June 2, 2009 by Molly Anderson
The restaurant industry’s interest in the area of mobile marketing is skyrocketing. Savvy business owners understand that when it comes to connecting with customers, nothing is more economical or effective than text message marketing. At the recent National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago, restaurant owners and marketers voiced this new overall theme across the industry, solidifying the knowledge Opt It already has about the power and reach of text message marketing.
Using a permission-based marketing plan via Opt It Mobile, restaurant owners and marketers can reach their client base instantly, with the latest news on promotions and events. Contests and coupons also lend themselves to mobile marketing, giving the restaurant industry various methods to connect with their customers, while simultaneously building a mobile marketing list of VIP’s.
Not only is mobile marketing simple and effective, but the connection it provides allows restaurants a way to link to customers in a struggling economy. Opt It features do more than just keep customers be up-to-date on the latest events and information, they notify them of and give them the ability to take advantage of discounts, promotions and special offers – a big draw in tough economic times. Letting valued customers know that their favorite eateries are still within reach is key. Getting the word out through a mobile marketing campaign via the Opt It Mobile platform drives traffic through the door.
Opt It Success Story: In its first-ever nationwide mobile campaign, Moe’s Southwest Grill is offering customer discounts on a limited-time menu item, the Phil E. Cheese burrito. Powered by the Opt It Mobile platform, the Moe’s campaign is active and successful in all of over 400 locations. Take a look at a recent press release on this restaurant’s winning mobile marketing campaign.
Moe’s Southwest Grill Goes Mobile with Opt It Technology
February 19, 2009 by Tim Trummer
In the previous blog entry we talked about how your organization can generate ideas for offers and promotions in the mobile market. Now it’s time to discuss an equally important concept.
Here we talk about how to lure, entice, and tempt your customers to give you their mobile number.
Keep these simple ideas in mind –
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The younger generation- sometimes called Generation Y or Millenials – is much more likely to give up a mobile number. Older generations think of a phone number as something they have to protect so they don’t get harassed by intrusive callers. Text messages are not as intrusive as calls, and for younger generations, the mobile phone is all about being connected. It’s a fundamental difference in the way people see their phone. More and more, people want to stay in constant contact with a wide range of friends, family, associates, and co-workers; they also want to stay closely aware of value in the marketplace where they shop and play.
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Once you have people on your mobile marketing list, you have to provide value in your offers or people will opt out. The idea is to build a relationship over time with individuals and the people who associate with them. Although an amount of turnover is inevitable, you want to make sure that people are not joining your list one week and then leaving it the next. You need to find the right mix of value and timeliness in your offers. If you send a message every day, they may be easy to ignore in a short time. If you send one message a week with real value and appeal, you may do better, but the real goal is to find the right combination of frequency and value for your customers.
Where do you start?
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Start with your web site. Yes, it can be a drag to do updates to your web site, but it’s a powerful “always there” presence that people can easily access. Make sure that on your home page you have a clear invitation to your visitors to “opt in” to your mobile messaging program. When they click through to your “opt in” page where your customer elects to give you their phone number, there are several things you need to tell them. First, explain to them that they can always opt out, and explain how. That’s a pretty basic requirement that makes it harmless for them to sign up. Second, give them some idea of how often they will be hearing from you, and what kinds of offers they will receive; if you are not sure about how often and what, you will have to be vague about it until you know. Third, tell them that you value their feedback, and give them a way to talk back to you. Why? Because you DO value their feedback! That’s the only way you can improve your offers. Put a link to your opt in page on every other page on your site.
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After the web site, offer your mobile updates in as many places as you can. Put up signs in your facility on the walls, in your storefront window, on counter tops and desktops, and especially on surfaces that people stare at when they are paying or waiting for service. Any promotional brochures or paper of any kind that a customer looks at or takes with them should say “Text (your keyword) to 46786 to receive our free mobile updates and offers.”
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Provide an immediate discount/incentive that can be used during their visit.
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Run a contest weekly or monthly giving away something of value to your audience.
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Educate your staff on the program so that when patrons or guests ask questions you make sure that you do not lose a subscriber.
