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Home Page > Marketing > Understanding Sms Marketing

Understanding Sms Marketing

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Posted: Mar 07, 2009 |Comments: 3
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Understanding SMS Marketing

Introduction

Short Message Service (SMS) is a wireless service available on digital mobile networks. It enables the transmission of text messages between mobile phones and other systems such as electronic mail, paging and voice mail. Up to 160 characters can be sent and received through the network operator’s message system to the mobile phone (Gustafsson & Lenman 2007).

SMS is essentially similar to paging. Paging is the process of a message, which consists of a few digits typically a phone number that the user is then expected to call, to be received by a one-way numeric pager. A pager (sometimes called a beeper) is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message (paging) consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then expected to call. While paging requires the pager to be active and within range, SMS messages do not require the mobile phone to be active within the range as they will be held for a number of days until the phone is active and within range. SMS messages are transmitted within the same cell or to anyone with roaming capability. They can also be sent to digital phones from a web site equipped with a PC Link or from one digital phone to another. In addition to SMS gateway is a web site that lets the user enter an SMS message to someone within the cell served by that gateway or acts as an international gateway for users with roaming capability.

The SMS is a store and forward service. In other words, short messages are not sent directly from sender to recipient, but via an SMS Center. Therefore there is a need for a network operator. Each mobile telephone network that supports SMS has one or more messaging centers to handle and manage the short messages.

The SMS features confirmation of message delivery. This means that, unlike e-mailing users do not simply send a short message and trust and hope that it gets delivered. Instead the sender of the short message can receive a return message back notifying them whether the short message has been delivered or not.

Short messages can be sent and received simultaneously with GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) voice, data and fax calls. This is possible because whereas voice, data and fax calls take over a dedicated radio channel for the duration of the call, short messages travel over and above the radio channel using the signaling path. As such, users of SMS rarely, if ever, get a busy or engaged signal as they can do during peak network usage times (SPG Media Group PLC 2008).

According to the same study above ways of sending multiple short messages are available. SMS concatenation (stringing several short messages together) and SMS compression have been defined and incorporated in the GSM SMS standards.

The introduction of standardized protocols such as SIM (A small smart card type device that has details of the mobile subscriber including public telephone number and the numbers required by the network to recognise and authenticate the subscriber), Application Toolkit and the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) contribute to an increase in messaging usage by providing a standard service development and deployment environment for application developers and business partners. These protocols also make it easier for users to reply to and otherwise access messaging services through custom menus on the phone. While these protocols are only a means to an end and not new messaging destinations or services, they are likely to lead to a 10-15% uplift in total SMS volumes (SPG Media Group PLC, 2008). Some companies could reach more successful results if manage the SMS marketing processes successfully.

Today, for example, to use SMS, MMS, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), voice mail, and so on, end users must be aware of the underlying technology and their intended recipients’ capabilities. Studies and market trends show that messaging solutions must be easier to use if they are to facilitate communication and increase traffic. This will form the base of a successful mobile marketing campaign constructed on SMS.

SMS Marketing under Marketing Overview

SMS has grown into a mainstream communication tool for consumers, reaching them via SMS marketing has become increasingly important strategy for businesses. Whether between two people planning to meet up or a broadcast message to thousands of users, more and more customers are becoming converts every day, and savvy marketers realize text messaging is a great way to quickly communicate with their audience. For this reason; text messaging is increasing at an enormous rate. One of the primary reasons behind this growth is that text messaging has become increasingly used as a business tool (mobilestorm.com/sms-marketing 2009).

The trend in Jupiter Research shows that SMS Marketing is quickly surpassing e-mail technology as a tool for marketers and also for customer relationship management. Moreover; Jupiter Research says three billion coupons issued to cell phone users will generate sales of almost billion by 2011 (textsmsmarketing 2006).

Types of SMS Marketing

Types of SMS Marketing can be defined in three different contexts in general; Purchase Context, Technical Context and User Context. These contexts are mostly given preference while enterprises practising the SMS Marketing efforts.

Purchase Context defines SMS as a product based on the way it is purchased. On the other hand, technical context defines the types of SMS Marketing from the mobile operator point of view while user context defines it from the benefit the SMS provides to the target customer. The common point of these types is that the payment type of these SMS can be defined based on the request of the buyer (the sender). The company that wants to send SMS can chooses either to pay the price of the SMS itself or to charge the price to the target customer.

Purchase Context

In SMS marketing campaigns, there are two different SMS methods as a product; a company can either choose to make a deal with the carrier for a promised amount of SMS for a given time (mostly 1 year). This is called bulk SMS. On the other hand, the company can choose to buy SMS packages that are being sold by the carrier in specified amounts like 1.000 or 500.000 or it can be included on the standart price numbers of dispatch etc. This is called piece SMS.

Marketing strategy is obtained by making corporate SMS purchasing agreements either with Mobile operators or with the infrasturcture providers or different SMS reseller companies. The more amounts of SMS purchased, the less money is paid for an SMS. While it is more profitable to buy over million quantities directly from the GMS operator (bulk SMS), it can be a better decision to buy from the providers or resellers since they buy from the operators with over million quantites and resell them in small quantitities with better price (piece SMS). This also creates a new intermediate trade of SMS. In addition to this; wide extensive solution partnership agreements are available among company. At that time; more services are given in a lot of case such as SMS, logo, melody, conversation, entertainment, competition, game, etc.

Technical Context

There are three types of SMS from the technical perspective. These are one way, single shot and two way SMS’s (see in Table 2).

One way SMS is an SMS that sent by the sender to the target customers. With this type of SMS an answer from the target customer is not expected and most of the time not allowed. So there is no customer interaction.

One way Fast SMS (Single Shot) is an SMS which is sent by the sender to the target customer and an answer from the target customer is not allowed. The most important feature of this type is that the SMS is valid for a defined time (mostly a short period like 3 minutes). Becuse of this feature, the SMS must be sent immediately after it is triggered. This type is mainly used to send passwords that are valid for the defined time (Like a password that will be used by the target customer to log in into his/her different accounts over the internet). This type of SMS is not blocked by the filters meaning that a customer can filter the SMS that is coming from a certain sender or number by sending that message to a special filter list of the mobile operator. But this filter is not used for single shot SMS.

Two Way SMS is an SMS sent by the sender to the target customer and an answer from the target customer is expected if he/she wants to join or use the services/benefits that are offered. Since there will be a client interaction, the SMS number that is used to sent this type of SMS must be configured to recieve SMS that will be sent by the customers.

User Context

Premium SMS gives clients the option to earn money on certain text messages and content for which consumers will pay to send or receive. Clients can hold voting contests, like those on many reality TV shows, daily horoscopes, a VIP program, or other instances where new information is time-sensitive, making that information valuable to the consumer.

Mobile Coupons will benefit businesses and customers alike-promoting spending while saving money for consumers. In addition, the convenience and “green” factor (no excess paper or ink needed to produce them) of digital coupons, such as mobile coupons, make them especially appealing to consumers today.

Text-To-Screen is a premium service that allows marketers to create polls and quizzes especially for a particular event.

Marketers have a way to ensure event attendees’ interest while adding excitement to shows, parties, major sporting events or a regular evening at a movie theater. A marketer can use giant video screens that are traditionally at these places to advertise a poll or quiz, compel the crowd to participate and then post the results on that same screen in real time. (mobilestorm.com/sms-marketing 2009)

The SMS Campaign

The SMS system is a small piece of mobile communication and marketing system. For this purpose, like every marketing campaign, SMS campaign should be carefully planned. There are 3 processes that a campaign manager should plan in order to create a successful SMS campaign.

Every process has its own individual approaches. In step I, campaign manager should carefully plan the target segment, the message that will be addressed and configuring the body of the SMS based on this message.

In step II, the carrier must be chosen in order to reach the targeted segment based the technical and financial criterias. All the replies must be carefully viewed.

After sending the message, an analysis of the study must be made for performance measurement (mobilestorm.com/sms-marketing, mobilesmsmarketing.com 2009).

In order to create an SMS marketing campaign, a database must be created that consist of the phone numbers of the clients that are targeted. A member or commitment list is being constituted by the enterprises with the help of clients’ needs. However; we cannot observe the same situation at the private sector. The companys, which can constitute their lists, can add new numbers to these lists by using different channels. The channels can be;

inside the company – the companies own database or affilitaions database outside from the company – databases that can be provided from consulting firms, SMS operators, yellow pages etc.

This process is sensitive because of the requirements and outlines defined by the law. Both the individual numbers at the newspapers and the other numbers, which are used by institutional enterprises, help to increase the quantity of the numbers at these lists in the behalf of request or guidance.

SMS Marketing Implications

In the past; the companies, which want to communicate with their customers, were using postcards, celebration cards, fax and telephone. These ways were increasing the costs and were creating problems for transportation. Most of the cards were not arrived to the addresses and the companies were not controlling these limitations. By the use of corporate SMS service, the companies began to trace whether the SMS was received by the user. Furthermore; considerably higher profits were provided at the cost side. One of the most attractive sides of this application for the companies is the high returns of the customers, who are taken these messages.

Corporate SMS Working Process

Client applications have a speciality of working as internet-based environment and desktop execution with local database. The applications, which are served as free for customer usage, can be accumulated in three main titles: Desktop SMS application, web-based Web SMS application and Office SMS application, which can be provide sending SMS from directly Microsoft Excel. After controlling SMS sending offer from these applications out of institutional servers, SMSs are transferred on Internet at the same time to the related mobile operator. Then; these SMSs are transmitted to the mobile phones.

The corporate SMS system can be classified in 3 categories;

First one is the public enterprises, in which SMS application is an indispensible requirement for each company. For instance; small announcements can be transferred to the people by associations, labor unions, foundations, etc. By the way; it provides an opportunity to get lower costs and make the works rapidly.

The second one is the private sector institutions especially finance (banking), automotive, market, retailers, etc. They announce their campaigns to the related clients at the same time and this provides a returnable and customer fidelity.

The last category is about the education sector, in which corporate SMS was began to see as an essential requirement and called service by the guardians. A private class was began preference by giving the services of lack of continuity, examination results and other reports.

Efficiency of SMS

What could efficiency of SMS bring to companies? The most important issue is to get the transmission reports of the messagings. We can analyze these reports based on;

People & Responses Total cost of Transmission Results

In a recent study by Nielsen Mobile, 23% of U.S. mobile phone users remember seeing mobile advertising in the last month, and over 50% responded to the ad. (mobilestorm.com/sms-marketing 2009) When we compare this result to another marketing media like TV where the response rate is around 0,3%, it can be seen that SMS can be a very successful media for marketing.

Not only for the mobile advertising however it covers a lot of place in mobile marketing but also constitute a good relationship with the customers are very important subjects to the companies.

SMS Marketing System Analyses

The marketing concepts are changing while these new medias & technologies step into ourlives. An important factor to consider when selecting a marketing technique such as SMS marketing is that method’s ability to reach a wide audience. This is why famous TV programs attract a lot of sponsors, famous celebrities get a lot of endorsements and popular websites get a lot of posted ads. Businessmen know that these programs, celebrities and websites will be garnering a lot of visitors; thence, more people will get to see their advertisements. The same equation applies to SMS marketing. Nearly every person in the world possesses a mobile phone. It’s only natural that companies and businesses will want to compete in this new marketing arena. (sign-up.to 2008)

It is very important to understand the SMS Marketing system and to manage the system after sending messages to the customers even their target is advertising or relationship. Companies have to find out the most valuable customers by detecting the performance with so many analysis and then to decide and apply what are the following actions whether the companies want to succeed their functionality continuously for their success in marketing.

The companies naturally think about their current customers primarily, because they know their identities, personalities, conventions, pleasures, etc. There are two types of customers; the current customers and the potential customers, who are not available for the present and may be the candidates.

