those people who have it buzz or ding everytime an email comes in. If that were the case I would quickly ignore it. An SMS is usually something I want to see.

People still get relatively few SMS messages per day (unless you’re my kids), so we tend to look when they come in. As I have always said, Mobile Marketing is about the right message, at the right time, at the right place. Well that goes for targeted alerts and content as well.

The SMS I got was an Amber Alert. Along with Tornado alerts and Emergency Alerts, this is one of the greatest uses of SMS. It was targeted to phones within the relative geographical area, and provided all the information needed to get thousands of eyeballs looknig for an abducted kids.

AMBER ALERT: Bergenfeld, NJ VEH 1995 Grn Infinity J30, TAG XXXXX CHILD:17 WhiteF 5Ft3 120lbs Eyes:BRN HR:Brn: SUSP:19M:SUSP18:M:SUSP21:M

Luckily 30 seconds later a cancel alert message was sent. This one sounds like a 17 year old girl hanging with some older boys possibly. This is the first message I received in a long time (since Oct), so clearly it is only used when really needed. Hopefully all turned out fine.

I had completely forgotten that I signed up for these free Amber alerts. Sign up right now. A child abducter can not outrun the speed of SMS, and the more volunteers who subscribe, the better the chances of locating a child quickly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Case Studies, Mobile Marketing, SMS. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.