Archive for the ‘Interactive Marketing’ Category

The Back-to-School season is already here. This is the best time of year for retail businesses to draw in parents, teens, and college students who will be spending a lot of money on clothes, shoes, backpacks, lunch boxes, dorm essentials, and school supplies. If you’ve never tried mobile marketing before, back-to-school season is a great time to start.

You have three large demographics to consider: parents, teens, and college kids. Your mobile campaign should take into account your products, and from that, the mobile usage of your targeted demographic. If you sell items for younger children (clothing, lunch boxes, elementary school supplies), you are obviously attracting parents, and a successful mobile campaign will consider the deals most valued to this group. Research continues to show that adults in their 30’s rely heavily on texting; an SMS campaign for this group is a great way to promote your deals. You may develop a campaign in which parents opt in to receive announcements about sales and deals, or you may invite people to text keywords to receive a discount coupon on their back-to-school shopping. In doing so, you not only help your business stand out from the many school-supply competitors, but you gain their permission to remarket to them in the future.

If your target audience is teens who may or may not shop with their parents, consider the kinds of deals that will appeal to them and how you can use SMS to reach them. Unsurprisingly, 75% of teens aged 12-17 own a mobile device, while 50% of teens send at least 50 texts per day.1 Teens are most likely to opt in to an SMS campaign if something comes with it.

An incentive like a free item is especially helpful in attracting teens, as are contests and polls, which are very popular and
go viral quickly. Remember that teens tend to stay in frequent contact with friends, so a great incentive or contest will get passed around quickly and can reach a lot of people for a small investment.

College-aged students have unique back-to-school needs, which often include not only study materials but also living and traveling essentials. Most college-aged students continue their “back to school” shopping long after school has started because new needs come up with the changing semesters and because their living arrangements are more frequently adjusted. Consider SMS and email campaigns that reward loyalty. Encourage mobile clubs in which membership grants continuing discounts and incentives, making consumers more likely to remain on your business’s marketing list even after school begins. Since 95% of people aged 18-29 use text messaging, and 65% access the internet from their mobile device, develop a mobile marketing strategy that can reach college-aged shoppers directly on their devices.2

No matter what your marketing strategy, a mobile component can and should be incorporated for the back-to-school season. Updating your website is crucial, and it is particularly helpful if your site is customized for mobile so that the many smartphone owners—teens and young adults in particular—can access your site and promotions as they shop in your store. You can even use your store to advertise your mobile campaign just by hanging signs that invite people to text a keyword for an instant discount. This is totally free advertising for you, and it guarantees that you will grow your contact list with the mobile numbers of interested shoppers for future remarketing. Develop a mobile marketing strategy to build or expand your contact list and create a loyal base of customers who will return year after year for their school shopping.

Mobile gift cards are the next step in gift-shopping for Americans. Already a growing number of businesses offer shoppers the opportunity to purchase mobile gift cards, which greatly simplifies the gift-card transaction and eliminates postage, shipping/handling fees, and time delays associated with traditional gift cards.

Developing a strategy for mobile gift cards does not have to involve expensive equipment or complex application development. The technology can be simple, and the more straightforward and convenient for the average mobile user, the more popular it will be.

One way to reach out to consumers with mobile gift cards is by having a website customized for mobile. Not every cell phone user is a smartphone owner—only about a quarter—but those who do use their smartphones use them a lot. If they can access an easy-to-navigate mobile site that allows them to purchase a gift card and have it directly sent to a friend’s cell phone number, they are far more likely to shop with you than your competitor.

But even for non-smartphone-owning customers, mobile gift cards can be a huge draw. When a customer purchases a gift card from a business, whether online or in person, he or she can be given the option of having the gift card sent as a text to a recipient’s cell phone. The gift card contains a code, and can be used exactly the same way a physical gift card is used, with purchases deducted from the amount and unused balances saved automatically.

When considering whether or not mobile gift cards are right for your business, ask yourself: What are the biggest reasons people choose not to purchase gift cards?

