Sales strategy in the cellular business is beginning to hint of mass marketing auto-dealer style. “Free phone with activation!” is about as persuasive as, “One-thousand dollars cash back when you buy any 96’van in stock!”
Granted, a free phone still may be a great deal, but like car ads, the excitement has worn off because everybody’s doing it, and they have been doing it for awhile.
Allen Wills, a marketing and sales veteran in wireless, aims to capitalize on what he has observed in the current world of cellular advertising-clutter. He founded Sellmore Inc. earlier this year to offer cellular carriers a new kind of sales incentive, travel.
As a result of competitive we’ll-beat-any-deal style marketing, carriers only differentiate themselves through the price of service, explained Wills. He said giving away phones devalues a carrier’s cellular service in a consumer’s mind and monetarily hurts carriers, which spend $400 to $800 per customer in acquisition costs. “They’re cannibalizing their core product,” in particular airtime and service, said Wills.
Instead, “carriers need [to offer] something with high apparent value in the minds of consumers, but without increasing significantly their acquisition costs,” said Wills.
“To the majority of people, travel is something [they] like to do,” said Wills.
The Breakthrough Marketing Program includes travel vouchers, in-store collateral, pre-designed advertisements for print, radio and billboard, and suggestions for selling phones and service using travel as a sales incentive.
Travel will work well just to motivate a sale, said Wills, but also can be used for “upsells,” said Wills. If a customer shows interest in a basic service calling package that comes with a weekend getaway, the carrier may be able to sell a higher-use and more expensive calling package by offering a three- day, four-night cruise instead.
Similarly, a carrier may offer a better travel package if the customer signs a two-year instead of a one-year contract. Cellular “carriers need to gain as much market share as possible,” before personal communications services launch full-scale into the market, explained Wills. “The goal is to get customers to sign up for two years.”
Sellmore’s program also includes a referral incentive plan, whereby a customer is rewarded with a trip once they have referred a specified amount of new customers.
A travel certificate for a two-day, three-night stay would cost a carrier as little as $25 and a three-day, four-night cruise would cost between $100 and $125, said Wills.
The company is in the process of securing properties to be offered by its carrier clients. Radisson Hotels has signed on with Sellmore and a deal is on the table with Carnival Cruises, said Wills. Wills said the properties Sellmore has contracted offer accommodations with no seasonal restrictions and only 60 days advanced notice required.
He is starting to market the program to carriers, big and small, but has not yet signed any contracts.
Wills recently served as vice president of sales and marketing for Rural Cellular Management Co. He held the same title previously with General Cellular.
