Case Study: Restaurant Continues to Engage with Customers Resulting in More Repeat Sales

Customers come and go, and it is hard to keep in touch and continually engage with them. There's a lot going on in their lives.

Social is a big pull for business owners because of the reach it gives and potential it promises. However, there is a constant need to develop content to keep current.

A more direct solution to this would be to employ 2 tried and tested marketing tools to keep customers engaged.

SMS and Email.

SMS and Email has many benefits as they are both affordable tools where business and customers can choose to interact directly with each other.

Both being synonymous and come together like bread and butter.

The sales journey for a potential customer is much longer compared with customers that have already positively interacted with your business.

Ideally, you are providing the customer with an option to maintain the positive relationship they have had with your business.

Examples of engagement include options for customers to consider when choosing their preferred choice to be notified of any offers or promotions your business can offer them.

Restaurant uses this to their advantage by capturing customer's information quickly through a text message.

The benefit is to reduce any challenges customers may face to opt-in. SMS helps to make the process quicker compared to the need to physically write down on a paper form or have them go to a website to fill out a subscription.

All the customer has to do is submit a text message containing a keyword and email to a short-code and the server would respond to their email indicating subscription has already been confirmed! 

This reduces the barrier with customers who are not technologically savvy. Everything can be done straight from their mobile phone with a  simple text message.

What efforts are you making to capitalize on repeat sales?

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4 Tips to Boost Your Marketing Campaign with SMS

There is an ongoing buzz on Social, PPC Ads, and Digital Marketing that often a tried and tested method get's drowned out.

Give a guess what is the most used data service in the world?

According to Nielsen, it's SMS. Marketing through SMS is not surprisingly different from any other campaign.

This is often confused with other data and metrics but SMS sends short transcripts of information in a straightforward, direct, and quick way.

Black Friday data shows, SMS is still relevant to marketing efforts and should not be overlooked. For example, it's a great way for customers to opt-in to receive latest information on deals and upcoming holiday products.

Below we will provide you with the tools you need to hit a home-run with your SMS Marketing.

Marketing (the Secret Bonus)

To understand the role of SMS in marketing, you must first understand what marketing is and how it contributes to your business.

Essentially marketing is how you plan to tell someone more about your product. Whether your product is great, or how it can improve their lives.

The added bonus if your marketing is done right: Selling becomes easy for you because your customers would have already been familiar with your products, the advantages and how it can help them.

For example, you have a product which helps households save 90% of their electricity. This is a fantastic product, however, because your marketing was not done right not many people know of your product.

It was a product that did not live up to its potential, not because of poor quality but because of poor reach.

1. Speak 'English'

As with everything marketing, more often than not, businesses get caught up in industry jargon.

For example, in the tech industry it could be RAM, HDD, and others. Instead it could have been the speed your computer responds to your instruction, and how many photos, files, and music you can store.

70% of targeted customers don't know in-depth information. This doesn't mean you should disregard technical information all together, rather consider catering your campaigns to specific customer groups.

Targeting your customers is known to deliver great results. Convey a message with the intent of speaking to your customer on a personal basis

2. Don't just write

Although writing may seem to be a daunting task, you do not need to be an expert writer to convey your message.

Your writing can be done just to convey the information that the reader is looking for. For example, it could be just factual data, or it can be a communicative piece where the reader and writer both have a relationship together. 

Keep in mind, that to have an engaging conversation is more valuable, as compared to giving a notice.

3. SMS Marketing Inspiration

4. Targeting Customers

As mentioned, in the 3rd tip, convey the right message to the right person. You need to put together a simplified process to understand the size and attractiveness of the target market.

Key areas to identify include: 

1. Your ability to service, and 
2. Compete within your chosen target market.

2 ways you can properly evaluate the market potential (sales opportunity) is through identifying your market size and what is your current market share.

Updated: The easiest way to forecasting sales (just 2 steps).

When you have identified this you can then plan marketing activities to carry out your promotion efforts.

How to launch a SMS Marketing Campaign?

How to start? Would you have someone sit down holding a phone and slowly sending messages out to your clients?

Send SMS like the pros and have an automated service at a reasonable price

Learn ways you can send SMS to your customers based on geographical area with EVERWORKS.

Conclusion

To successfully deliver a marketing campaign you have various tools at your disposal, and SMS is one tool to consider. It is cheap, always delivers, and direct.

