Pretty much everyone likes to save money, and most people carry cell phones with them nearly everywhere they go.
Jose A. Cortorreal thought of a way to combine these two things: Come up with a service that sends people text messages with discounts at local businesses.
His venture, CeeLink, is based on a simple premise. People can sign up for free to have coupons texted to their phones. In order to avoid a slew of irrelevant texts, subscribers can specify the kinds of businesses they’re interested in, like restaurants and night clubs. The idea is to send users coupons so they can show their phones at a business and get a discount. Cortorreal says subscribers can choose to receive the texts at the time of day they’re most likely to check their phones. And the discounts sent will be based on a user’s ZIP code.
“I hate spam as much as anybody else,” says Cortorreal, who works on CeeLink when he’s not at his job at the East Penn Manufacturing battery plant.
The CeeLink service is expected to launch this fall and will be available in the Reading area first, but Cortorreal hopes to expand it as it grows.
Other planned features include reports for businesses, showing how many customers come in because of CeeLink promotions. Cortorreal would also like for it to give rewards to repeat customers and those who refer new people to a business.
Source: Jose A. Cortorreal, CeeLink Media
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen