Mobile Marketing Gimmicks

Most of us get caught up in marketing gimmicks of Mobile companies, like "All STD and local calls at Re 1". Most of these schemes never come free & have an associated monthly rental. We have a general tendency of subscribing to these lucrative offers without first judging whether this scheme would truely end in greater savings.

Take the above scheme of Vodafone India where you get all STD & local calls at Re. 1 with a monthly rental of Rs.31. If you are computer literate, just open excel & create a new worksheet containing three columns - Monthly Usage (in mins), Charges (without offer) & Charges (with offer). Now start numbering from 1 upto say 120 in the Usage column. Since Vodafone offers STD at Rs.1.30 without any rentals, you can use the formula Usage x 1.30 for the second column on Charges (without offers). In the third column use the formula Usage + 31. Now apply the formula upto the 120th row. You will soon realise that you end up making profit (break-even) using this scheme only if you speak a minimum of 100 mins on STD calls. Do you truely spend greater than 100 mins on STD calls - may be yes, may be not.

What I am trying to say is that, before opting for any of these lucrative offers just tabulate things, as suggested in the previous para, based on your average monthly usage & then take a call on subscribing for these offers.

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