Would you consider using SMS as an additional tool for your marketing campaign?

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Avoid Making Mistakes with a Micro-Influencer (5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring)

Asking for recommendations continue to evolve, and even in the realm of SMS this continues to innovate and grow.

Once upon a time we may have asked a neighbor to recommend a product or service, 47% of millennials now turn to social media for recommendations and reviews before deciding on a purchase.

However, these consumers aren't always going to the social media accounts of major brands. Most of the time, they are visiting the profiles of a specific group of personalities that they relate to or follow. These personalities are "Influencers".

As discussed previously here, SMS marketing is an important piece of your marketing channel that can drive you great click through rates and open rates, and Influencers can drive social legitimacy.

Also consider this: Close to 40% of Twitter users alone have made a purchase as a result of the use of influencer marketing -- combine this with your SMS marketing campaign and the result is limitless.

Many of us when we think of influencers, you might be thinking of A-list personalities and celebrities. Take Yumi Wong, for example, who helped catapult the brand LANCASTER.

There is a good chance that celebrities might significantly grow your sale and help you to achieve your marketing targets, but let's face it: not every brand can afford their price tags. It's reported that Kylie Jenner gets $400,000 for a single promotional Instagram post. That's ~RM1,600,000 per post.

Why us Micro-Influencers?

Micro influencers might seem to be counter intuitive, it might make sense to leverage on an influencer with a large reach compared to those with only a few thousand.

This isn't necessary.

A study done by Markerly, puts this evidence to the sword as it the converse relationship was found between the number of followers against the level of engagement.

"Conclusion: With a large number of followers engagement rate actually decreases."

Finding the right Micro-influencer for your business

Wit so many micro-influencers, it's no surprise that a lot of marketers highlight that finding the right one as their biggest challenge.

Here are 5 questions you'll need to answer very carefully

1. What are your goals?

The first thing as with most things to consider. What are you trying to achieve? Do you want to generate more leads then look for micro-influencers that frequently host contests or giveaways on their social media accounts.

2. Who are the micro-influencer's followers?

Look at the followers as these will be the list of people you want to reach, and look at how well they align with your brands buyer personas. Some things you can consider are:

Where are the majority of the micro-influencers's geographically located?

Are they mostly male or female?

Which type of posts resonates with them the most?

3. What kind of content does the micro-influencer produce?

Micro-influencers create their posts based on their own brand and image and you will want to compare this against the image you want them to associate with your brand. It's important to make sure that this is aligned. 

4. Are they already working with your competitors?

How did the audience respond to the post? Was there anything mentioned by the micro-influencer about your competitors' products that you can use to your advantage or avoid?

5. How many platforms to they use?

Although a bulk of influencers are on Instagram, there are many of them that are equally active on their own blogs and other social media channels. This is good for your as the more platforms a micro-influencer can use to promote your content, the better it is for you.

Use influencers to drive better legitimacy for your SMS marketing campaign. Implement your SMS marketing campaign now with EVERWORKS affordable, and professional service.

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5 Unorthodox Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Business

Every year, without warning holiday marketing campaigns are everywhere the floodgates open and countless businesses rush to cash in on the holiday spending frenzy. There are numerous holiday emails, social media posts, and TV ads -- everyone is rushing to get a piece of the pie.

It might seem like during the holidays the marketing gets out of control, but some brands actually do it very, very, very well.

They don't just chase typical promotional campaigns, but they strive to create campaigns that actually delight customers. This actually helps the brands to stand out amongst the holiday "noise". They evoke emotion and connect people with their loved ones.

Here are 5 of our favorites:

1. Coca Cola

Here's to peace on earth. Or at least in the mall. #TasteTheFeeling

A post shared by Coca-Cola Canada (@cocacola_ca) on Nov 23, 2016 at 5:05am PST

2. Hotel Tonight

Ready for the holidays? Grandma’s inflating your air mattress & checking it twice. Maybe this year you should visit, not stay. #HotelTonight pic.twitter.com/gWZUU8T8qg

— HotelTonight (@HotelTonight) November 22, 2016

3. Dollar Shave Club

The DSC Holiday Shave Set is such a perfect present, other gifts can't handle it.

A post shared by Dollar Shave Club (@dollarshaveclub) on Nov 17, 2016 at 5:25pm PST

4. Edeka

5. John Lewis

Merry Christmas from us at EVERWORKS. Hopefully this inspires you to create more creative SMS Marketing campaigns!

Learn more about how we can help you deliver your SMS Marketing campaigns here! 

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7 Examples that Drive Conversion through SMS

SMS is a neglected marketing channel that should take more prominence in your marketing pie and there's evidence too with a 99% open rate and a 36% click through rate it's hard to see why not.

There are other marketing channels that are effective, but there are few that boasts the numbers that SMS delivers. There's a hidden gem that most people miss out on the notification messages that you send out when confirming orders or requests from customers.

As discussed previously, its important to establish authentic relationships with people and only when they are willing to receive notifications from your brand should you ever approach them. It's the established trust that gives you permission to build an engaging conversation with your customer. While we are all busy with building new lists it's common for us to forget about nurturing the lists that we've spent so much effort acquiring.

Delivered SMSes to willing brand participants is often overlooked and there's a big opportunity for you to take advantage of here. But how? Through short snippets that pique interest to discover value add-ons that is specially on offer to them.

7 Examples that Drive Conversion through SMS

1) Promote and upcoming event or conference

Having a simple call-to-action in your SMS can drive more registrations, increases live stream attendances, and improve post event follow ups.

We all know how much time and effort is put into setting up for an event, why not reach out to already interested people through SMS.

2) Share a new Ebook or Industry Report

The easiest way to provide consistent and meaningful value to your customers is to pass along helpful content. Any interaction that you may have with your customer is an opportunity to do this -- plus sharing thought leadership content builds trust and establishes credibility.

3) Share a Case Study

To keep customers engaged in your pipeline, share a case study, specific use case or testimonial and feature a customer the prospect can relate to or identify as a credible brand.

4) Drive more registrations to your next event

Need more attendees? Include a subtle call-to-action is an easy way to get the word out.

5) Let customers know about product offerings or discounts

Chances are you already send a lot of notification SMSs out and this is a great way to include a short snipper promoting any offerings or discounts that you may have.

6) Convert leads to Opportunities

Personalisation is important, and this can't be emphasized enough. People who sign up to your lists are likely to be thirsty for more information. Include a CTA for the "next step" and this could greatly improve your chances at converting your leads.

7) Include a video link to spice it up

We know that SMS has superb open rates and click through rates, why not capitalize on this. Typing words sometimes doesn't just cut it, the message isn't fully interpreted. It's tough to establish a real human connection. Best way to do this, try video. In our experience video produces the highest engagement rate by far.

SMS should be your next trick up your sleeve

Continue to strive for personalized and relevant content, as this would work better chances for your sales efforts. Make sure you target the right audience too and this would lead to better outcomes for your team. Create your own SMS campaign today.

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5 Things to Start, Stop, and Keep Doing With Your SMS Marketing

If you're reading this it's likely you're trying to figure out a way to improve on your current SMS Marketing tactics.

SMS Marketing is a powerful tool as we've discussed about in previous posts where we've explored;

• 10 reasons why your cafe should use SMS Marketing and 
• SMS having a 99% Open Rate and 36% Click Through Rate

covering some of key topics on why we believe SMS Marketing is something you should seriously consider. Let's get straight into this:

How to improve your SMS Marketing 

1. Send SMS to lists that want to hear from you

If you have SMS lists that have low rates of engagement activity, stop sending more SMS to them. Every time you send to a list with low rates of engagement, it not just hurts your budgets, but also your reputation for connecting with your customers.

2. Have a goal for for each SMS before you press send

You should always have a goal in mind for every marketing effort you do. If you do not have a clear goal in mind, your customers receiving your SMS won't either. Some examples of these goals can be filling up a form for gated content, or redeeming a voucher code to be used in your store.

3. Personalise and test your SMS

SMS personalisation really works. When it comes to personalisation its best to stick to the basics such as recipient names. You don't want to come across as creepy, so it's best to leave it at that.

4. Experiment by sending SMS out on different days of the week

Stop sending SMS on Wednesdays. Just stop. Tuesday all the way through to Thursdays are the most popular days for sending out SMS but they're over saturated and might be overwhelming your subscribers. If you want your SMS to be opened try on different days like Monday or Fridays. You can also try on Saturdays, and make sure you include a call to action - there's a tendency here for consumers to react.

