Jax Say Hello, a startup that has built a technology platform for delivering voice ads to information seekers, has launched several services while continuing to seek strategic partners to increase its customer base and expand to new markets. Among the new features on Jax Say Hello, which began operating Sept. 8, 2007, is a channel for delivering merchant coupons on-demand via mobile phone text message. Others are on-demand traffic reports, cheapest gasoline price search, driving directions and airline flight schedules.
“We’re really blazing some new trails that people wouldn’t expect from a Jacksonville company,” founder and CEO Jim Geddes said.
Jax Say Hello provides free information — including directory assistance, weather, movie listings and reviews, sports scores and lottery results — after callers hear a 12-second advertisement. The company’s pitch to advertisers is that – while television and radio advertising require a random connection with consumers interested in a particular product or service – Jax Say Hello targets each message to a captive listener.
The company’s platform can match local advertisers with callers in their areas. When a directory assistance caller asks for a phone number, the system looks for advertisers in the vicinity of the number being sought.
Although the company is categorized as part of the free directory assistance industry, Geddes believes Jax Say Hello needs to be — and is — more than that. “If the only time your ad plays is when a user just happens to need a phone number, it’s not enough,” he said. “You need to create a plethora of other reasons for people to call.”
Jax Say Hello’s in-house statistical dashboard shows it has captured more than 10 percent of the local directory assistance market. It also shows a high repeat-usage rate with 89 percent to 94 percent of calls per day coming from repeat callers. The Kelsey Group, a research company covering electronic directories, concluded that local advertisers will pay much more for pay-per-call ads than online pay-per-click ads.
As much as Geddes is convinced his company’s concept and platform can work anywhere, he’s equally certain the company can’t move into multiple markets without strategic partners. More than $1.5 million has been invested into the company so far. “There’s no way to scale like I wanted to,” he said.
The company is no longer working with the Florida Times-Union, which is dealing with financial and circulation problems for advertising sales support, Geddes said. He had initially hoped to work with newspapers, thinking their advertising departments could cross-sell the 12-second spots and placement on Jax Say Hello’s new coupon channel. But the idea of relying on that industry has generated lukewarm response from venture capital firms. “They don’t want you to have something between you and the customers,” Geddes said. “They like to have portfolio companies that have a relationship with their customers.”
Jax Say Hello has broadened the types of companies it’s looking to work with to include Yellow Pages and traditional coupon publishers. The company’s coupon channel enables callers to navigate a menu of categories using voice commands to see if there are any coupons available for what they’re planning to buy. Once a caller identifies a desired coupon, the system can send it as a text message that can be presented as if it had been clipped from a newspaper insert or received in a mass mailing.
Let us hear your thoughts below: