An interesting idea that can emerge is the ability to let a business communicate effectively with its customers (present or future) via push-based channels. After all, it is customers that generate the revenue. This is what Google enables a business to do – get new customers to a website. Google does it for businesses that have an online presence. But it does nothing for businesses that may not have an online presence – and that is one of the opportunities that we can tap into. It can also work well as an awareness spreading tool.
Here is how it would work. A Customer is identified by an Address — either an email ID or a mobile number. These two may or may not be linked. The customer address (email ID, mobile number) may also have certain Attributes linked with it. In addition, a customer can also be given an opportunity to enhance their profile. <any such Customer Addresses make up a Database. A database can be created for a business in one of four ways: existing DB (semi-opt-in), future DB (built around opt-in), dynamic DB (built via queries run on a set of Addresses), media DB (like MyToday SMS).
Communication to this database happens primarily via Push-based channels — email and SMS. This is perhaps the biggest change in India in the past five years. Today, over 350 million Indians have mobile phones and 75 million Indians have email addresses — both these numbers are many times what the equivalent numbers were in 2004.
The key question: how to make this Push-based Customer Communications a reality? This is one business that could scale well globally, with India being the first market.
