Chapter 221: Savage Growth

Following China Telecom, Focus Media successively spread big news, and subsequently announced reaching cooperation with China Unicom to undertake China Unicom's SMS business.

Holding the two major SMS platforms of China Telecom and China Unicom, Focus Media almost leaped to become the largest SMS business platform in the country. If you want to advertise via SMS, you have to find Focus Media!

The reason why China Telecom and China Unicom supported Focus Media so much was, of course, mainly because of Dongling High-Tech. Without Li Dongling and Dongling High-Tech, China Telecom and China Unicom would never have given Focus Media such treatment.

The profit from selling Little Smart mobile phones on behalf of others, as well as the large number of users brought by Little Smart, were the reasons why China Unicom and China Telecom favored Focus Media.

On the other hand, the SMS platform advertising proposed by Focus Media also aroused China Telecom's interest. If the SMS platform could be played, then undoubtedly, as operators, they could have another new source of profit revenue.

SMS was still a fashionable product now. Most domestic users only started playing with it after buying a Little Smart.

Now SMS could send at most seventy characters. The ten-cent-per-message SMS hadn't been too valued, or its value hadn't been discovered.

After all, ten cents was really inconspicuous. No one would have thought how big the market would be, but after Focus Media entered the market, the situation was somewhat different.

Especially after Dongling High-Tech invested in Focus Media, everyone noticed that SMS was already a market of one million users. Even if one user sent one text message, that was 100,000 yuan. But could a user only send one text message?!

The entire Little Smart mobile phone user base was expanding at an astonishing speed, increasing visibly. Focus Media entering the SMS market made people float with wild imagination—just how big was this market?

After Focus Media was established, Li Yan officially recruited troops and horses, recruiting technical and ground-push personnel. Technical personnel prepared to build the Focus SMS management platform, and ground-push personnel were looking for merchants to find Focus Media to place advertisements.

"Focus Media is a company cooperating with Little Smart, China Telecom, and China Unicom. Our users are divided into urban users, provincial users, and national users. According to your needs, you can choose the user group to place advertisements..."

In an auto repair shop in Guangzhou that was preparing to open, Liang Weidong, a salesperson for Focus Media in Guangdong Province, was selling hard to Boss Yu of the auto repair shop.

Now Focus Media's SMS mass-sending platform was still in the intense development and construction stage, but the recruited salespeople had already started to move out.

SMS mass-sending software had no difficulty in technology. The entry threshold for this market was not high. It mainly required the support of operators. After all, only operators could provide so many user SMS numbers. Another thing was to attract enough advertisers.

In the early stage, when the potential and influence of SMS were not seen, it was difficult for Focus to find cooperation with giant companies in industries like securities and insurance. It could only first find auto repair shops, supermarkets, and other companies in the city to place advertisements.

Although the sale time of Little Smart in Guangzhou and Guangdong Province was later than in Hanxi, the economy here was more developed than in other regions, users had higher incomes, and the demand for Little Smart was naturally greater.

But no matter how dry Liang Weidong's mouth was from talking, Boss Yu of this auto repair shop, who was preparing to open, was somewhat indifferent to the set he said. Just when he felt that there was no hope, he heard Boss Yu in front of him blurt out a sentence.

"Is it like the Little Smart advertisement, using SMS to notify car owners to come over?!"

"Yes, yes!"

Liang Weidong said hurriedly. He had said a lot, but it wasn't as useful as directly moving out the Little Smart advertisement.

"Just like in the advertisement, we can help your auto repair shop notify Little Smart mobile phone users to come here for car repairs via SMS. Now, users with Little Smart mobile phones may not all have cars, but users with cars definitely all have Little Smarts!" Liang Weidong said.

Hearing this, Boss Yu's eyes lit up. It was indeed as Liang Weidong said. Those who bought Little Smarts might not be able to afford cars, but those who had cars, and even drivers, had all bought Little Smarts. After all, there were no other mobile phone brands to choose from now.

"If I place an opening advertisement in your company, how much will it cost?!" Boss Yu hesitated for a moment before asking.

"Four thousand yuan. We, Focus Media, will help the auto repair shop place opening advertisements to 30,000 Little Smart mobile phone users in Guangzhou at once. If you need to send advertisements to more Little Smart mobile phones in Guangzhou, the cost might be higher!" Liang Weidong said.

"I'll place an advertisement!"

After thinking for a while, Boss Yu said directly. The advertising cost of 4,000 yuan was just the money for placing a few advertisements in the newspaper. Don't even think about placing advertisements on TV with this little money. Trying it out, even if the effect wasn't good, it wouldn't be too much of a loss.

Hearing this, Liang Weidong felt a joy in his heart and hurriedly took out the mobile phone assigned to salespeople by Focus Media, asking the company's legal department to send a contract over.

This Little Smart mobile phone was also one of the entry benefits of Focus Media. As long as you signed the contract and joined the job, you could be assigned a Little Smart to use. As long as you worked for three full years, even if you resigned, this mobile phone would still belong to the user.

