Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

SMS advertising shares many of the same disadavantages as email marketing (Spam, getting contact information, permission, timing, etc).

Advantages:

it is immediate.
You reach customers literally at their belt or purse.
its very youth oriented.

Prove it's worth? Well, I'm embarking on a bar/restaurant marketing program with a few local clients, and we will be monitoring its worth in the most elemantal way: it HAS to produce profits and meet certain participation rates.

All marketing will be accountable in both participation rate (Response rate) and dollars in sales generated vs cost of producing/maintaining program (ROI).

So, make every ad trackable to your sales department. minitor your sends/vs number of custoemrs who respond. Thats it, that's all. Simple answer.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network

Additionally, the strategy used (such as SMS) is only as good as the target's potential for its use. If you can prove that your target audience uses SMS and finds value in it, the greater chance you have for proving its worth.

OK so you have opt-in and some demographic and a range of sociographic parameters.

Depending on what you are trying to sell, there may be a third dissection of the database - where they are at a given time. If you can spot them coming into range of a specific cell where something is on sale, you can make an offer to them on the spot while they are in the vicinity.

It sounds like a database of 5000 is quite small for this much dissection. Are the members of the database focused in a particular geographic area or region?