It’s time to pop the bubbly—Blyk turns 1 in India! Time sure flies when you’re having fun. And the year gone by has been nothing if not fun. From launching our services to having a subscriber base of 1.68 million opt-in profile members, the journey has been extremely thrilling.

Take a moment to absorb that number: 1,680,000 young (16 to 29 years old) people in India have voluntarily chosen Blyk and given it permission to send them marketing messages from the brands we have tied up with.

Since they have voluntarily given permission to be contacted and have shared their basic information, it makes for a very potent mix for advertisers. Our formula is simple: Basic Targeting + Behavioural Targeting (based on responses) = Relevant Content + Relevant Ads. The result—an impressive 25 percent response rate.

For the consumers, it is a no-fuss service where they get to enjoy deals, information and more in the areas they want—and only in the areas they want. At a time when SMS spam is driving people up the wall, here is a service that only sends them relevant information that they asked for. It never crosses the line between permission-based marketing and spam. Never. And this is why we are able to add 3500-4000 members every day.

In the one year of our existence in India, we have acquired deep insights into the mind of the Indian youth. We have been able to bridge brands with their consumers and built a successful three-way relationship.

In the coming years, I have no doubt we will increase our subscriber base and our client base exponentially. Our ambition, however, is to continue to enhance the user experience—both for the consumers and for the brands. Cheers!

The title doesn’t refer to my willingness to please. In fact, it refers to people who are the most difficult to please—consumers. In my last post, I talked about a study brought out by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) on permission-based mobile marketing. The premise it works on is that if you get a buy-in from consumers, your marketing efforts can become more targeted and yield higher return on investment.

The study says that permission based mobile marketing helps marketers in a big way by helping them send out focused messaging to only those consumers who would be more interested in that message. It helps them break away from the clutter and avoid sending out spam-like broad-based messages that ultimately don’t result in much value against the advertising investment.

Over time, this becomes a much richer way of segmenting customer bases, offering even more value to consumers and producing a better return on investment. Because you are asking the consumers for their preferences, the likelihood on them responding to the target message is higher.

It also helps create a more long-term, engaging relationship between a brand and its consumers. The intangible benefit that brands and marketers draw from this is that consumers are also more likely to trust a brand or service that values them. This develops into a more sustained engagement, rather than a one-off interaction. And over time, this engagement makes for brand loyalists and ultimately ambassadors for the brand.

Relationships based on mutual respect and trust last the longest. With permission based mobile marketing, brands can develop exactly this kind of relationship.

If I asked you nicely and gave you deals, discounts and gifts against things you wanted to buy anyway, would you allow me to share my marketing message with you? That is the premise that permission-based mobile marketing works on. It is marketing that has a buy-in from the target audience. It is not just about transactions, but about building a dialog between the consumer and the brand.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) recently came out with a white paper detailing case studies from around the world on permission-based mobile marketing. Supplied by the MMA Task Force, of which Blyk was a part, the case studies illustrate what I have long held—if you get a consumer buy-in with customised and targeted marketing, instead of blind mass-dissemination, you have a consumer for life.

The basic premise of permission-based mobile marketing is simple—it is about value exchange. It is a tacit agreement between the consumer and the brand. In exchange for their contact information and personal preferences, consumers expect the brand to respect their privacy even as it offers them value in tangibles like coupons, offers, deals, samples, or intangibles like apps and content.

It is essentially a four-step process. You start with giving the consumers the chance (and, of course, a compelling reason) to opt in. When they do, we can create a database of their preferences, which are then shared with the brands. The preference profiles are kept updated so that the engagement remains relevant for the both, the consumer and the brand.

For the brand, the benefit is the potential of a long-term relationship and compelling engagement with the consumer. And we all know that translates into higher return on investment. For the mobile networks, it is a chance to increase customer satisfaction and stand out among their peers with compelling content.

The study also illustrated that this type of marketing is best suited for a device as personal as the mobile phone. It is a device that offers the best one-to-one platform for interaction, giving the consumer personalized content and services.

Even though it is new in India, permission-based mobile marketing is already beginning to take off. After all, gives Indian consumers what they’ve never had—a break from being treated by marketers as just a huge mass.