Klein Karoo Seed Marketing gains informal market knowledge with Globetom SMS competition

An SMS competition, enabled by Globetom's GP3 and iWin solutions, offered KKSM Zambia's customers free airtime when they SMSed the unique code, found on the inside of the purchased seed bag, along with their name and location. This allowed KKSM to gather customer information such as gender, age, usage patterns, geographic location and customers' variety preferences. This is assisting it to build a credible customer database and improve its ability to market and sell to its customers.

"This solution is an example of the company's platform innovation where the GP3 delivers a loyalty and voucher management solution and the Wireless Application Service Provider (WASP) iWin platform, were readily leveraged for incremental customer pull innovation. The company was able to meet our client's requirements quickly, by leveraging existing technology. Additionally, due to our very high degree of IPR ownership, with limited third party supplier costs, we were able to offer KKSM a cost effective solution," says Philip Stander, MD of Globetom.

"With our iWin platform, we set up a short code that customers could message into, and an SMS channel in order to deliver airtime pins back to the customer as a reward."

The company's GP3 platform is used by BayoZam for electronic prepaid distribution in Zambia and was used to record KKSM's customer information and generate electronic voucher pins for two and five Kwacha that was sent to customers. BayoZam then provided KKSM Zambia detailed reporting on when vouchers were redeemed, where and by whom.

Kevin Kleemann Wright, MD for Klein Karoo Seed Marketing Zambia, says, "The competition is still being tested out in the market but this idea has already allowed us to gain invaluable insight into our customers.

"By allowing us to build a customer database year-on-year we can see planting seasons in specific areas, which clients are returning and can send bulk SMS messages to specifically targeted groups with specifically targeted specials," Wright concludes.

For more information, go to www.globetom.co.za.