Shoppers do not always know what stores are local for a long-distance friend or relative. People don’t want to guess and hope that a certain retail or dining establishment is in the recipient’s neighborhood. Customized mobile sites and location-based applications tell shoppers right away what shops are convenient to the recipient. Have store-locating information prominent on your mobile website.
Mailing physical cards is a pain. When a shopper purchases a gift card from a physical establishment, she or he must consider the postage and process for mailing the card. While many stores will ship the card to the recipient, the shipping/handling fees are annoying—especially when a customer is charged $4.99 to ship a $10 or $20 gift card. A mobile gift card sent by text incurs only the messaging fee (if there is one), which is far less than a shipping fee.

Shoppers do not want to wait in long and inconvenient customer service lines. This applies primarily to large shopping malls and outlets, where the gift-card purchasing process is time-consuming and out of the way of a customer’s normal shopping routine. Particularly during the holiday season, when the lines look endless, a mobile gift-card buying process would appeal to many time-limited shoppers.

Shoppers are not sure that the card will be used. Even if you know that the store is in the recipient’s region, can you be sure that he or she will remember to carry the card around? But you never wonder if your friends and relatives will remember to carry their cell phones. Mobile gift cards can be stored for as long as the user owns the phone number, ensuring the gift card is with that person any time he or she shops.

A knowledgeable developer can customize your website for mobile and work with you to create mobile gift cards that are sent via text message. Like mobile coupons, they reach interested shoppers instantly and cheaply. Using the automated gift card technology you already have in place, mobile technology can expand your market reach, make you more convenient and tech-savvy than your competitors, and ultimately give you a huge edge with mobile shoppers.

Now is the time for Myrtle Beach restaurants to take advantage of SMS advertising. Evidence is abundant that restaurants with well-conceived text marketing campaigns see high rates of opt-in and coupon redemption. Want to drive up store traffic and make the most of the tourist season? SMS marketing can help.

To Get Started: Scheduled or Staggered
Using TextBoard, decide on the type of campaign you want: You can choose a scheduled campaign in which opted-in users receive a text message promotion or coupon at regular intervals (weekly, bi-weekly, or whatever interval you choose). Or, if you are looking to target customers more frequently over a shorter period of time (as you would with vacationers), you can choose instead a staggered campaign. A staggered campaign sends all new users the same sequence of promotions and discounts regardless of when they sign up.

If your restaurant caters heavily to locals, or if it has multiple locations, you might consider a Scheduled campaign, which targets regular customers and rewards customer loyalty. If your restaurant caters heavily to tourists, you might consider a staggered campaign, which allows you to communicate more often to an ever-changing group of customers that are likely to belong to the campaign for only a short period of time. Of course, the two can be used together if your restaurant has a diverse client base and you want to make the most of your marketing campaign. Many restaurants in Myrtle Beach want to reach the regular locals as well as the tourists, and can coordinate different marketing campaigns to suit the changing seasonal demand. Restaurants can also use TextBoard to initiate SMS-based contests to help boost the number of subscribers.

Advertising
Once you have set up your campaign in TextBoard, you must advertise a call-to-action that invites people to text a keyword and thereby agree to receive marketing promotions from you. While you can choose any advertising medium you like, recent case studies demonstrate that thinking locally about advertising venues has the greatest chances of driving up store traffic. Work strategically with billboards, local papers, and local TV or radio spots. Make sure your advertisement gives people a strong incentive to sign up—coupons that can be instantly redeemed are often a good way to get people in the door.

Timing is Everything
Of course, where you advertise is important, but did you realize that when it comes to dining, when you advertise is just as vital? Give yourself an edge over your competitors by reaching people right before mealtimes; Americans typically open their text messages within a few minutes of receipt, so use the instantaneous nature of text to put your restaurant and your promotion on their minds. Time your texts strategically to fit the campaign goals of the day. Send Happy Hour messages out at 4:00 to increase your bar sales, or send out lunch coupons at 11:00 am advertising something for the user and a guest. Make sure the offer is enticing—you are trying to reach people as they are making their dining decisions, so offer something persuasive enough to bring them in the door that day.