To create opportunities for the companies and satisfy the customers, companies should perform some endevours. Hereby these endevours undertake with marketing philosophy and to give some detailed conveyance for the SMS marketing efforts. Like every marketing concept, analyzing the result to measure the performance of system. In general before passing through to the analyses, suppose that a company determined their customers and sent them an advertising text message, in which the company’s new products were recognized. Presume that the amount of these customers is 10,000 and just 1,000 of them have demanded the new products after receiving the SMS. However, since this is a cost for the company, cost – benefit ratio must be taken into account all the time. The other 9,000 people can be classified into two groups: the people, who erase the text messages without seeing; and the people, who erase the text messages after seeing. In this direction; these people may not be interested in these text messages for the reason of the improper time, unsuitable content, previous experiences, etc. In that case what should the company analyze to control the activities and the environment for benefitting from SMS Marketing?

From the strategical point of view the companies should be done below analysis for their safety and do the right things for the good marketing relations and satisfaction of the customers;

Basic Statistical Analysis

Statistical analysis is the first step of the success or failure of the system. It includes the response time of the respondents to the text messages, the percentage of the right arrivals, the percentage of the lost messages, etc. In addition to these; these performance results should be traced and understood effectively to take the precautions and determine the SMS strategy primarily. For instance; at Keynote Systems, the average performance for all carriers was 11.8 seconds to receive message and 94.7 percent of all messages arrived at their destination. While these numbers are an improvement over the prior three months, the 94.7 percent availability could represent a significant loss of information and business when the number of lost messages is calculated. (AT&T 2002)

In our example; the company can classify the customers, who have made commercial activities, in 3 groups: high level, mid-level and low level. By the way; the company should also trace these classifications to understand whether there are changes in high levels, mid-levels and low levels. There may be some quantitative changes such as the increase in high levels that also indicates the increase in the expenses or the reduction at all levels that indicates the demand in the market has been declined.

Tendency Analysis

Targeting the audience is one of the most important things that any advertiser should remember. Nowadays, businessmen are considering it more wise and practical to advertise to individuals who will likely become customers. For instance, if a company is selling video games and other hip electronics, then marketers would want to run your SMS marketing campaign on teenagers and other young people who might be interested. (sign-up.to 2002)

Since 80% or more of all cell phone users carry their phone all the time, a text message to their cell phones is the perfect way to alert your subscribers or clients of any urgent information, such as a change of appointment, or product ready for pickup. For this reason; the companies have to understand in which stores and/or products that the customers have paid money by finding out the location of these stores and/or products, what the ranges of these saves are, who these clients are by making data mining, etc. By the way; the company can make identification about the product characteristic and determine new marketing strategy related to the most popular products or services. In addition to this; the products can be served to the people individually.

Capacity Analysis

The main idea of detecting capacity is to answer the question of will the company maintain the investment of sending text messages to the customers. The company has to understand the signals of benefits with the usage of SMSs. Because of the company will produce the products or keep the inventory according to the demands. Whether the demand is low due to the expectations, the company will produce lower parties, keep lower inventories and may reduce or stop the usage of SMS marketing. Moreover; the company may change the marketing strategy. On the other hand; the company may support and increase the usage rate of text messaging by sending them to more people whether the demand is very high. At that time; the company will perform more aggressive role in the market and this will affect the investments of the company.

For this reason; the capacity analysis, which indicates the present situation to meet the present demand and the future situation to meet the following demand, should be investigated and taken into consideration by the companies.

Reviewing Marketing Performance

Mobile marketing can be used for a wide range of occasions like announcing new product, one-day specials, new store openings, special events…etc. Subscribers can be treated as a special group for offers and information that only they have access to, increasing loyalty, purchases, and speed of communications.

While mobile marketing can be used in a lot of areas that helps them customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and incremental sales; the companies should search the performance of their marketing activities to maintain the available situation and then to increase the market share by accessing more satisfied clients. To achieve this; some functions should be generated like market research, market modeling and market consulting.

Marketing research – world-class qualitative and quantitative research, particularly market segmentation that gives the company growth-oriented insights. Marketing modeling – state-of-the-science, profit-focused modeling that offers the company invaluable information about the financial impact of different marketing decisions. Marketing consulting – continuously filtering what the statistics say through managerial, statistical, and financial criteria to provide the company with relevant and doable action steps.

In this regard; the company should determine some indicators to trace the performance of the marketing to understand whether the situation is going on the predetermined strategy or not. Some of these indicators are market share, new product, marketing return on investment (ROI), customer, brand, etc.

Furthermore; there are some criteria for selecting the targets of these performance indicators such as sales potential, growth potential, retention potential, common motivations, problem potential, responsiveness, findability, lifetime value, etc. These criteria should be investigated, considered and evaluated before targeting process. (Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research n.d.)

Sales Analysis

In sales analysis, the goal is to provide accurate management information related to sales activity in order to improve sales profitability and provide facilities for sales forecasting and planning at customer and product class levels.

By sales analysis; we can make the following actions:

Identify the most profitable customers Know which products are selling Analyze market trends and geographic market patterns Know the profit generated by each product Know which divisions of business are selling Identify which salespeople are performing Improve sales forecasting Measure actual performance against quantity or revenue forecasts Analyze tax collections Set targets against customers and / or products Compare against budgets per product group and/or salesperson

By the way; we can decide to maintain and admire the most profitable customers, continue to produce the most selling products, prompt the most valuable salespersons, get precautions according to the trend of the following months’ sales, constitute the budget or make re-budgeting, determine the following targets that the marketing department should provide, etc.

In this regard; SMS marketing is perfect for local and national retailers wishing to promote products or services, provide incentives, and increase customer loyalty and retention. Retailers can send SMS messages to their opt-in subscribers with coupons code inserted directly into the message. Customers can come into the stores and present their coupons right on their cell phones for redemption. This application is very useful for consumers to sale any product in any time at any location, where it helps to increase the sales of the company.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

When consumers make purchases at market prices, they reveal that the things they buy are at least as beneficial to them as the money they relinquish. Consumers will increase their consumption of any commodity up to the point, where the benefit of an additional unit (marginal benefit) is equal to the marginal cost to them of that unit, the market price. The same idea can be used for the companies. A company, which directs its marketing strategy on SMS marketing, wants to get the financial benefit of the application including customer satisfaction. However; when the trend of the earned marginal benefit is going on a reducing direction, the company may decide to give up SMS marketing and consider another methods. On the other side; whether the marginal benefit is going on a positive direction, the company will begin to behave more aggressive way to use more text messages to arrive more customers.

