Does Safaricom Really ‘Know’ Who I Am When They Run Their SMS Marketing Campaigns? They Should, But I Don’t Think So!

I can’t imagine a business or brand in Kenya that has as much first-party data on its customers as Safaricom does. Safaricom knows who we call, or text, our geolocation at any given time, what we do on the Internet, what we pay for using M-Pesa, our Government validated KYC details, and everything else in between, all through our ever present and connected mobile phones.

To put all of this into context, as of this writing, Safaricom is the largest mobile network in Kenya with 50+ million subscribers, and still growing. This makes Safaricom also the largest digital platform in Kenya, as far as I know, bigger than Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp), Google, Linkedin, Twitter /X, and anything else that’s out there, except perhaps for the Government of Kenya’s eCitizen platform.

So, all things considered, I find it somewhat baffling when I get Safaricom’s ever present SMS marketing messages such as the attached for their Home Internet which seems to miss the mark for a number of reasons. For sure the 25% discount offer seems compelling to honest and it also goes as far as stating that the service is available in my area.

But then, the call to action, or ‘CTA’, requires me to start a separate USSD session in order to take advantage of the offer which seems archaic to me when Safaricom could have simply used a web-based link that I could instantly open to submit my details, if interested. This is NOT a hard thing to do.

However, I still proceeded to attempt signing up on USSD and this where the cookie truly crumbled. The first issue is that instead of taking me directly to the Home Internet offer, I was presented with a slew of different Internet services which could be confusing for the average consumer. It also feels like Safaricom is employing a ‘spray and pray’ marketing approach, trying to reach anyone and everyone, instead personalizing the USSD menu specifically to match the offer in the SMS marketing message I received.

Anyway, I then picked the home internet offer and was presented with the next menu where I chose the Nairobi Metropolitan Area and then attempted to locate my location which was not listed as one of the options on the menu. This left me stumped since I basically could not proceed to sign-up on this basis alone, which essentially failed to convert me as a customer and yet the initial SMS message I got from Safaricom clearly stated that Safaricom’s Home Internet service is available where I live. SMH.

The truth of the matter though is that Safaricom’s Home Internet service is actually available where I live but this customer sign-up process did not have these details represented. From my perspective, instead of using USSD, Safaricom could simply have embedded a website link that would let me sign-up and also use my mobile number and geolocation to automate the process of confirming service availability — and even go as far as automating the sign-up process, if possible, since Safaricom ‘knows’ who I am with all my KYC details on file.

Basically, If Safaricom could correlate and harness all their rich first-party data for all their subscribers across all their offerings and massive network coverage, including M-Pesa transaction details as the largest mobile money service in Kenya, these SMS marketing campaigns could be far more targeted, personalized, and performative in terms of generating and even exceeding the desired customer acquisition outcomes.

In a nutshell, digital marketing that leverages first-party data means ‘not guessing’ and instead ‘knowing’ how best to reach the desired customer segments that meet the criteria for the many different offerings that Safaricom has in its formidable arsenal. Doing so would enable Safaricom to better cross-sell and up-sell their service offerings in a more seamless and impactful manner at scale by leveraging data-based insights at the core.