Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in India?

Posted by swapsmagic on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:38AM
from the ask-hn dept.

We have a service through which we send out our users their indian railway ticket status updates. The updates goes through SMS/Email. 90% of our users provide us their mobile number to get the status update via SMS. But we haven't figured out yet how we can monetize those SMSes. Any idea/suggestion?

( 5 comments | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in ... by bharathwaaj on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:45AM (#5807349)

You can slowly move from this to cloud telephony sector offering SMBs sms feature. Competitive price and easy user interface along with analytics on ROI should provide an edge.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in ... by swapsmagic on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:58AM (#5807376)

I think, i didn't provide much information in the question. We have a website where user subscribe with their Mobile No. and Indian Railway PNR. We send them their PNR status updates via bulk SMS package which we have bought from some third party service. Now each SMS cost us money, but we didn't figure out how we can make money by sending SMS to thouse users. (i.e. putting advertisement in SMS, but didn't find any Ad network provide such feature for SMS).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in ... by Sven7 on Sunday June 02, 2013 @07:07AM (#5808052)

Talk to advertisers - groupm, jivox, timesgroup etc

Tell them you can provide ad targeting based on age/location/sex/income(based on age+compartment type)

Doors will open

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in ... by swapsmagic on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @04:19PM (#5821876)

One question: How can we get age from the railway ticket number? I don't think indian railway discloses passenger age on their website.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: How to monetize free SMS notification service in ... by swapsmagic on Sunday June 02, 2013 @06:30PM (#5810367)

Thanks for the details. Will contact them for the advertisement.

[ Parent | on HN ]