This machine tied the hearts of Liang Weidong and a group of salespeople. Plus, there was a rumor within Focus Media that the treatment would lean toward Dongling High-Tech in the future, and there would even be a chance to be assigned to the Oriental Garden residential area prepared by Dongling High-Tech for employees.

So even if he suffered white eyes during promotion and was often rejected, Liang Weidong didn't give up. And today's order was also Liang Weidong's first order since joining the job. For the 4,000-yuan order, China Telecom had to take away 2,400 yuan, and the remaining 1,600 yuan was the profit belonging to Focus Media.

As for Liang Weidong, for this order, Focus Media gave him a 5% commission, which was 200 yuan for one order, equivalent to more than ten days' wages for a full-time worker!

But this was just the beginning. If Focus Media made it in the future, perhaps Liang Weidong wouldn't need to run around to pull clients; people would come to his door to send him performance...

The first person to eat crab often gets a mouthful of oil. Liang Weidong and these first batch of salespeople who joined Focus Media had a chance to make a big profit in the future. Their net worth might soar rapidly. Although sales were indeed not easy to do, it did temper a person's ability. If they entered the doorway, it could allow a person to complete a transformation rapidly, and even complete the accumulation of net worth.

The order Liang Weidong received was actually the first order for Focus Media in Guangzhou and Guangdong Province after its establishment. Focus Media also attached great importance to it. After the Focus SMS mass-sending platform was built, technical personnel were immediately sent over.

Early in the morning, after a burst of firecrackers, Boss Yu's auto repair shop officially started work. Boss Yu was also a bit nervous. He had taken out all his savings of so many years for this auto repair shop. If he lost money, all these years would have been in vain.

Approaching nine o'clock—this was what Liang Weidong told Boss Yu last night—was the opening time for his auto repair shop for Focus Media SMS mass-sending. This mass-sending was aimed at local users in Guangzhou. Besides the brand and address of Boss Yu's auto repair shop, the SMS also included things like car owners who came for repairs and maintenance today could enjoy a 15% discount with the SMS, and also get a free car wash!

Whether this mode of advertising via SMS worked or not, let alone Boss Yu who was looking forward to it at this moment, even Liang Weidong, who had arrived here early, had no bottom in his heart.

Just when various thoughts were emerging in the minds of Liang Weidong and Boss Yu, a dusty Jetta drove over. The car owner rolled down the car window with his hand and showed the SMS on his hand to Boss Yu, "Is it really a 15% discount for car repair today, and a free car wash?"

"Yes!"

After Boss Yu reacted, he said hurriedly, directly letting the Jetta drive into the auto repair shop.

After the first car came over, Boss Yu's auto repair shop never stopped. Cars drove over one after another. Soon, this originally wide roadside was actually starting to be filled with cars, and the entire auto repair shop was starting to get busy crazy at this time.

Looking at the unusually busy auto repair shop, Liang Weidong let out a long sigh of relief at this time. When it was time for a meal, Boss Yu insisted on pulling Liang Weidong into a restaurant, claiming that his auto repair shop wanted to cooperate with Focus Media for a long time.

This morning, how many cars came to Boss Yu's auto repair shop and how many orders were taken, Liang Weidong didn't know, but looking at Boss Yu's completely different attitude from before, Liang Weidong felt that he was probably really earning quite a bit...

In the afternoon, Guangzhou media even ran over to join in the fun. In the evening, Guangzhou evening news reported on Boss Yu's auto repair shop, which became the store with the largest car flow in Guangzhou today relying on Focus Media's SMS advertisements!

This news report was, of course, public relations done by Focus Media, but the effect was remarkable. After the news report came out, Liang Weidong's mobile phone was directly blown up. First, various repair shops in Guangzhou all called one after another, looking for Focus Media to place advertisements.

Later, local supermarkets, clothing stores, and even some big companies started looking for Focus Media to place advertisements. And industries like securities, insurance, and banks also saw the potential of SMS advertising.

Not only in Guangzhou, but in cities with many Little Smart mobile phone users like Beijing and Shanghai, Focus Media's orders also suddenly started to increase.

Seeing the SMS advertising mode set off by Focus Media, a large batch of companies related to SMS advertising suddenly emerged.

There were those promoting SMS weather subscriptions, and people and companies specializing in producing SMS works also emerged. Like SMS jokes, SMS love words, SMS stories, etc., all had people specifically editing and writing them. Even professional SMS writers started to appear, and publishing houses also moved with the wind, starting to publish books teaching people how to write text messages. For a time, the entire SMS industry became extremely hot.

Seeing this savage growth of the SMS industry, Li Dongling shook his head. In later generations, if anyone dared to use SMS to place advertisements so unscrupulously, they would have been scolded to the point of being bloody. But now, there was no explicit regulation on SMS advertising by law, which led to SMS being regarded as a gold mine by countless people, all wanting to share a piece of the pie.

But this savage growth did indeed make more people familiar with SMS, which caused the demand for SMS to surge. Countless companies and practitioners started to make a living relying on the ten-cent SMS fee, and practitioners could even be counted as high-paying professionals!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 222 =====