Competition to win 10,000 free VMS broadcasts to landlines
Howard Lake | 18 November 2004 | News
Promote-it (UK) is offering a prize of 10,000 Voice Messaging Service (VMS) broadcasts to landlines within a calendar month to the UK charity that wins its competition.
Promote-it’s new service allows organisations to deliver a personal voice message, rather than a simple text message, to their supporters or customers.
Since it can reach both landline and mobile phones, it can help reach audiences that do not traditionally use mobile phones.
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VMS can deliver a large number of messages within minutes and at the same time “keep a campaign as personalised as possible by having a personal voice deliver the message”. As such, Promote-it believe the service can help save on the costs of using traditional call centres for this kind of work.
Entries to win 10,000 VMS messages in one calendar month are invited from all UK registered charities. To enter, just tell Promote-It how your charity would use VMS by 30 November 2004. One entry will be selected at random from all entries received and the winning organisation will be contacted via email on the 10 December 2004.
VMS works using a Web-based account and a phone number for charities to call to record a specific message. The message could be recorded by a staff member or perhaps a celebrity supporter. Selected phone numbers from the charity’s database are then added to the service, and at the time the charity chooses, their members’ or supporters’ phones start ringing.
When they answer, and this includes answering machines, the personal message will be delivered. After listening to the short message recipients then have the option to press a number on the phone which connects them to a person in a call centre; going through to an answer service where they leave their name and number or e-mail; or simply pressing a button that stores their number as someone that acknowledges the call or wants to be taken off the charity’s call list.
Promote-it suggest that the service could be used for:
- renewal of member subscriptions
- reminder notices
- donations
- internal communications in large organisations
- surveys
- emergency messages (cancellation of events etc)
For example, it could be used to remind blood donors to turn up to a blood bank: the message might say: “we’re just reminding you that the mobile blood bank will be in your local area on the 19th December: please remember to give generously. Thank you for supporting the service, and we look forward to seeing you for a cup of tea.”
Promote-it believe that the service can be used for any marketing or information messages for organisations with a database of members.
They also point out that not only does the service save on mail-out costs but it is also a ‘green’ alternative to sending traditional reminders via post.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.