5. Engage with contacts that have engaged not uploaded lists

When someone willingly provides their information, the engagement is likely to be higher - the key here is willing. That's because they are willing or interested to hear from you, and they've told you so by engaging with your opt-in request. We've got an idea that would help to drive better engagement reach that might help with your SMS list building efforts through influencer engagement.

Never buy SMS lists, you're only hurting your reputation - your hard earned credibility will be hurt by doing this, and it is plain annoying to receive messages that don't matter to you. Here's an example: what if there's a guy that's interested in sports attire, but you end up sending claimable discount vouchers through SMS to him for the new red hot lipstick. There's a disconnection when you purchase lists, and the likelihood for backlash is greater. Why risk it?

SMS has strong merits, and it should be an avenue for you to consider to diversify your marketing channel participation. Having a targeted campaign enables you to direct your marketing campaigns to your customers immediately. Learn more about how we can help you with SMS. If you'd like to run through some ideas with us, just get in touch with us.

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5 Influencer Marketing Ideas to Drive List Building

What's the difference between Influencer Marketing and the traditional Celebrity Spokesperson Marketing?

Influencers are specialists in their respective niches, have a high level of trust with their network and establish a two way communication with their followers.

Influencer marketing is a strategy to tap into an existing community of engaged followers. This means that these people have influence over an audience that you might be trying to reach - this might prove to be valuable to your marketing efforts.

The line is blurred with Influencer Marketing when it comes to celebrity endorsements. There is a tendency for fans to rely on a well researched recommendation compared to signed marketing contracts.

If having a selective niche audience is what your brand needs, engaging with influencers with niche specialities is often better compared to celebrity endorsements that may cover a broad range of different sponsored products and industries. Celebrity endorsements are great, but it's often less about fan engagement and more about attaching a person's fame and name recognition to a particular brand.

Important Tip: Use influencers to drive list building activities. 

Although, giveaways and other perks are great, but use your campaign to also build rapport with your audience - this is a great way to build credible engagement with your fans and grow legitimacy with easy collaboration with reputable influencers.

1. Old Navy

Check out Old Navy's approach to implementing influencer marketing - they got in touch with Meghan Rienks to do a series of promotional posts for them on their social accounts.

she’s baaack 💫🎉💫 . got a bajillion holiday parties? @meghanrienks shows you how to wear 1 jumpsuit, 3 totally different ways. now all that’s left to do is RSVP “yes” 💌 . shop her looks, link in bio ✨ . #oldnavystyle #happyistrending

A post shared by oldnavy (@oldnavy) on Dec 6, 2016 at 1:06pm PST

2. Natta Cosme

Natta Cosme got in touch with woonsingg a local influencer to carry out their influencer marketing.

This Glacial Clay Mask is just what I need, for purifies the skin, as well as minimise the enlarged pores and firm the sagging pore walls 🌋 @nattacosme

A post shared by ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀w o o n s i n g g 👾 (@woonsingg) on Jul 28, 2017 at 5:27am PDT

3. SKII Malaysia

SKII Malaysia engaged with Sue Lynn Tiong popularly known as Bangsar Babe for their on-ground event. They drove digital engagement with Sue Lynn posting on her Instagram driving awareness for their campaign.

All set for the SK-II beauty workshop I'm hosting in Mid Valley! If you're around, drop by and say hi 👋🏻 #changedestiny #skii @skii

A post shared by Sue Lynn Tiong (@bangsarbabe) on Oct 18, 2017 at 9:14pm PDT

4. The Starling Mall

The Starling Mall organised a campaign #mystarlingtrails and to raise awareness about this they engaged with Tzia an influencer with a giveaway.

You've seen me on my trail. Now, it’s time to do your own! Stand a chance to win RM500 worth of prizes by following the exact same trail as me! Here's how: · · Step 1: Follow @thestarlingmall on Instagram Step 2: Choose and save a map. Step 3: Complete at least 3 of the 5 stops on the map and take photos at each. Step 4: Upload your photos as an album and tag @thestarlingmall + hashtag #mystarlingtrails. Then, add the category hashtags: #starlingfamilytrail, #starlingnaturetrail or #starlingwellnesstrail · · For more info follow @thestarlingmall! T&C apply.

A post shared by tziaaa (@tziaaa) on Nov 2, 2017 at 6:45pm PDT

5. Cetaphil Malaysia

Cetaphil Malaysia is raising awareness of their product through the use of influencer marketing. Engaging with Jane Chuck they get reach to 517k+ of her followers and the trust that they have in her recommendations.

Simple cleanse & moisturize will do the job. Cetaphil is one of the safest brand I go to whenever I have skin problems and when I’m unsure with the products that cause it / make it worst. They never fail me for getting a healthy skin 😉 #CetaphilMy #IdealCleansing #MoisturizeMoisturizeMoisturize

A post shared by Jane Chuck (@janechuck) on Oct 25, 2017 at 3:28am PDT

Key takeaways

Don't limit your campaigns to the use of usual advertising channels only. It is one dimensional and does not encourage your fans to respond. Deliver rapport along with your awareness campaign as you will create greater credibility with your following.

Grow your list and boost it with influencer marketing to expand your reach to fans that want to interact and share their experiences with you!

Introducing NEXT Academy's brand new Digital Marketing Quantum Degree. Now open for enrollment. http://nextmy.co/qd-digitalmarketing

A post shared by Next Academy (@nextacademy_) on Apr 28, 2017 at 1:35am PDT

You can learn more about SMS Marketing and how it is a direct channel tool that will help you with your marketing efforts in our blog post here. Also if you're interested to find out more about SMS Marketing and how we can help you, please visit our website for more information.

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Don't Send These Messages to Your Subscribers

We have a tendency to want to flatter our prospects, and to deliver a high level of personalisation so that they can resonate with you. Take caution though on going too personal, it should be kept simple so that you do not come across as creepy. Else your customers will start to wonder how you've managed to get such detailed -private- information about them. This isn't good to do. Normally people don't trust flattery from strangers.

3 Creepy SMS Habits to Drop

1) You know too much about them

With today's technologies and tools it makes it really easy to learn a lot about a person.

Pro tip: Embrace what you don't know and try seeming a bit lost. It's okay to not always be credible and start to be more curious. The more questions you can ask, the more natural the conversation will flow and build.

2) You're focusing too much on what they've done not what they've said

"I see that you've been to the same university as me". This is creepy. Please forget about the school, work history, summary, awards, and reference sections. Instead go straight to the associations, groups and network associations.

Pro tip: I can send them an approach which says we've noticed you said this and we'd like to ask you some questions. This builds rapport and is a more authentic way of building a relationship.

3) You are not disclosing your sources

Don't say, "I understand you recently moved jobs" "I'm aware you're looking for new software" or "I know you also know Bob". These statements raise questions that you don't want people asking themselves.

Pro tip: "I'm actually not a member of the group, ..." is an opener that might sound trivial, but that's an important phrase to include to save you a lot of time from explaining, and allows you to establish that the person you are approaching still remains to be the expert.

***

It's important to remember that every approach you make must have a specific goal in mind. If not your recipient or prospect won't know what's the objective of you trying to reach out to them. You might be asking, when should you take the lead in the conversation? The answer is at some point of time when you the conversation is headed towards a direction you expect it to. The answer is vague, and you'd like an accurate answer to it, but the truth is there isn't one. The positive you can take from this is that when you place more power in the prospects hands, it's more likely that they will be more eager to open to you.

If you'd like to learn more about how we can help you with SMS Marketing, you can follow our updates here on our blog, or you can get in touch with us.

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7 Easy SMS Ideas to Attract Foot Traffic to your Store

SMS Marketing is the success for a number of industries. On average there more than 95 million SMS are sent every single day in Malaysia. This is another way that retailers can engage with and motivate consumers.

What sets SMS apart from other marketing initiatives is the level of intimacy SMS has with the user. There's a difference compared to other digital and print ads, is that the subscribers on your list have explicitly chosen to receive communications from you and that they want to hear from you.

When you compare this with other forms of ads like social media, paid ads, or other tactics, nothing is more personal than SMS. Any message you're sending actually lands in someone's cellphone, every single time. Social media only reaches a ratio of your entire audience potential and paid traffic is often not qualified. The idea is with other forms of adverts, the activity of reaching out to people don't even know your brand yet with expectation for them to spend money on you.

Utilising SMS Marketing allows you to reach a qualified audience on an intimate nature, which means that these people are more qualified to take action.

Below you'll find ways Malaysian retailers can use SMS Marketing to lure in more foot traffic.

What to Include in Every SMS

Malaysian Retailers who have brick-and-mortar stores should always include information (a CTA) in every SMS as a reminder to come to the shop. Here are some things you'll want to consider; A specific landing page leading from the SMS that shows:

• A list of locations (plus a link to easily get directions from Waze / Google Maps)
• Store hours and phone numbers.

Use more personal language. For example: "Your Local Store", compared to "Nearby Locations" or "Nearby Stores". The more personalised the messaging feels to the customer, the more likely it will resonate.

Don't Just Send SMSs

There's more to SMS marketing than simply sending SMS's to your list. There's a requirement for maintenance, strategy, and nurturing involved, as well.

Building Your List

If you don't have an existing SMS list, you're going to need to get one. And if you're thinking that it's as easy as putting up a form on your website. Think again.

Customers sign up for SMS lists because they want to get something out of it. In some cases, it could be a free resource and for other cases, they sign up because of a free gift with purchase. If you're not sure what to offer your SMS subscribers, think about who your target market is and what they want. It could be as simple as a coupon code, but it needs to be appealing enough to make your customers want to give you their personal information.

Then think how you will encourage customers to sign up on your list. There are many ways to do this, but again, it comes down to your target market. If your target market are mainly on Facebook, run a paid Facebook campaign to build your list. Likewise for other channels; magazines, forums, associations, etc.

Segmenting Your List

SMS list segmentation is important. Period.

List segmentation is by creating lists within your list. Sublists, of customers with similar attributes grouped together by demographics, purchasing behavior, SMS engagement, and more.

"If you want to use SMS to drive more foot traffic to your store, you must make sure that you're only SMSing customers that have registered interest to actually coming into your store."

SMS Ideas to Attract More Foot Traffic to Your Store

In-Store Events and Announcements

This method is a highly recommended way for retailers to boost foot traffic. If you really want customers to come to your events, you'll need to do more than just send a one-time event about it.

Instead, think of an SMS series that you can send weeks prior to the event. This helps build buzz, and your list is more likely to see it.

For example:
Athletic gear: Have a meet-and-greet with a local celebrity athlete. Send out emails that have exclusive Q&As, the athlete's training regimen, and videos where the athlete demonstrates different exercises. Post-event, distribute more fitness tips, coupons for any recommended gear (in-store purchases only!), and information on future events.

Celebrate Customer Milestones

Customers have relationships with brands, and the more brands nurture those relationships, the more they can expect their customers to purchase with them. Celebrating milestones in the brand's relationship with its customers you can encourage them to come in store to share that moment with your brand. Here are some examples of what you can implement for your customer:

• Birthday
• Anniversary of joining your SMS list
• Anniversary of first purchase

Build Hype Around Your Products

New Arrivals? Stock running low? Use SMS to create buzz around your products to give updates. Let your customers know about the status of products.

• New arrivals
• Popular products
• Running low

SMS Marketing Is Only as Strong as Your Strategy

At the end of everything, a strong SMS marketing strategy is important to ongoing and consistent success. Starting out with measurable goals and a target market in mind will help ensure your SMS marketing is as effective as possible.



Find out more about how you can implement SMS Marketing here.

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Supercharged Marketing Tool with 99% Open Rate and a 36% Click Through Rate

We'd like to wish all Malaysians Selamat Hari Merdeka! This year's Merdeka is special with the SEA Games being hosted in Kuala Lumpur. Learn more about the SEA Games here.

Find out how you can spice up your holiday with mobile marketing below.

During Merdeka there are major discounts and deals given to consumers and this has been the highlight and trend that majority of Malaysians look forward to.

Redbox turned the opportunity into their benefit when they SMSed text messages to their followers to follow them on their Instagram account. This is a cross-channel approach to encourage users to participate with their different marketing channels.

With the average SMS open rate at 99% and the average click through rate at 36% it is easy for brands to direct their customers to other owned marketing channels. The statistics are also the reason why a lot of brands are attracted to the possibility of SMS.

(Source: https://www.tatango.com/blog/redbox-spices-up-holiday-mobile-marketing-campaign/)

Hey it's the holiday season in Malaysia with a lot of brands taking advantage of the festivities by testing and making returns on alternative marketing methods and channels.

Learn other ways you could use SMS for your business here: How to conduct a SMS giveaway and Here are 10 reasons why your cafe should use SMS marketing.

Give SMS a try.

We believe that Malaysia is a beautiful country with abundant opportunity. Here is to the future :)

#bangkitbersama
#NegaraKuSehatiSejiwa

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How to Conduct a Giveaway (a SMS Marketing Cheat Sheet)

Driving engagement with your fans is the buzz of the marketing world right now. A 1 way passive interaction between the advertiser and the receiver doesn't generate the best return on ad spend as the world is in demand for more. Competition among advertisers is fierce and there is a greater need to stand out from the crowd.

A giveaway is common, but running a giveaway campaign through sms marketing is not common in Malaysia.

Do note that there is a basis for my perspective in running a giveaway through SMS marketing, mobile penetration in Malaysia is at an all time high, 144.8%, and more marketers should take advantage of this channel.

Here's an example, our friends at Chipotle finished their Great Dorm Giveaway, which allowed students to enter the SMS giveaway by texting DORM2 to the SMS short code 888222. The SMS giveaway gave the chance for students to win a Chipotle catered party for 100, in addition to a $1,000 Target gift card.

Runners up would receive a Chipotle catered party for 20 and a $25 Target gift card. When fans texted “DORM2” to 888222, in order to enter the SMS giveaway, they received the follow text message response, asking them to respond YES to confirm that they were a student at a participating college. This drove student engagement with Chipotle a marketing objective that drives brand awareness, and recognition amongst its customers.

Giveaways are common to drive brand recognition for brands and to introduce increased engagement with customers that are already passively participating with your brand. This introduces an action layer that encourages customers to interact and actively participate with brand based activities.

Want to learn how you can employ this for your business too? Learn more here.

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Tried and Tested Old-School Marketing Hack (SMS Marketing)

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.

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How to run a SMS Marketing Campaign for your restaurant? Subway case study

Marketing is important for your restaurant business, regardless of whether your business is small, growing, or large. In your ad spend you'll have integrated into your strategy a variety of channels in your mix, but one that is often overlooked is SMS campaigns. SMS campaigns are extremely targeted. Think of it as an email newsletter, but any notice or information you communicate out to your customer group goes direct to their phones as long as there is a phone line. Just a note, if you're in Malaysia the penetration rates for mobile phones is at an all time high, 144.8% (Malaysian Digital Association, 2016).

So for those who have read thus far, here's the gist of it. Your restaurant needs customers to be reminded that you have special offers catered to their needs, what better way to inform them then to give them a reminder that they'll be sure to notice. Here is a case example of Subway the fastest growing food franchise to learn how we can apply SMS Marketing to your restaurant business in Malaysia.

Subway announces to their customers that they can get deals sent directly to their phones. This is followed by campaign graphics that introduce the benefits of signing up to be on Subway's list.

Not pictured in the screenshot above is Subway’s abbreviated text messaging terms & conditions, which are as follows: Msg&data rates may apply. Max 10 msgs/mo. Msgs may be auto dialed. Consent not required to buy goods/svcs. Only available for smartphones with a data plan. For help, text HELP to 782929. To opt-out, text STOP to 782929.

To see Subway’s full text message terms & conditions, click here. If you prefer to opt-in on your mobile phone to receive Subway weekly text message offers, and receive a free 6-inch subway sandwich, text “OFFERS” to Subway’s dedicated vanity short code – 78292. Did you know that Subway’s vanity short code 78292, spells out “SUBWAY” on a mobile phone’s dialpad? It’s true, try it on your own mobile phone. This is added branding for your restaurant. After submitting your mobile phone number and zip code to receive Subway text message offers, you’ll be redirected to the following page.

This page tells you that to start receiving Subway text message offers, you first need to reply to the confirmation text message sent to your mobile phone from their SMS short code 78292. As you can see from the text message below from Subway’s SMS short code 78292, Subway requires you to reply “Y” to confirm that you want to opt-in to receive Subway’s weekly text message offers.

Why does Subway require you to reply “Y” via text message, after you enter your mobile phone number into their web form? Not only is this required by the MCMC Malaysia, it protects Subway from sending text message spam. How does it protect Subway from sending text message spam?

Here's a scenario, what if in Subway’s web form I accidentally typed in (206) 334-4011, when my actual mobile phone number is (206) 334-4012. If Subway automatically opted-in the mobile phone number (206) 334-4011, without requiring them to reply “Y”, every text message offer sent to that mobile phone number from Subway would be considered text message spam.

That’s why it’s critical that before you opt-in a customer’s mobile phone number, you confirm with them that it is in fact their mobile phone number, and they want to receive your text message offers.