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Next: Whenever you reprint anything for your business, include the text about signing up for mobile messaging. What if you have 10,000 printed brochures and don’t want to reprint them just to include a message about mobile marketing? That’s what stickers are for! What do you put stickers on? EVERYTHING! Have some attractive stickers made up in your company colors and place them on every bag or brochure or receipt or business card. Don’t let anyone or anything go out of your door without a sticker. If you want people to sign up for the program, they need to know they can and it is your job tell them in as many different ways and places as you can.
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Recognize that mobile or text message marketing will be an important part of the marketing mix in the future. If you do coupons, or mailings, or send emails, remember to encourage customers to sign up for mobile messaging via those media too. Couponing and direct mail are expensive, and moving customers to less expensive media like mobile marketing is a smart move for increasing your bottom line.
Finally, delegate the job of coordinating this important activity to an individual within your organization who needs a challenge or development. Encourage them to see what competitors and others are doing to build their lists, and empower them to try the things that will create a powerful list for increasing future revenues using text message marketing.
February 4, 2009 by Brian Stafford
For those of you who are new to text message marketing, we have created a page to give you a short overview of how text message marketing works. This is meant as an introduction for beginners that provides background information and defines some of the commonly used terms.
Please read A Simple Guide to Text Messages…
January 27, 2009 by Tim Trummer
In the preceding entry we talked about pushing forward with a mobile text messaging program in order to learn about – and take advantage of – the surge in texting behavior. And, to be ready for the not too distant day when marketing to cell phones comes into its maturity as a major force.
The question is, how much progress can you make in 2009 in building your list – a topic for our next blog entry – and creating programs that work for your business? The focus here is on how to begin the process.
First, who does it?
As the person who pays the bills, the business owner probably feels some ownership of any new program. This could be a mistake, especially if you have people in your organization who are seeking new opportunities.
Delegation is a good thing, period. As a rule of thumb, the more people you have involved in the process, the better. Here are some things to consider when you decide how to manage your mobile marketing campaign in your organization
- Your employees may be younger and may relate to this program. It’s possible that someone in your organization has strong thoughts or good ideas about text message marketing already.
- Your employees may be looking for added responsibility, or to add to their skill sets. Capitalize on that energy and motivation.
- If you have a valued employee who is bored and you fear that they may want to leave, this might be the thing for them to focus on. During difficult economic times, business owners tend to focus on daily problems and challenges. Employees who buy into a grass-is-greener perspective may look for opportunities that they perceive to be better. Remember that it is your best employees who have the most opportunities. Give them something new and different to do.
Give an employee a specific purpose and responsibility to focus on, and show them that it matters with daily follow-up of even the most informal type.
Second, how do they go about it?
Many people – even bright ones you value – do not possess the creativity and initiative to go about this kind of thing in a systematic way. So, give them a framework for learning about mobile marketing. Here are some ways to do that.
- Assign them some reading. Reading! It sounds terrible, but it’s a great way to develop some perspective. Have them read the blogs and guides on the Optit.com site. Then, point them in the direction of a web site devoted to mobile marketing like http://www.mmaglobal.com so that they can begin to understand the background, the trends, and the opportunities. Don’t stop there. Ask them to talk to you once a week about something they have read about mobile marketing. It’s a good way to see if they are up to the job you’ve given them.
- Involve more people! Tell your designated employee to talk to as many people as they can about their assignment. Their grandmother is an unlikely candidate for this kind of thing, but even the act of explaining it to their grandmother stretches their ability to understand and talk about mobile marketing. Great ideas often come from places you wouldn’t expect, but they also come from your suppliers, your customers, and other business people.
- Have them opt into the mobile marketing programs of other companies in order to see what they are doing. Start with competitors, and then move on to similar markets or products, and then move on to companies you admire. You cannot collect too much market intelligence this way – it’s the easiest way to learn what your competitors are doing, and it will open your eyes to the many possibilities that exist out there already. Capitalize on the experience of others, and don’t let your competitors outflank you with new offers that you are not ready to provide.
As your expertise and experience grows, take things to a higher level. Chicago is filled with colleges and universities that have a tremendous interest in teaching new media. These may be business classes or they may be media classes. Ask a professor if you can present your issues to a class and see if an individual or a team want to take up your cause as part of their course work.
