PAC (Postal Address Cleaning)

The service is ideal for using mobile as a data capture device in tandem with mobile marketing. Rather than sending out, in bulk, free samples of, say, washing powder to every home in a region or country, MIG allows brands to offer users a sample through a shortcode. They simply text their name and full address to the shortcode in the TV, online, mobile poster or display ad and will get a free sample.

What makes this tie up between the digital and physical worlds is that it offers some quite unique and valuable marketing opportunities. "With a free sample give away, it offers economies of scale - so that you are only sending samples to people who are genuinely interested in trying the product - and, perhaps even more valuable, you have those people's mobile details and address," says Nick Aldridge, Product Director at MIG.

This means that a free sample give-away generates a feedback mechanic, so that the give away is no longer a loss leader, but the price of generating some really useful data.

The system is also ideal for use in product fulfilment, says Aldridge. "For example, O2 ran a promotion so that when you bought a certain handset, you got a free printer. Rather than trying to stock each store with printers, they put a card in each handset box offering the free gift and details of what to text to a short code."

In principle both these services sound great, but the simplicity of the idea belies the problems with actually tying together a text message with a registered address and getting goods dispatched. And this is where the hard work has come in.

"It's simple in theory, but getting from this shortcode message to a product in the mail has always proved tricky," says Aldridge. "Tying MIDAS to the PAC system means that we can be now 90 per cent accurate first time with the text. The remaining 10 per cent is usually problems caused by people living in flats at a street address - say Flat 2, 44 High Street - or that they have entered their details incorrectly. With this we have to go back to them and ask for it again, if they are still interested they respond."

This is all ok for free samples and other marketing services, but when it comes to product fulfilment, the system has to deliver 100 per cent accuracy: everyone who wants a free O2 printer has to get one. In this instance any addresses that are not verified by the system are administered manually by MIG's client services team or by the client or fulfillment company themselves.

The product has been in use for three or four years, but now MIG has developed it so that it is a tool that sits on the MIDAS platform for any client to pay to use as licensed or managed service.

Want to learn more?
Please visit our website at www.migcan.com or call the MIG Sales Team on +44(0)207 921 5599.
Alternatively you can email us here business@migcan.com

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