Select locations of Carrabba’s Italian Grill recently reported a 68% redemption rate on offers promoted through their SMS campaign. And many other restaurants throughout the nation are experimenting with text-message marketing as a fast and inexpensive way to reach people on the go. Myrtle Beach, with its high tourist population that is so quickly turned over, can use SMS to reach travelers who will undoubtedly eat out frequently during their stay but may not know about your restaurant’s promotions and specials. You have only a short window of time to reach them, and SMS campaigns can make your marketing more targeted and efficient.

Tandem Campaigns Increase Response Exponentially
TextBoard offers several other SMS campaign types that can be used to complement a scheduled or staggered campaign or can be used alone. Contest campaigns in which people are invited to text a keyword to a short code for a chance at a prize have proven an excellent way to attract attention and create a quick surge in opt-ins. The viral nature of texting allows contests with appealing offers to be passed around quickly to family and friends, and, by entering a contest, customers become subscribers that you can then market to again in the future. Myrtle Beach restaurants can use contest campaigns to initiate their SMS presence locally and then build future SMS campaigns off that initial list of subscribers.

Voting campaigns are popular as well whereby your restaurant can send out a poll and invite responses. Make the poll about something that may benefit respondents, like voting on the addition of a new menu item or a change to the restaurant. Taco Bell and Pizza Hut battled it out in a recent voting campaign at Western Kentucky University where students were asked to vote for which store they wanted built near campus. Campaigns that foster fun and creative competition attract a high level of response in a short amount of time.

Don’t Miss Opportunities Right In Front of You
You may have set up your campaigns to attract new customers, appeal to tourists, or turn local diners into returning customers, and in doing so, brought more people through the door. But what about the diners already in the restaurant? Your store offers a venue for totally free advertising to the diners most likely to be receptive to your offers: the ones who already enjoy your products. Place a large sign in the store or print a message right in the menu or on the bottom of the bill that encourages customers to opt in to your campaign for a future reward. Again, make it appealing and unique so that it stands out from the many other dining options in the Grand Strand. And don’t forget your email subscribers! You can advertise your SMS campaign in your next marketing email to expand your reach as much as possible in a way that costs very little.

TextBoard offers a variety of campaign options to help drive up store traffic and restaurant profits. Depending on whom you are targeting, and when, SMS marketing campaigns can be designed to suit your objective and the results can be tracked in real time so that you know exactly what works and how well. TextBoard also allows very simple coupon redemption so that your business does not have to invest in expensive new technology to scan or track its offer redemptions. If your offer is a coupon, a simple code on the screen can be shown to the cashier and entered into the machine at the point of sale. Simple.

Take advantage of TextBoard’s flexible and user-friendly platform for your SMS marketing campaign. Tourist season is upon us again and there is no better time for Myrtle Beach’s restaurants to start or expand their mobile marketing. Define your goal and your target audience; then work within TextBoard to design a campaign that utilizes the text message technology enabled on virtually every mobile phone in the US to reach as many busy, hungry people as possible.

Target is the first national retailer to offer a scannable mobile coupon program that allows guests to receive exclusive offers directly on their mobile phones. Coupons are redeemed by scanning a barcode on the phone at checkout.

“At Target, we know that mobile phones are an integral part of our guests’ lives, and mobile coupons are just another way we’re providing convenient, on-the-go shopping solutions”

“At Target, we know that mobile phones are an integral part of our guests’ lives, and mobile coupons are just another way we’re providing convenient, on-the-go shopping solutions,” said Steve Eastman, president of Target.com.

Guests can opt-in to the program on their PC at Target.com/mobile, on their phone at m.target.com or by texting COUPONS to 827438 (TARGET). After opt-in, guests receive a text message with a link to a mobile Web page that contains multiple offers, all accessible through a single barcode. Offers are single use and expire on the date listed.

Target’s point-of-sale scanning technology makes mobile coupons possible, and Target is the first major retailer with the ability to scan mobile barcodes in all of its stores. A leader in mobile retail, Target continues to offer innovative mobile solutions for guests. In addition to using the new mobile coupons, Target guests can access their Target Mobile GiftCards, view online assortments, check product availability and store locations, manage their Target gift registry and lists, browse the weekly ad, and receive text and e-mail notifications of great deals – all via their mobile phones.

via Business Wire