Character Analysis of the Customers

The first step in SMS Marketing campaign is collecting and getting permission to gather cell phone numbers as stated before. Although it is perfectly acceptable to simply have a signup form on the company’s website or retail store with the promise to send valuable offers in return for signup; it is much more effective to come up with a creative tactic that offers more like prizes, memberships, bonus and free stuff. As the comapny build its database of cell phone numbers, try to elicit more than just that one piece of information. Ask for the customers about their hobbies, conventions and then create special announcements based on niche interests. Find out demographics and customize the text messages campaign to that particular cell phone recipient.

In the character analysis; clear purpose and goal focusing, communication skills, time management prioritization and planning, conflict handling and mental attitudes’ information should be gathered by the companies. For instance; a goal focused person, who understands the direction of the organization, makes plans and organizes resources, both of people and materials and plans ahead in a strategic manner; can be directed to the gifts of special days and the text messages can be sent to these customers like in this way. Because these people are living in perfect planning days and they do not forget the most important days in their lives. For this reason; the gifts, which emphasize the special days, should be chosen as a content of text messages in SMS marketing strategy at these companies. In a different example; there are also SMART people, who can be described as Specific, Measured, Achievable, Realistic, and with a definite Time deadline. That’s why these people always calculate the time and the cost opportunity, in which the prices are lower at any location. In this regard; the shopping centers’ activities such as discounting days or other kind of promotions may be announced to these kinds of people earlier by the help of text messages.

This needs to be new specialists that improve themselves of psychology and marketing.

Institutional Risk Analysis

“Most of the banks in the US are not broke, not in trouble, but they don’t trust each other because they don’t know which banks are bad. We’ve got to get the bad ones out.”
William Seidman / American economist and financial commentator

The same situation can be considered for the commercial companies. The expectations will be seen clearly, whether the companies can determine which products are not sold enough, which salespersons are not successful enough, what are the actual and forecasting values of the market, etc. In the same direction; the main idea is to determine which products may not be sold in the following period and what are the actions that can be taken primarily. The methodology of risk analysis can be written as in the following:

Identify risk assessment and prioritize risks Develop strategies to manage risks Develop tactics to mitigate risks Assign responsibility and implement Test effectiveness and evaluate results

Comparative Analysis

Comparative analysis is a tool that uses item by item comparison of two or more comparable issues like processes, products, qualifications, sets of data, systems, etc. For instance; in accounting, changes in a financial statement’s items over several accounting periods may be presented together to detect the emerging trends in the firm’s operations and results. The company, which uses text messages to arrive to their customers, sends SMSs to their available clients primarily. After a time of this application, there are some feedbacks that some of the clients have made trades against the others have not. The results in here should be recorded. In this regard of this situation, the company may change the content of the text messages and then wants to see the results. In this time; the company can take a photo of two different situations and make a comparative analysis by using the quantity of sales, the amount of saved money, the number of sold products, etc. to see the differences and the impact of the contents. After that; the company can determine the following marketing strategy due to the feedback of these results.

Environmental Factors Analysis

The last searching area is to reveal the environmental factors like the changes in interest rates; crisis surrounding in economical, social and political areas; the developments in the rivals; the sales in each product; the demands in the market; purchase power of the public, new investment areas, which are rising in recent period, etc. Furthermore; SWOT analysis, which takes the information as a result of these previous activities and separate them into internal issues (strengths and weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats), is one of the best techniques to understand and evaluate all these activities together. In SWOT analysis, the knowledge is designed to help an organization an understanding how it relates to its external environment. In other words to act as a way of seeing whether the organization is aligned with the world going on around it.

As a result of these analyses, the company should evaluate the available situation and get some remarks for the future. Whether the situation is not good enough or the demands are not expected, the company can trace the following instructions:

a. Constituting an action plan b. Differentiating text messages c. Timing of the text messages d. Differentiating of the product e. Timing of the product f. Determining new marketing strategies g. Finding potential customers h. Evaluating the channels for their potentials, capabilities and reliability conditions

CONCLUSION

Mobile marketing tools are offering easier and more convenient ways with evolving marketing strategies. SMS has been the pioneer in wireless data applications and SMS services were the first mobile data services with a serious impact on the operator’s revenue. The industry has seen tremendous growth and, clearly, messaging will lead the way to profits in 3G as well. Inevitably, the way that revenues from mobile applications are currently shared out will change and become much more versatile.

We can admit that SMS Marketing is a very useful tool for the marketers and a competitive marketing strategy for the companies. However; the main issue is not just to apply text messages to the clients. The focal point is to send the right value of contents, at the right time, at the right location, to the right customers with the right effect. Also; after sending them to the clients; the enterprises should follow the marketing auditing like marketing statistics by applying some analysis whether the text messages are effective or not. If there are some problems with this type of marketing strategy, the enterprise should review its’ all ongoing processes to understand where the problem is.

The reasons of failure/triumph should be investigated. After the determination of these, the cautions should be taken into a contingency plan, the actions should be revised and the new applications should be done. If all these processes such as taking pre-cautions, monitor the applications in an analysis approach, etc. are taken into consideration in a systematical approach, we think that SMS Marketing will become a very powerful and indispensible tool for the applicant enterprises. On the other hand, most of the forecasts show that data-related services are increasing its value especially in the means of revenue of the mobile operators. Moreover, picture messaging and visuality has taken off, and MMS is a natural progression of these facts. The fact that the consumer preferences are moving fast towards visuality especially with services like Youtube, Video Messaging Services can be the new concept for the mobile world and the mobile marketing strategies.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a new form of communication that combines rich content, such as audio and video clips, photographs and images, with text messaging. It is an end-to-end application for person-to-person mobile messaging, mobile-to-mobile, mobile-to-Internet and Internet-to-mobile. It is good news for service providers, as they can now improve their existing text-based services by adding rich visual content. MMS will be a key mass-market revenue generator for content providers, mobile operators, application developers and advertisers, while for users it will provide a way to capture a moment of time and share it with others.

From the users’ perspective, a successful MMS launch needs the terminal to be set up ready to use from the minute he or she walks out of the store with it. An operator can meet this expectation by offering automatic terminal provisioning over the air through its own network and today, Turkcell, the leading operator in Turkey is offering this service over the air. In addition, operators need to educate end users, not only on how they can send and receive MMS messages but also how they can discover and subscribe to MMS content services. Operators can create service packs, set-up content service demos provide customer training and competitions in retail stores, as well as at relevant events such as festivals and concerts.

REFERENCES

Gustafsson, . & Lenman, AEricsson’s enriched messaging architecture, Ericsson Review No. 2, 2007.

SMS (Short Message System) Mobile Technology, International, White Paper SPG Media Group PLC, 2008.

http://www.marketingpundit.com/MktgLessons_files/Introduction_to_Marketing_Planning.pdf

Piercy, N. & Giles, W “Making SWOT Analysis Work”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Volume: 7 Issue: 5/6, 1989

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis, Dr. E.J.Keeley, Executive Director, Institutional Effectiveness and Research

Codling, S. Best Practice Benchmarking, gowerpub.com, 1995

Kotler, P Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control, Prentice-Hall, 1988

http://www.marketingteacher.com/Lessons/lesson_objectives.htm

Borden, N. H “The Concept of the Marketing Mix”, Journal of Advertising Research, 4, June 1994: 2-7

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk

http://www.mobilestorm.com/sms-marketing

http://www.textsmsmarketing.com

http://www.mobilesmsmarketing.com

http://www.plusone.com.au/smsstudies.php

http://www.mobiltim.com.tr/sms_cilginligi.pdf

MMS entering into the next phase, White Paper, Nokia Corporation, 2003

http://www.sign-up.to/0308.php?k=sms-marketing&PageID=8631

Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research, Bringing Science to Marketing

http://portal.bsnl.in/Telecomguide.asp?intNewsId=483&strNewsMore=more

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Gonca Telli Yamamoto -
About the Author:

Gonca TELL YAMAMOTO is an associate professor in the School of Applied Sciences at Okan University. She is a head of Information Sciences and Technologies Department at Okan University. She is also coordinating Okan University Distance Education Center at present. She was formerly founder and director of Social Sciences Institute of Okan University, Turkey.Her blog is http://goncatelli.blogspot.com

Grkan KOYUNCU, who was born in 1980 in Turkey, is a PhD student in departmant of Engineering Management at the Marmara University. He graduated in Systems Engineering from Yeditepe University. Then, he graduated from Engineering Management in master program of Marmara University and he studied on selection and evaluation of supplier in supply chain management as a master thesis. He is working as a Chief of Production Planning in an automotive company.

Eda KURT who was born in 1980 in Turkey, is a PhD student in departmant of Engineering Management at the Marmara University. She graduated in Industrial Engineering from the Istanbul Technical University. She studied the knowledge management and information in master thesis. She is working as a SAP ( it is an ERP program) consultant.

Emrah ELMAS who was born in 1978, is a PhD student in departmant of Engineering Management at the Marmara University. He graduated in Industrial Engineering from the Istanbul University. He studied Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). He is working as a key account manager in Turkcell, Istanbul, TR at the moment.

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How to Disable SMS Preview in iPhone

If youve ever received an embarrassing text message on your iPhone, then you might want to pay attention to todays tip.

The iPhone actually allows you to disable the preview feature of your text messages.
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BlackBerry: How to send an SMS

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How To Send Free Text Message With Any Internet Device

List of Networks:

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(ex.3332221111@messaging.sprintpcs.com)

T-Mobile
10-digit cell phone number @ tmomail.net
(ex.3332221111@tmomail.net) (03:58)

Free Tips On How To Make Money With Adsense

These folks are getting in touch with him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis just lately pointed out in his weblog that he is on monitor to receive a million bucks from Ad-sense at the time of the 12 months ahead.

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3. A-Sun 29/08/2010

I agree with Brad, if you guys don’t mind, I’ll do the same thing at http://www.twicketer.posterous.com

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2. A-Sun 29/08/2010

Nice article! This is way we integrated a small, but powerful SMS feature to our mobile website.

http://twicketer.posterous.com/create-your-own-sms-keywords-to-promote-your

Thanks

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1. Brad Down 22/06/2010

Excellent and very detailed. Have shared it on our SMS Marketing blog at http://blog.burstsms.com I am sure our users will find this information very useful. Thanks.

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Bluetooth Specification
The Bluetooth specification was developed in 1994 by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson, who were working for Ericsson Mobile Platforms in Lund, Sweden. The specification is based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology.

The specifications were formalized by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), organised by Mohd Syarifuddin. The SIG was formally announced on May 20, 1998. Today it has a membership over 7000 companies worldwide. It was established by Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, and later joined by many other companies.

Bluetooth Organization
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a privately held, not-for-profit trade association. The Special Interest Group was founded in September 1998. The Bluetooth SIG itself does not make, manufacture, or sell Bluetooth enabled products. The SIG has more than 9,000 member companies that are leaders in the telecommunications, computing, automotive, music, apparel, industrial automation, and network industries. SIG members drive development of Bluetooth wireless technology, and implement and market the technology in their products. The SIG has a small group of dedicated staff in Hong Kong, Sweden, and the USA.

Hot Bluetooth Peripherals
Bluetooth Headset
A bluetooth headset is a discreet device that can be worn on the ear. Relying on bluetooth technology, it establishes connection to the phone, PDA, camera and more. Bluetooth headsets have redefined the idea of talking over the telephone. With the growing number of bluetooth enabled mobile phones, the demand and popularity of bluetooth headsets is increasing day by day. Bluetooth headsets give you the advantage to talk with your hands free. This means that bluetooth headset gives you the ability to do anything while talking. We give you the chance to buy bluetooth headsets at cheap prices. We have Bluetooth Headsets for mobile phones of all popular companies. These companies include Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and many other popular mobile phone companies.

Bluetooth GPS
A Bluetooth GPS is a wire-free GPS receiver that can transmit data wirelessly to your PDA, laptop and even on some mobile phones. These units are suitable for most GPS applications such as: car navigation, marine navigation, fleet management, AVL, personal navigation, tracking system and mapping devices. Bluetooth is good for in-car use because the GPS receiver can be placed forward on the dash or directly under the windscreen for a better view of the sky. Another option is to connect an external antenna and mount this outside the vehicle with a magnet.

Bluetooth Dongle
A bluetooth dongle is a small add-on that you can plug into a USB port; which will then allow you to send and receive files via bluetooth from you PC to a bluetooth enabled device (in our case, a mobile phone). Alternatively, in more modern computers you may already have such a device installed.

Bluetooth Rearview Mirror
A bluetooth rearview mirror is a rearview mirror having bluetooth function. When a call comes in, the rearview mirror displays caller information in the middle of the mirror’s face.

Trade Fair
72nd China Electronics Fair
The only national electronic fair supported by Ministry of Information Industry of PRC and Ministry of Commerce of PRC.

As the most authoritative comprehensive electronics show, CEF has the longest history, the more general categories, the most profound influence and the largest scale. Growing up with China’s electronic industry, CEF has witnessed the transition and development of China’s electronic and information industry from planned economy to market economy.

CEF has impressive influence worldwide. As the largest electronics fair, CEF is one of five members in Asian Electronics Exhibition Conference Confederation (AEECC). It is listed in top 5 Asian electronics exhibitions with CEATEC JAPAN, KES, Taitronics and HK Electronics Fair.

The next available option is indoor wireless networking through radio frequency (2Ghz etc)sample solutions exist from vendors like Lucent(wavelan/orinoco)this option has a downfall of needing extensive setup (infrastructure for base stations) and is VERY expensive. The range offered is also sometimes considered as ‘extra’ inconvenient, thus not allowing one to manage & control interference from nearby base stations.

Bluetooth looks to overcome all of the above problems by providing for a cheap, efficient, fast, no-futz short-range wireless solution!

The Jabra BT150 (retailing between $25 and $30 in high street phone shops) is a good buy. It’s either the same size or smaller than the H500, cheaper, and also in black. It’s only suitable for Bluetooth version 1.1 or higher.

It’s the only one I could find, but its another for you to consider. Downside to the BT150 is 2 hours less talk time and 20 hours less stand by time than the H500. You could determine how much of your phone you use, and make a decision if the extra amount of money is worth the talk/stand by time.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter how you received the text message; as long as it is on your phone as an SMS message (text message), you can forward it to someone else. Yes, you can copy the text within a text message, provided you have a device that allows you to copy text (most phones these days allow you to do this).

Once in the body of the text message, choose the Options, which should have an option to Copy. When you are in the Note, choose Options and then choose Paste. Whenever you choose the Copy option, the text will go onto the Clipboard (just like with Windows) and this will allow you to Paste the text somewhere else. If you tell me what type of phone you have, I can give you specific instructions on how to do this.

The cars that are now coming equipped with Bluetooth allow you to have a Bluetooth connection between your wireless phone and your car (through the phone and car’s Bluetooth connection). If you have a compatible phone (and are on a compatible wireless network – that is, compatible with the car), you can use the car’s console to dial your phone, access your address book, make and receive calls, etc. You won’t need a Bluetooth headset in order to use the car’s features, but you do need a compatible phone.

I’m not sure what type of car you bought, but here is an example from Audi:

Your Audi vehicle may be equipped with a phone preparation utilizing a Bluetooth interface to enable hands-free functionality (compatible mobile phones sold separately). You will need a Bluetooth – enabled mobile phone in order to utilize this function. Not all Bluetooth – enabled mobile phone models are compatible with Audi’s phone preparation. Contact your local Audi dealer for the latest listing of compatible phones. Audi recommends the use of the Audi phone cradle (sold separately) with your mobile phone while operating this vehicle.

Here is some information on other cars that have the same type of system:

Plug a sleek new system-compatible phone into your car for instant integration with the Hands-Free Communication System or use the available Bluetooth interface to enjoy the benefits of hands-free calling while keeping your phone in your pocket, your purse, or wherever it’s convenient.

With the system engaged, you can keep both hands on the wheel while communicating, for easier, safer, more convenient driving.

With your phone docked in the Multi-Handset Interface cradle: The system will access and display your phonebook. Your phone’s battery charges automatically. Calls are clearly delivered through your audio system. The audio system automatically mutes the radio or pause’s the CD during calls. You can control calls via your multifunction steering wheel or with the optional voice control system. To make hands free communication even easier, initialize your approved phone with the Bluetooth interface; the system will automatically recognize your phone every time you enter the vehicle.
Victor Epand

Victor Epand is an expert agent for BuyCellularPhones.info, a huge cellphone superstore featuring great prices and rebates on cellphones including Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Audiovox, LG, RIM Blackberry, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson, and others.

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Over the next few years that volume of deployment will provide the critical mass that product designers need to justify incorporating wireless connectivity into a new generation of products. Low cost, Wibree only chips will find their way into a whole new range of accessories, such as watches and lifestyle devices. Dual-mode Wibree + Bluetooth chips will give added functionality to the phones themselves, which will become usable for location specific data searching and remote control. Most importantly, Wibree opens up a raft of new opportunities for mobile network operators. As each Wibree equipped handset is a mobile gateway for Wibree devices, operators will be able to offer new services, such as health monitoring. Such services provide a route to new revenue streams, as well as being a powerful tool for operators to increase customer loyalty and reduce churn.

Wibree’s advantage is that it is going to build upon the volumes of mobile phones. Unlike other low power standards it’s not starting from scratch, but will ride on an industry that already sells a billion devices every year. Wibree has the goal of enabling a multitude of products to connect to each and every one of these handsets. That adds up to a potential that is an order of magnitude greater than mobile phone sales. Wibree’s goal is not to ship mere millions, but tens of billions.

