OnlineTel's Diverse Revenue Mix Includes Unique Free-Minutes Marketing Program Sponsored by Labatt Brewery

The Challenge
While more conservative telecom providers are still scratching their heads about how to generate profits in an imploding market, Onlinetel is using VoIP to generate a wide variety of profitable revenue streams – including a unique promotional partnership with Canada's popular Labatt Brewery. And the company is achieving this diverse VoIP revenue mix by leveraging the unique functionality and adaptability of Quintum Technologies' awardwinning Tenor VoIP switching platform.

The Labatt promotional program, dubbed "Labatt BlueLine," is fairly straightforward. It allows Labatt customers who sign up at their favorite watering hole or via the Web to call anywhere in Ontario for free. In return, they listen to a very brief promotional announcement at the beginning of their call. It's a highly economical program for Labatt relative to other advertising media, and it allows the brewery to build a database of active customers for future promotions – something that is typically very difficult for a brewery to do.

That database includes information about the user's age, weekly alcohol consumption and current beer brand preferences, enabling Labatt to direct different promotions at different market segments. More than 50% of Labatt BlueLine subscribers have "opted in" for Labatt to contact them for promotions, versus an average opt-in rate of only 15-25% for other types of marketing programs. About 1,000 new subscribers are being signed up every day – many of whom primarily drink competing brands. The Labatt BlueLine program has also created both goodwill with customers and significant PR in the region.

From its inception in July 2002 through December, the program has generated almost 100 million minutes for Onlinetel. Total savings to consumers are estimated at around $4 million.

Quintum's Tenor® Solution: Ideal for Innovative VoIP Applications

Operationally, the program works in a similar manner to a calling card application, with users' minutes billed by Onlinetel to the Labatt account. Subscribers are entered into the program's database on either a self-service basis via the Web, or by a Labatt marketing staffer working at a local establishment.

By using VoIP, Onlinetel can offer Labatt a very low cost-per-minute while still enjoying acceptable margins on the traffic.

By combining calling-card access, VoIP cost savings, and interactive voice response services, Onlinetel was able to create an application that put Labatt in closer touch with its market, while saving beer-drinkers millions in phone charges.

"The program has been a real three-way win," says Onlinetel CTO Jason Jakob. "Consumers get free calls, Labatt gets incredibly valuable interaction with Ontario's beerdrinking public, and Onlinetel gets millions of profitable minutes."

According to Jakob, there are several reasons why the Quintum VoIP platform was best suited for his company's unique marketing approach.

By combining calling-card access, VoIP cost savings, and interactive voice response services, Onlinetel was able to create an application that put Labatt in closer touch with its market – while saving beer-drinkers millions in phone charges.

High Reliability and Performance
Quintum's Tenor switches offered a highly reliable, high-performance gateway for moving voice traffic on and off his leased VoIP network.

Seamless Integration
Quintum's IVR (interactive voice response) capabilities integrated seamlessly with Onlinetel's call management-and-accounting systems.

Value-Added Engineering Services
Quintum's engineering team was both willing and able to make the custom modifications necessary to ensure the program's success.

"We tried working with Cisco, but we really couldn't get past Square One with them," recalls Jakob. "Quintum, on the other hand, was very responsive to our needs and had more of the functionality we needed already built in to their Tenor products."

In addition to using his Tenor-based VoIP network to support the Labatt promotion, Jakob is also capturing other revenue streams – including local termination of VoIP minutes for other telecom providers, pre-paid calling cards, paid subscription services and "10-10" long distance dial-around. "Quintum's support for a full range of voice codecs is critical to our ability to partner with companies using a full range of VoIP gear," says Jakob. "Quintum's VoIP solution have truly enabled us to be as creative, diversified and profitable as we are."

Jakob also notes that the success of his other VoIP-based services proves that everyone is happy with the voice quality provided by Tenor switches. "We continually survey users of our services to rate our quality, and we consistently get responses showing that we meet or exceed what they experience with conventional PSTN service."

Chuck Rutledge, Vice President of Marketing for Quintum, notes that Onlinetel's innovation is a prime example of how the right combination of business savvy and technical expertise can lead telecom providers into new, profitable markets. "Onlinetel has added value to voice calls by making them a powerful channel for consumer marketing," says Rutledge. "That 'out-of-the-box' thinking is critical to the long-term success of the telecom industry."

Conclusion

VoIP technology offers tremendous opportunities for unique, outside-the-box type of consumer marketing programs that provide free calling minutes in return for their participation. However, such programs require highly reliable VoIP infrastructure that can integrate effectively with IVR/calling card applications and marketing databases. With its high reliability and ease of integration, Quintum Technologies' Tenor switching platform is ideal for such marketing applications and has already been field-proven as an effective infrastructure component for a wide range of innovative, multipurpose VoIP network architectures.

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