With over 7.7 million unique users downloading ring tones and between 35,000 to 40,000 new daily users, Myxer.Com is probably the biggest mobile content delivery company in the US and possibly even the world. VP of Marketing for Myxer.Com, Steve Spiro took some time out of his busy schedule to speak with AdMarkTech.Com.

When Myxer.Com began back in 2005 it took about a year and a half to build the technology infrastructure. The founders of the company were very experienced in the realms of the Internet especially the scalability of Internet applications. A number of competitors that sprang up around the same time as Myxer, couldn’t handle the scale of databases and web servers and therefore didn’t survive.

Myxer’s success is largely due to old fashioned viral marketing. In Steve’s words “There’s nothing like getting free mobile content and people just love talking about it.” Back then, social media didn’t exist in the way it dominates the Internet today. “People would find out about it, college kids and teenagers, and they would email their friends or IM their friends or send text messages to their friends and that’s how the whole thing exploded”.

At the beginning of October 2007, there was an initiative to hire around 24 students from 12 different universities to work for Myxer on a very pro active basis. The students put up fliers, stickers, worked with local college bands and dealt with fraternities, sororities and other organizations such as radio stations and local college TV stations. Along with this initiative, the growth continues organically through Facebook, email groups and word of mouth.

Myxer.Com does no banner advertising, print advertising or mobile advertising. “In fact there’s no direct advertising. We’ve cut the marketing budget to zero.” Steve joked “When I joined the company about nine months ago, I had a million dollar ad budget and I convinced the CEO that I wanted to spend zero. The business has more than doubled”.

The two key points have been classic viral marketing and a better user experience on the Website. “A lot of time has been spent working over the last nine months to make the greatest site in terms of design and type of content. The better the content, the better the user experience.”

There is a ‘send to a friend’ link on the site, but Myxer.Com doesn’t pay people to refer friends. It happens naturally. “We have a lot of funny interesting ring tones, so you’re with your friends and your phone rings and somebody says ‘wow that’s a great ring tone, where did you get that from?’ they say Myxer and it’s free”. In fact all downloads on Myxer are free due to the fact that they are one of the only advertising supported, mobile content sites.

Downloading from Myxer.Com couldn’t be easier. Unlike other online communities where user information is always requested upfront, Myxer doesn’t ask for anything other than a cell phone number, in order to deliver the first three downloads. “One of our strategies is to make it as frictionless as possible. We want people to have a great first experience, followed by a great second and third. By that time, users are a lot more willing to give us simple information like an email address, gender and age.”

“The other big help is the fact that we work with over 15,000 content providers most of which are independent bands. We give a free tool to bands to allow them to create ring tones, whether they’re on fliers, their MySpace page, Facebook page or at concerts and gigs. They have a custom text code, a vanity code, they can say ‘text the name of my band to Myxer’ or they can give a 5 or 6 digit code. They get a lot of users that never would have heard of Myxer. We also work with all kinds of other providers, nature sites, diet sites any kind of passion or hobby that people have.”

BrandTones are yet another example of how Myxer.Com is creating strategic partnerships to extend its marketing reach. This initiative gives companies such as Adidas, Lowe’s and Volkswagen a unique way to connect with consumers using mobile.

Using Myxer’s innovative technology platform, these companies can create and replicate the viral buzz that Myxer has already proven to be successful. They can offer branded ring tones from their own Websites. For example, a personalized message from Adidas with Kevin Garnett yelling at someone to pick up the phone. Each time the phone rings, the Brand name is repeated. Take into account the number of times a mobile phone rings throughout the day and the number of people within the vicinity at the time of the call and that’s a lot of people hearing that customized, branded ring tone.

“What we’re seeing now that people aren’t paying $2.99 for ring tones, is that somebody who might have 20 or 50 contact names in their address book on their phone, can actually customize each of their contacts with different ring tones, so they know who’s calling without having to look at the phone.”

On the flip side, Myxer is able to offer advertisers targeted ads based on age, gender, geography, IP information and download preferences. Advertising opportunities exist on the Website with standard banner ads or ‘skinning’ the back of the homepage. In addition, when someone is receiving their download to their mobile device, text or banner ads can be placed within the download.

Myxer uses mobile ad serving technology provided by Ad Mob, Millennial Media and Quattro Wireless. “We’ve found on the mobile space that we’re getting 15 to 20 times the click thru rate for a mobile ad than a web ad. In the month of March we did 17 million downloads of mobile content. Typically on a web site banner, you might get 0.1% or 0.2% click thru rate. We’re seeing 2% - 3% CTR on a mobile banner. There’s less competition in terms of space. The banner takes up 10% of the screen, whereas on a website it might be 2% of the screen where people are tuned out to banners.”

A huge point and a subject that is fervent at Myxer is how ads are only served to mobile users who initiate a download. No advertising messages are ever sent unsolicited where the user has not requested downloaded content. “Our relationship with our customer is ‘you get this piece of content for free, but it comes with a mobile banner.’ People understand and expect that. They only get the banner when they’re actually downloading something. They’re not getting bombarded with stuff.”

With 25% to 30% growth per month, the future is looking exceptionally bright at Myxer. With the recent introduction of free downloadable games and speculation of going into Latin America and Europe, Steve concluded the interview saying “As more people get mobile plans and text plans, the mobile Internet will become more popular. We’re going to keep on growing and keep on diversifying.”