National disability charity, Vitalise, has partnered with Oxygen8 Communications to launch a mobile communications campaign.

The charity, which offers short breaks for disabled people and carers at accessible centres across the UK, is using Oxygen8’s mobile platform to keep in touch with current donors and promote its services to potential benefactors via SMS, generating awareness of current fundraising activities, and letting people know how they can get involved. This is Vitalise’s first venture into mobile; it has previously used phone calls and letters to keep in touch with existing donors.

“We wanted a service that would give us the opportunity to improve customer service and utilise our time effectively,” says Vitalise marketing manager, James Armstrong. “As a charity, we strongly rely on the involvement of others, and being able to reach out to potential fundraisers is very important. To achieve this we needed a mobile infrastructure which allows us to easily keep in touch with current guests and promote our services, but in a non-obtrusive way.

“We support people with a variety of disabilities and we often find that telephone isn’t the best way to speak with people, especially when trying to contact people who have a problem with speech and hearing, so Oxygen8’s mobile platform will generate a far more convenient channel to reach out to our current and potential guests.”

Oxygen8 is also providing Vitalise with a shortcode which will be used for an assortment of marketing materials and activities. The shortcode will be included on inserts which will be featured in its key target publications, presenting readers with an opportunity to obtain more information about Vitalise and the services it offers.