Wibree applications – small scale, big opportunity

Wibree is all about small data transfers. These are the applications that send small amounts of information occasionally. That might be a TV remote control, a glucose monitor, flight information at an airport or a room thermostat. All in all, each application may only transfer a few tens or hundreds of bytes of data each day. It’s what I’ve termed microdata. It’s not a new concept, but prior to Wibree nothing has had the architecture to make it simple or the critical mass to make it happen. Instead most wireless technologies have been bogged down in complexity by trying to be good at the difficult things, such as meshes or video streaming or concurrent audio and data. Wibree is all about doing the little things simply.

Understanding the playing field

There are advantages in arriving late, at least as far as a wireless technology is concerned. It means that it can see what its prospective environment looks like and thus be designed to cope with the increasingly noisy and congested spectrum at 2.4GHz. The Wibree specification makes sure that it can cope with interference with a simple frequency agile approach that doesn’t demand the precision clocks of Bluetooth. It uses advertising channels to ensure it’s not inadvertently jammed by Wi-Fi or other transmitters in the band – a low cost but efficient solution. To attain extended battery life, it implements a data transfer scheme that lets it rapidly wake up from deep sleep when it has something to say and then fall back asleep again. It’s a well thought through, pragmatic specification based on experience and thought. It covers its target market requirements at its inception, meaning it is unlikely that the specification will need to updated after a year, which helps provide robustness as well as keeping the cost of the technology low.

At the interoperability level, the standard defines a number of basic profiles that concentrate on efficiently sending attributes or values between devices. These allow a Wibree device to send status information, such as ON or OFF, and values such as room temperature. They also allow simple transmission of information that needs to be displayed, such as text strings. Most of the time these transfers will be infrequent; sometimes they may be the starting point for another wireless technology to take over – such as setting up higher speed Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections. It’s all part of Wibree’s job of providing the glue to hold our wireless day together.

The long and short of it

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that low power and long battery life mean that Wibree will be limited to short range applications. Wibree can transmit at powers up to 100mW. In mobile phones, where it shares the same transmitter and receiver with the Bluetooth chip it reside in, Wibree will typically transmit at around 2mW with a receive sensitivity of better than -86dBm. If the RF circuitry is well designed, that will give it an open field range in excess of 100 metres with very low battery consumption. Sensor applications that add a power amplifier ought to be able to exceed 1 km of open field range. While many Wibree applications will extend no further than the range of personal transactions within a room, there will be numerous applications that need to cover the house or office. The ability to deliver that range will help Wibree enable a very wide range of applications.

What’s microdata all about?

The best way to understand its versatility is to look at some applications that Wibree can enable. The first of these to come to market will almost certainly be phone-centric, not least because Wibree is being championed by Nokia and other phone vendors. These headline applications include sending caller information to your watch display and collecting data from health and lifestyle sensors. They’ll start to deliver the first stage of that promise of tens of billions of devices.

An important part of the design of the Wibree standard has been in making it inexpensive to manufacture and integrate – potentially half the cost of Bluetooth for a stand-alone Wibree chip. That low cost opens up a whole raft of opportunities. It only needs a little thought to see how wide the potential from wireless microdata can be.

Microdata means Location

How many times have you gone somewhere and wanted some basic piece of information? It might be the time and gate for your flight, where the goat’s cheese is in the supermarket, or where to find your mummy at the British Museum. Some of these can be answered by search engines and a mobile data subscription. Wibree enables the concept of free local searches.

The way it works is to install Wibree “servers” at each relevant location, with a simple information database in each. That database is typically going to be small and local as it only concerns itself with information about its search location. At the train station it will be the times and platforms of trains for that station and their destinations. In the supermarket it will be the aisle in which goods are located. At the museum it will be details of where the exhibits are on display.

Each Wibree location server will broadcast its presence, and any Wibree device with a suitable search application can choose to show all of the servers within range. It’s never likely to be a big list, but it will be information relevant to where you are. Select the one you want, enter your query and back comes the result:

The process doesn’t touch the mobile network, so there’s no charge. The phone only needs to accept minimal data and display downloaded text, so it’s fast. The database in the server is small and simple to structure as it only has limited, local information. Adding GPS for location based services to a handset adds $10 to the manufacturing cost. The incremental cost of adding Wibree will be around $0.10 – one hundredth of the cost of adding GPS. So the opportunity for location based searches and services is vastly more likely using Wibree, as its negligible additional cost means it will penetrate a far wider range of handsets.

The design of the Wibree protocol stack means there’s no need for TCP/IP stacks, web browsers or anything else in the display device. It’s trivial for something as powerful as a mobile phone to run, but it also means that it’s easy to implement at very low cost. So it could be put onto your shopping trolley with nothing more complex than an 8-bit microprocessor and a display – all of which can be part of a single Wibree chip. It’s a good example of how Wibree makes interoperability and wireless functionality cheap.

Microdata means Health – The Ubiquitous Gateway

Caring for an ageing population with an increasing incidence of long-term, chronic health issues is a problem facing most countries. There is a clear perception that electronic monitoring of health is a key part of any solution. That’s been recognised within the industry with the formation of specialist groups such as the Bluetooth Medical Devices Group, the Continua Alliance and the IEEE 11073 standards group.

Wibree is widely seen as a key enabler for these services. Where it scores over any other low power radio is in its unique ability to use the mobile phone as a gateway that can pass data from a personal medical device to a service provider.

Some of the first Wibree devices being talked about are sports accessories, such as simple pedometers built into sports footwear. The technology will quickly migrate to personal health monitors, including weighing scales, blood pressure monitors and glucosimeters. These aren’t devices that need to send large amounts of data, but their usage model requires low power so that they can be small, battery powered and wearable.

The prospect of offering health related services is an exciting prospect for network operators. It’s one of the reasons that the GSM Association is welcoming Wibree as an evolution of the existing Bluetooth standard. It’s not yet clear where the services will reside – with mobile networks, insurers, national healthcare services, gyms or private medical companies. What is clear is that Wibree provides a wireless implementation with the accessibility that will enable a large-scale deployment of eHealth devices.

Microdata means Control

The concept of Home Automation has been around for over sixty years, yet still has not taken off. There are many reasons for that, including proprietary systems that won’t work with each other, cost and the fact that most of them are too complicated to set up.

With Wibree, things have the chance to change – particularly the problem of configuration. Every enabled mobile phone can be used to set up Wibree devices around the house. Like the example of local searching above, they don’t need special applications – they just display data sent from the host device and map button presses. It gives a simplicity of operation that means that Wibree can be used as a truly universal remote control. Any optional, additional complexity is handled in the device that is being controlled

As Wibree appears in these devices, the scope for remote control of other devices will appear. Gateway devices will also open up the possibility of remote access. Whether a large number of people will ever want to control their heating or white goods remotely is open to debate, but Wibree will be sneaking into the infrastructure of household goods for other reasons. Increasing concerns about energy and resource usage will require smarter washing machines and dishwashers that can talk to each other about how and when they’re working. The driver is likely to be flexible tariffs and government legislation, rather than consumer demand for the automated home. The day is coming when your utility company will decide when you can do your washing.

Ubiquitous microdata

There are places Wibree won’t go. It won’t go into light bulbs, but it’s debatable if wireless ever will. It will go into things that can talk to or be monitored via mobile networks, so will almost certainly become the choice for most consumer medical monitoring and lifestyle devices. By the same token and because of the simplicity of making basic control and display devices it will probably dominate the home automation market. Where interoperability or promiscuity aren’t required then applications will stick with proprietary wireless chips, but even these will change if the production volumes of Wibree drive it to be cheaper. It won’t go into mesh networks, but by taking the consumer applications away mesh will probably remain a niche market. Wibree certainly won’t kill other standards like ZigBee, but it will kill many of their wider ambitions.

Because of the volume it will achieve on the back of mobile phones, Wibree will become endemic. That means it is very well placed to be the wireless technology of choice to support any legislative initiative. Up until now, remote monitoring of devices has largely been ruled by the simple economics of justifying automation. The growing concerns about global warming and the need for better policing of domestic energy usage are already changing that equation. Governments with environmental targets to meet are mandating technology to provide more precise measurements of energy. Wireless Automated Meter Reading (AMR) is moving from trials to deployment after years of feasibility testing. It won’t be alone. Smart homes, smart transport, smart technology is becoming the mantra of the day, with wireless connectivity to ensure the timely arrival of data.

Hundreds of millions of deployed Wibree devices and gateways in the form of mobile phones is hard to argue against as the obvious enabler for these initiatives. The virtuous circle of specification and volume will ensure that Wibree becomes the pre-eminent wireless standard. As most of those devices will depend on the Wibree link for their operation it’s also likely to become the most used wireless standard. And that usage will drive its cost down until it becomes inconceivable not to add it to a new product.

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The dial-up Bluetooth ALP will address the mass consumer market that does not want to spend $45 to $55 per month on a continual basis for broadband but is willing to spend a reasonable, onetime outlay for the benefits of untethered surfing and printing from their couch without installing a WLAN home network. If advertised and marketed aggressively enough, this could help to increase consumers’ knowledge of the benefits of products that offer Bluetooth cordless functionality then translate that knowledge into revenue. If not advertised and promoted effectively, these products could be slow to take off.

A greater level of consumer awareness of what Bluetooth is and what benefits it offers is the key to unlocking the box of consumer demand. Though knowledge is increasing, the low level of familiarity of Bluetooth by the average consumer is ensuring that mobile phone operators are still not feeling the consumer demand for Bluetooth-enabled handsets. Nokia and Motorola are very common phones in the United States, but Ericsson is not. Sony Ericsson has been the most aggressive Bluetooth-enabled handset manufacturer to date, but there has not been a significant push or driver thus far in the United States.

Since operators subsidize so many phones, it is necessary for them to see some benefit to offering Bluetooth-enabled phones to their subscribers. So they need to reap a return in terms of customer loyalty (for lower churn), obtaining new subscribers, or revenue. Driver safety alone could be a significant trump card in offering subscribers additional benefits. If operators begin to bundle mobile phones and Bluetooth headsets in an aggressive manner, in conjunction with a marketing campaign targeting hands-free use in vehicles for safety, demand could increase quickly.

On the acquisition front, comments were recently flying around regarding the acquisition of Ericsson Microelectronics by Infineon Technologies. The deal is expected to close in about two months. Infineon gains the module business via Ericsson, inroads to supplying semiconductors into wireless infrastructure and a supplementary customer list. Previously, STMicroelectronics began its acquisition of the wireline and wireless groups of Alcatel Microelectronics, while American Microsystems Inc. began its acquisition of Alcatel Micro’s mixed signal group. The acquisitions of Ericsson Microelectronics and Alcatel Microelectronics do not directly affect current market shares of Bluetooth chipsets.

Recent announcements by Texas Instruments for a $4 (BOM) Bluetooth solution via a ROM-based single chip and by Infineon Technologies for sub-$3.75 pricing (both high volumes) have set a new bar. Both use leading 0.13-micron RE CMOS processes, and volume production is planned for Q12003. Philips Semiconductors announced an affiance with Ericsson Technology Licensing for audio/video solutions. For space-constrained applications, Motorola will go into production in Q4 with a stacked chipset die solution in a 7mm-by-7mm-by-1.6mm BGA package. The price will be the same for the company’s separate radio and baseband.

Coexistence solutions were demonstrated by Silicon Wave (Blue802) and Zeevo (alternate wireless media access, or AWMA). Neither is based on the not-yet-finalized adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) scheme. These mechanisms are geared especially toward the PC market since the front-end can get overloaded in co-located situations (such as a laptop), which can still present a problem with AFH. The first coexistence solutions to hit the shelves are expected in the next six to nine months.

In-Stat/MDR estimates Bluetooth chipset shipments will climb from 10.4 million units in 2001 to 48 million this year, growing to 150 million in 2003.

Joyce Putcher is director and principal analyst of InStat/MDR’s Converging Markets & Technologies Group. She can be reached at jputscher@instat.com. InStat/MDR owned by Reed Business Information, the parent company of Electronic News.

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