Portland to get free beer and fun via text message campaign - Slideshow included

Wouldn’t it be cool if, say, on a hot Friday afternoon you receive a text message that offers you a free cold beer on the way home? Or how about getting a text message that gives you free admission to an event for the weekend? Or maybe free appetizers before a meal? You just show the wait staff the text message and you’re good as gold. Really. Well, almost really.

Portland “brew nut” and mobile marketer Matt Malone has an idea that should help bring more attention to and offers from well known and small establishments in the Portland/Vancouver area. With all the local micro brewers he thought it would be a good idea to collect cell phone numbers and when he could, send all those people a coupon for a free beer, or a buy-one-get-one coupon, or admission to a current event held here in P-town.

It sounds like a great idea, but it’s going to take 300 people to make it worth the cost and effort. So, for now the word is being spread around and hopefully it won’t be too hard to get 300 people to text him - there are already nearly 100 takers. There’s a lot of people who love beer in Portland, and free beer is especially popular.

There’s three ways to reach Matt Malone; the preferred method is texting FREEBEER to 69302 to get on the list, or you can call him at 800.805.8897, or you can get a message through to him at the website, www.bestnwbrews.com or email him at freebies@bestnwbrews.com.

In other countries it’s already daily business for retail customers to enter an establishment, scan the handy 2d barcode and find all the best sales, prices and locations for what someone wants. The US, it turns out, is a little behind in this new technological practice.

Not Malone. He knows all about it and exactly how it’s going to work. He’s not even in the beer or product promotion biz; he’s an SEO agent and mobile marketer. Mobile marketer - a new term in a booming ideology that could turn out to be something really good. He’s a beer-brewing aficionado who loves the craft and wants to help smaller established breweries get into the fast-paced life of bigger crowds and sales.

It’s a good deal, Portland. You can’t lose and neither can the breweries, so go ahead, text Matt Malone and say hi. You’ll be getting something nice for it, real soon.

For now, here’s some pictures of Matt and the establishment we met Malone at; Lucky Labrador Brew Pub.