Owning a cafe is great, but you're more often than not making a small percentage of potential customers within a certain distance radius. You've got a great location and business is now moving at a predictable pace. Driving more new walk-ins to your cafe is tough because marketing efforts in different locations aren't driving back the return on ad spend you're expecting. Here's a perspective, why not target existing customer databases that have already interacted with your store, but don't return often enough.
Either these customers are unaware that you've put in effort to provide them with special offers and deals, or these customers came to you out of the spur of the moment and impulse entry decision to give you a try. To better ensure that these customers keep coming back you'll have to remind them and a great way to drive repeat customers are through SMS marketing.
"Here are 5 reasons why your cafe should be considering SMS marketing as part of your ad spend."
1. The big boys are doing it, you're missing out if you don't.
Subway, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and more are doing it to keep their customers informed.
Helps build a loyal customer base.
For example: Taco Bell launched a mobile marketing campaign in an effort to develop another channel to communicate with their most loyal customers. To subscribe to the Taco Bell mobile marketing campaign, customers texted “TBIC” to 30364. To incentivize customers to opt-in, Taco Bell offered a free Frutista Freeze, with the purchase of any food item, after a customers opted-in to the mobile marketing program.
The restaurant’s mobile marketing campaign was promoted to customers through traditional media such as radio, television and print, generating 13,000 opt-ins within the first five weeks.
2. Get to more customers.
Papa Murphy’s launched a mobile marketing campaign pilot with the goal being to bring more customers to their Kansas City locations. By using in-store signs, tent pop-ups, and an online opt-in form to advertise their new mobile marketing campaign, the restaurant was able to build a 16,000 person mobile customer database.
Mobile marketing promotions such as a $5 Chicken Bacon Artichoke pizza generated redemption rates of more than 9 percent, while deals like a $5.55 taco pizza on Cinco De Mayo generated redemption rates of 11.5 percent, and half-off pizzas generated redemption rates north of 12 percent. The highest redemption rates Papa Murphy’s saw was with a $5, 3-topping pizza, which generated a 17.9 percent redemption rate. The mobile marketing campaign has since expanded across 26 other states, and is estimated to have more than 100,000 mobile subscribers.
3. Increase repeat customers.
A 16-store franchise of Subway restaurants in the New York region launched a mobile marketing campaign to increase repeat business with their customers. The program was advertised in-store with various forms of marketing collateral, and on local radio and television as the “My Subway Mobile SMS” program.
The franchise after a few months had generated a database of 5,000 customer mobile phone numbers. During this period, the Subway franchise sent out 13,000 mobile promotions, averaging a 9% redemption rate, which was significantly higher than the 1% redemption rate Subway experienced with their direct mail campaigns.
4. Find a channel that stands out better than channels that don't
During a 15 month period, Pizza Hut U.K. setup geofence locations within a half-mile radius of each of their 340 Pizza Hut locations. During this period, Pizza Hut found the mobile marketing campaign was on average 142% more efficient in increasing incremental sales than other marketing channels, and 4.4 times more effective than TV ads, and 2.6 times more effective than online ads.
Carl’s Jr. sent out a mobile offer to customers on May 14, 2013. The mobile offer was for a $6 burger combo for only $2.99. Not only did this mobile offer get a 19% redemption rate, the fast-food chain generated $14 in new sales for every $1 they spent on this campaign.
5. Increase store traffic.
Dunkin’ Donuts ran a mobile marketing campaign in the Boston area, encouraging customers to opt-in to mobile offers. The mobile marketing campaign was advertised on local radio and through mobile internet ads. This resulted in 7,500 consumers opting in to receive Dunkin’ Donuts mobile offers. After the first mobile offer, 17% of recipients forwarded or showed the offer to a friend, 35% considered themselves more likely to buy lattes and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts in the future, and Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants in the Boston area experienced a 21% increase in store traffic.
What if you're cafe is only a 1 cafe operation?
Don't sweat it because a Papa John’s Pizza franchise in the U.K. ran a three week mobile marketing campaign, sending a mobile offer to their 8,1000 previously opted-in customers that offered customers any Pizza, of any size for £6.99 (pickup) or £8.99 (delivery). This one mobile offer increased sales for this franchise during the three week period by 33%.
Find out how you can increase sales and repeat customers.
Get started with a campaign now.
