Premium Rate - Phsycic, Competitions, Chat, Sms

[geevlus]

I've heard a thing or two about these services and their ability to generate good income. I've had a bit of a look around, and have made contact with a company baswed here, in the UK. This company has offered to set up a Phsycic Premium rate service and a Competition. service ( they provide the Phsycic and the comp. prizes ), which I then promote in press, glossy mags etc. In addition to the above they will supply a website for each service and, more importantly 5000 Leaflets advertising each service, which I would have to distribute/arrange distribution in my local area. The revenue generated is split approx 60/40 between the provider and I.

As I understand it a few members of thaivisa promote these services, and as a result of my previous thread I have received a pm from one, which didn't really tell me that much. Anybody with experience willing to give me some advice on the above deal? The capital outlay is £190 (GBP) for both services. What type of response would I get from these direct mailings?

[steveromagnino]

I've heard a thing or two about these services and their ability to generate good income. I've had a bit of a look around, and have made contact with a company baswed here, in the UK. This company has offered to set up a Phsycic Premium rate service and a Competition. service ( they provide the Phsycic and the comp. prizes ), which I then promote in press, glossy mags etc. In addition to the above they will supply a website for each service and, more importantly 5000 Leaflets advertising each service, which I would have to distribute/arrange distribution in my local area. The revenue generated is split approx 60/40 between the provider and I.

As I understand it a few members of thaivisa promote these services, and as a result of my previous thread I have received a pm from one, which didn't really tell me that much. Anybody with experience willing to give me some advice on the above deal? The capital outlay is £190 (GBP) for both services. What type of response would I get from these direct mailings?

My guess is that if it isn't in Thai, you are probably wasting your time, if you are thinking of diong it here.

If in Thai, then bear in mind that you have MANY competitors besides which phsyics there are good ones and bad ones and unknown ones; unless you have a 'name' you are going to be behind the 8 ball.

In a best case scenario, assume response rate of say 2%. Middle case assume 0.5%. Bad case 0.01%. You might get up to 10% response if you really knew a single segment and hit that segment up; e.g. Hindi mothers with alcoholic husbands for a Hindi language alcoholic support for spouses line...but I don't know if your model works that way?

That is...for 5000 leaflets, in best case, you will get 100 responses. Abosolute best case I'd say. Work from there, should be in a ball park, not that i know anything about this industry, but I do know about response rates in other industries, and this one is probably more prone to non response than most.

[geevlus]

Intend on protmoting in the uk, if successful, whilst in Los.

[simon43]

Hi Geevlus, I operate a number of these premium rate services in the UK. (By operate, I mean that I write the application software and then promote the service...)

You can usually find some companies who will set up these types of services for free, (or a very low charge). 190 pounds is 190 pounds off your revenue, so do another search on Google...

Your expense for this type of business will be the promotion of it. So you need to eg - place adverts in magazines/newspapers or online. To find the best publication/website to target your customers takes experience and knowledge of the market. So you could find yourself out of pocket because you have placed adverts in the wrong publications!

To give you a realistic idea of response, if I send out 10,000 free promotional text messages to my database of customers, maybe 200 will actually go and use the service. (2%).

If I place a full page advert in 'The Daily Sport' for 1,350 pounds, I will maybe get 200 replies again.

You can only achieve a profit if your customers come back for more. With psychic/horoscope services, that is actually quite likely.

But remember - there are many, many other people promoting these types of services. Why should they respond to your advert, as opposed to their advert?

Good luck - but I'd look around again before you spend that 190 pounds.

Simon

[Valehree]

Hi there

I used to set up & run Premium rate subsidiaries for a french company ; that was 5 years ago and on opening markets (Eastern EU, Asia) so my info might be outdated/inadequate for a sms booming and very crowded UK market..

Still your leaflet thing has me worried

As a comparative we used to have a best response rate of 5% but out of TV adds, TV partnerships or TV magazine adds ..by far the 3 best media for advertising premium rate services

Clearly TVmagazines and TVcommercials mean quite a budget (even though TV adds are NEVER prime time but morning and late night slots if you want return on investment)

TV partnerships depend on your adress books/salesman talent & creativity (now THIS goes prime time and brings in big cash!)

but leaflets... truth is we never tried and I would never have considered it considering

1) traditional low response rate of direct mailing

2) the fact that the 5% response rate mentionned above is, in premium services, mostly due to the same people calling over and over (doesn't help with point 1))

3) how do you target a consumer group ?

4) how do you evaluate what works ? (premium rate services is one of the only product in the world where you get "immediate" concrete results: the number of calls.. you might wanna use that to better your promotion strategy)

There is 1 rather cheap way to advertise psychic/horoscope numbers (provided it is authorized in UK) : through the Classified section of newspapers

This usually is a good medium and has a good return on investment, the latest being quite low

If I were you, but this is only my opinion, I would forget the leaflets and invest the £190 in classidied adds (or any printed TVmag add you can afford) instead. At least playing with tel numbers and printing dates you would be able to evaluate which publications/adds work and capitize on those for further benefits

Hope this helps

Bon courage