Finally, encourage your employee to take action. Especially at the beginning, be conservative and take baby steps. Use techniques you’ve seen others use and, monitor the results closely so you can see what works for you. Enjoy small successes and build from there. As the business owner or department head, stay involved and let them know mobile marketing is important to you.
We will talk more in future blog entries about how to design offers and measure results, and we’ll also talk about how to involve your entire organization in the mobile marketing program. In this entry we’ve talked about putting the program in the hands of one person in order to make sure that the responsibility belongs to one motivated person, and not a committee. As the program develops, you’ll want to encourage others to contribute ideas and help carry them out.
January 22, 2009 by Tim Trummer
The word change has been used a lot in the past year, and we have supported the idea of change as necessary and desirable.
However, the economic circumstances we find ourselves in will demand change of a more personal kind – change in the way we think and behave, and change in the way we operate our businesses.
To bathe our economic misery in the light of facts, consider the report of the United States Department of Commerce from the second week of 2009 –
- Retail sales dropped 2.7% in December of 2008, following a drop of 2.1% in November, marking the worst holiday shopping season in 40 years.
- December marked the sixth consecutive month that retail sales had fallen.
- Consumer retail spending accounts for about two-thirds of the United States’ economy, which means that reduced consumer spending is both a cause and a symptom of the ongoing recession.
Few economists think that the recession, declining home values, the tight credit crisis, and job losses are going to end anytime soon.
Our own experience tells us that things are different and have to be confronted with hard decisions, harder work, and new approaches.
If you are reading this it is likely you have already decided that text message marketing is one of the new approaches. We’d like to reinforce that feeling.
Mobile Marketing Is an Increasingly Important Part of the Marketing Mix
- There are 260 million mobile phone subscribers nationwide.
- In a 2008 survey 29% of moms said that the cell phone was their most important tech gadget, vastly surpassing their second choice, the internet at 29%.
- Text message marketing is based on permission – the people who receive your messages “opt in,” and therefore view your messages as less intrusive and more desirable.
- Mobile marketing is a highly measurable approach for ROI purposes
- It is easily observed that young people are particularly enamored of text messaging and are particularly receptive to text message marketing. Among 18 to 34 year-olds surveyed this year, just 22% had never sent a text message, down from the 38% the prior year.
- Nielsen reports in 2008 that text messaging has increased by 450% from two years before, and that the trend will continue up.
- M:Metrics forecasts that by 2011 global mobile marketing expenditures will surpass $16 billion.
This blog will continue to provide compelling data from new research as it arrives, and other pages on this site make the case for mobile marketing in other terms, but the core message for all of us is that text messaging behavior is becoming an intrinsic part of consumer behavior regardless of the state of the economy.
The Future of Mobile Marketing Is Coming Quickly
By now we all know that the latest mobile phone applications run on what it called 3G or third generation networks. These networks are significantly faster than earlier networks, and allow web browsing, email with attachments, and other data intensive applications like GPS.
But, faster networks that carry more data and more services are coming.
LTE is the common name now used for next generation 4G mobile networks, and LTE is in advanced testing with all major carriers. Rollout of this next generation technology is expected for 2010, and will allow carriers to deliver an ever increasing number of advanced services to the latest versions of smartphones, like the iPhone and the Blackberry. While smartphones made up only 11% of the total mobile market in 2008, this is the fastest growing segment with current growth of 100% in the U.S. and forecasted growth in excess of 50%.
So, there will be plenty of consumers with smartphones who will be able to receive compelling multimedia – not merely text – from you in 2010 and beyond.
By building and perfecting your approach to today’s simple text marketing, you are preparing your business to compete in the coming environment of multimedia messages made possible by 4G networks and smartphones. Building mobile lists and programs in 2009 puts you in the right competitive position to take the next step.
Change is real. The way it was two years ago – we aren’t ever going back there. The landscape on the other end of this dark economic tunnel is different from the landscape we knew going in. There will be adjustments to be made. But with the right planning and the right choices now, you’ll be set to go when you come out the other end of this dark tunnel. Text message marketing – and the mobile multimedia marketing that will follow it – are two of the tools that will have you set to go.
Blogs coming in the next weeks will focus on how to come up with effective text marketing programs, and how to build a list of mobile phone users who are willing to receive text from you.