United Healthcare used mobile to promote its newest medical insurance plans to small businesses and professionals.

The click-to-call campaign saw a 0.6 percent click-through rate. The insurance company tapped MoVoxx to create the campaign.

"The strategy behind the campaign was to help United Healthcare reach out to small businesses and professionals and get them to call and speak to a call center representative," said Alec S. Andronikov, chief mobilizer and CEO of MoVoxx, Santa Monica, CA.

MoVoxx provides marketers with mobile audience reach by partnering with SMS content publishers who deliver real-time messages to millions of consumers on a daily basis.

For this particular campaign, MoVoxx partnered with Reuters.

Consumers who were signed up for business news alerts received the advertisement below the message they were opted-in for.

The text ad said, "Small business health plans lower costs. Design yours today with United Healthcare 877-272-7622."

Consumers could then click on the telephone number to be connected to a call center, where a representative would give them more information.

Reuters' subscribers to business, world and traffic news were targeted for this medium.

Through this campaign United Healthcare reached a highly-targeted and very niche audience on a mobile medium with the help of MoVoxx's audience segmentation capabilities.

Mr. Andronikov said that the 0.6 percent click -- through is a very high response rate within the industry given the nature of the offer - insurance - and difficulty of reach within the target market.

So why was mobile, specifically SMS, the ideal medium for this campaign? SMS has the highest reach of any mobile ad medium.

In fact, studies show that 95 percent of mobile phones are SMS-enabled and 40 percent have unlimited SMS.

Also, because most consumers use their mobile phone for calls and text, they tend to respond to mobile advertising.

Additionally, studies show that consumers recall SMS advertising. The most commonly recalled mobile ads are those in SMS. A whopping 60 million consumers recalled seeing SMS ads in the third quarter of 2008 compared to 31 million on the Mobile Web, according to GFK/NOP Research.

MoVoxx recently completed a successful campaign for Ford Motor Co.'s Ford Flex.

The campaign saw a 1.41 percent click-through-rate and succeeded in driving consumers to the Flex WAP site.

The three-month nationwide campaign optimized engagement on sites that combined a high-income audience together with stylish trendsetters. More than 3.5 million impressions were served (see story).

"For the United Healthcare campaign, if you think about the offer and the medium pushed, it is healthcare and it isn't a really hot commodity," Mr. Andronikov said. "The call to action is the 800 number because the consumer is viewing the ad on a mobile phone and it is logical to engage them that way."