Five Things Text-to-Give is Teaching eCommerce
by Amy LaniganTuesday, January 26th, 2010
Last year Alicia Keys asked American Idol watchers to text-to-give. It yielded $450K – the largest portion of the $4M total donated via mobile texts in 2009.
That record has been broken. As of last week, the Red Cross alone has received over $25M in text-to-give donations for Haiti. $3M in the first 24 hours. 25% of the overall Red Cross funds donated.
A devastating event + human generosity + mobile technology equals:
- A broad base of in-the-moment givers
- A momentous moment for mobile
The money raised to positively impact Haiti relief efforts is the biggest win. The implications for e/mCommerce though are incredibly exciting.
Here are the top five things I see text-to-give teaching us:
1. The power of “virtual” currency
Disney has Disney Dollars. Facebook and online games have their own currency. Chuck E. Cheese has tokens. Casinos transact in chips. Credit cards aren’t the same as cold hard cash. Whether we like it or not, these all leverage the fact that people are likely to spend more money when they’re not transacting in actual dollars. Text-to-buy via mobile creates this same sense of distance.
[Haiti donations efforts were focused on $5 and $10 donations. My colleague smartly asked, what if they’d allowed text codes with varying cash amounts (HAITI25, HAITI50, etc.)? Would donations be that much bigger?]
2. Mobile providers as payment systems
Text-to-give means that providers become the payment method. The $10 donation goes on our mobile bills and the providers reconcile with the non-profits to ensure that the donations reach their end destination. This puts providers in a powerful position.
It’s not a big leap to think about facilitating mCommerce purchases via text messaging. Mobile providers could become the next PayPal – taking a percentage on the pass-through before the order is delivered to a retailer.
3. Social sharing after an action
Companies are consumed with how to make their commerce and brands more social. Much of it is focused on sparking purchases through the power of social networks. What about making them social post-purchase?
People showed me the texts from their $10 text-to-give donations on their phones. And I, like many others, used social media to share the text “HAITI” to 90999 message after giving. It was viral in the truest sense of the word.
Donating online raised even more interesting lessons for eCommerce. OxFam provides connections to Twitter and Facebook on their donation confirmation pages and follow-up emails. Their calls to action from donors have consistently scrolled through my Facebook Wall since the tragedy.
This needs to happen more with ecommerce purchases. We need excited buyers sharing products purchased via simple functionality placed in the post-purchase communication stream.
4. A shift in point of sale location
Point of sale has traditionally meant candy bars, US Weekly magazines, socks, CDs or snow globes strategically placed near the checkout counter. In ecommerce it’s add an item to cart to get free shipping or cross-sell of items like this one that you may like.
With mobile, point of sale becomes anywhere a consumer happens to be standing. It can be completely out of the context of a store.
5. The importance of urgency
Disaster brings a type of urgency we’d never wish on anyone. But the efforts to aid Haiti reinforce the impact of urgency to catalyze action.
In the commerce realm, this is the success of HSN and QVC. eBay and auction sites have owned this online. They’ve been joined by the likes of Gilt, Ruelala, Ideeli and Groupon. Old Navy Weekly reinvented the online weekly ad by using this tactic (while keeping their Item of the Week promos still going strong). Urgency drives sales.
What are the implications that you see?
You can still give to the Haiti relief efforts through many organizations – $10 through text-to-give or more via online giving. I’m moved by the momentum. It’s by far my new favorite social media case study.
Cheers,
Amy
