Introduction
If you own a restaurant, cafe, diner, pub or any sort of eatery, you are perfectly poised to capitalize on the power of SMS marketing!
Here are 4 reasons why your restaurant, cafe, or diner should be using SMS mobile marketing as a customer retention strategy…
SMS Marketing allows you to leverage the power of your existing customer base
One of the biggest mistakes made by business owners is not fully capitalizing on the financial potential in their current customer base.
Instead, they put the majority of their efforts into getting new customers.
And sure, it’s always nice to have new customers.
But there's huge untapped opportunity in your current client base.
A study conducted by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Co found that a 5% increase in customer retention increases profits by anywhere from 25% to 95%.
Many articles have been written about this statistic and the power of retaining your customers—like this great one here at Forbes.
What it really all boils down to however, is focusing on catering to your current customer base.
Your current customers know you, trust you, and most will be happy to do more business with you… if you ask them!
And marketing via text message is a extremely effective way to cut through the clutter and get your message directly where they will see it and act on it.
Want to really stay connected with your customers so you can get them back into your establishment more often and spending more with you?
This is the way to do it.
You can build a database of contacts quickly
Getting your new service populated with subscribers is the key to success.
Since your customers spend a significant amount of time in your establishment, you have plenty of opportunity to introduce them to your service.
After they arrive, are seated, and have received their beverage orders, there is usually a brief lull while they wait for their orders to arrive.
During that time, they chat with each other, fiddle with their cell phones, and view the promotional material on the table.
If you were to promote your text message marketing service in a stand on the table…
“We’re going mobile! To receive a coupon for a free appetizer ordered at your next visit to Chez Macey and to receive access to exclusive promotional offers to your cell phone (max 4 per month) text MACEYS to XXX XXX XXXX.”
… as well as have your wait staff mention the service and upsell its benefits, you’d see how quick and easy it is to build a database of eager customers.
Get more out of your traditional advertising
Suppose you’re doing regular advertising in a local newspaper, or you send out occasional mailers to particular geographic regions.
You can improve the response from these promotions by including the same call to action featured just above.
This provides your audience with the ability to respond immediately to your offer, instead of turning the page and forgetting about it.
And, with recent a recent study showing 91% of Americans have their cell phones within arm’s length 14 hours out of every day, you know that they have the means to do so!
It’s affordable and efficient
Our mass texting service, for example, starts at just $59.99 per month, with no long-term contracts required.
Yes, this is a basic subscription, and yes, you will need to upgrade your subscription as your service becomes more successful.
However, any increases in the cost in our service is more than offset by the revenue you generate.
That’s because…
- You are only ever marketing to people who have opted into your service, and accordingly, are incredibly qualified.
- People see every text message they receive.
This is a powerful one-two combo.
The great news is that text message marketing is not difficult to implement, and our BROADCASTsms is super easy to use.
In addition, we do personal onboarding with every client so they know exactly how to move forward.
Here’s why it’s so important…
Almost everybody has a cell phone—regardless of age and demographics—and can access simple text messages.
That’s important because 95–99% of text messages are read, the majority within a few minutes of receipt.
Today, people are most engaged on their mobile devices. Not on email.
Why is this important to you?
Because as a smart restaurant, pub, or cafe owner, you are looking for an effective, efficient, and low cost way to stay connected with your current customers (as well as build on your base) and keep them appraised of the things that are going on in your establishment.
If you have a Facebook page or an email newsletter and you’re trying to build up “likes” or subscribers, you are doing this already—actively working on a customer retention strategy.
Or in other words, keeping in touch and building relationships with the people who already do business with you, in order to encourage them to do more business with you.
This makes good sense. It’s business 101. After all, a Bain & Co. study showed a mere 5% increase in customer retention can lead to an additional 25–95% in revenue.
And it’s much, much cheaper to cultivate an existing customer than it is to obtain a new one (7–10 times, say the experts).
But here’s the thing…
Connecting via email… well, it sucks.
Industry average “open” rates (i.e., the number of people who open and read a newsletter) hover around 17%.
People just don’t read emails anymore. Or, they get so many that they have to prioritize them. With a 17% open rate, that means 83% of your audience does not see your message.
And if you thought email marketing sucks, well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how things have been going on Facebook recently.
Recent studies show that organic reach has fallen to between 2–6%! (Essentially that means that only 2–6% of your fans will see any updates or posts you make. 94-98% will not. Seriously).
In other words, unless you plan to spend money to advertise to your fans on Facebook, building up your page’s number of “likes” is a complete waste of time.
I reference Facebook here but all social media platforms work pretty much the same way.
So where does SMS mobile marketing fit into all this?
Well, think about this…
If you built a database of your customer’s cell phone numbers, and could connect with almost 100% of them each and every time you sent out a message, how much more effective do you think your advertising would be?
Ah-ha! Now you see where I’m going!
Click here to check out our affordable mass texting service for your restaurant business!