When you reply to Subway’s opt-in confirmation text message with “Y”, you receive two text messages in return. The first text message you receive is the coupon for your free 6-inch subway sandwich, and the second text message is welcoming you to the text message campaign. As you can see from the text message below, the welcome text message from Subway is customized based on the subscriber’s zip code.

To redeem your coupon for the Subway 6-inch sandwich, you have to click on the link. When you click on the link, you’re taken to the following mobile website, where you can redeem the mobile coupon. It’s worth noting that below the “REDEEM” button, Subway instructs you to only press the redeem button during the purchase process in the presence of the cashier. You’ll see why Subway tells you this in the next mobile screenshot. So after you’ve clicked the “REDEEM” button, you’re presented with the following pop-up on the mobile website.

Subway warns you that the coupon you’re about to access will expire within 5 minutes, so it’s best to be at the cash register at your local Subway before clicking “CONFIRM”. Once you do click the “CONFIRM” button, you’re present with your subway coupon, as you can see below. You’ll notice that there’s a 5-minute timer on the Subway coupon, which expires the coupon after it runs out of time. It’s also interesting to note that the coupon specifically tells customers that if the timer hand is not moving, the offer is not valid.

Why? This is to prevent you from taking a photo of the mobile coupon and trying to redeem it. In a photo, the timer hand would not being moving. What does it look like when the Subway’s mobile coupon is expired? See below. Why does Subway do this with their mobile coupons? The reason is to prevent mobile coupon fraud. In mobile marketing, coupon code fraud is when a coupon specifically for new mobile subscribers is used by customers that never opted into the mobile marketing campaign, or used by the same customer multiple times.

To prevent mobile coupon code fraud, Brands like Subway will limit the usage of each mobile coupon, either by using unique one-time usage coupon codes for each mobile subscriber, or in the case of Subway, they’ll limit the time that the mobile coupon is visible to the customer. One of the best parts about Subway’s text messaging campaign is that they’re advertising it everywhere, including in a commercial! Below are some of the examples of Subway advertising their text messaging campaign to customers.

If you're interested to run SMS campaigns like Subway for your restaurant find out more here.

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Keep Your Customers Coming Back Even If Your Restaurant Is Closed For The Holidays

Increase your restaurant's upside potential in closing sales through better qualified marketing leads. Run campaigns that reach your potential target audience with a strong channel marketing strategy that would lead on.

There's a saying in the restaurant business in Malaysia, owners need to work 365 days a year even through holidays and notable breaks like Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, and Deepavali. This can be draining because these are times when children look forward to spending time with parents, and a time for when parents have the time to spend with family.

It's a concern for owners to close the restaurant, even during off-peak hours. As they say every hour the restaurant doesn't operate the restaurant looses the opportunity to make earnings from a hungry customer. 

So we went out to find an example on the Internet to see how some restaurant owners tackled this issue. Low and behold we found an interesting take to this issue, where a famous chain restaurant in the US took advantage of the downtime by approaching it with a proactive response to customers interested in their service by encouraging them to return during the down-time.

Did you notice that Chipotle’s across the country were closed on Monday for lunch? What does this have to do with SMS marketing you ask? Instead of Chipotle just closing their doors, turning away loyal customers, they decided to use an SMS autoresponder to offer a free burrito, burrito bowl, salad, or order of tacos, to those customers that were inconvenienced.

How did it all work? First, when a Chipotle customer approached one of the locations that were closed, they were greeted with the following sign on the door. The sign read “We’re closed for lunch today to attend a meeting with all the other Chipotle employees. But don’t worry, we’ll be back open at 3pm. If we messed up your lunch plans, let us make it up to you: visit chiptole.com/raincheck. See you soon.” You can see a photo of the Chipotle sign below.

FYI – Every Chipotle restaurant in the country closed for lunch on February 8, 2016, so that employees could meet and discuss food safety strategy, following several reports of E. coli linked to the popular burrito chain.

When customers visited chipotle.com/raincheck on their mobile phones, they were told to text “RAINCHECK” to Chipotle’s SMS short code 888-222, in order for Chipotle to hook them up for messing up their lunch plans. You can see this below in the mobile phone screenshot.

If for some reason you didn’t open up chipotle.com/raincheck on your mobile phone, you still could access the website on your desktop computer. A screenshot of the Chipotle website from a desktop computer is below.

The next step was for customers to text message “RAINCHECK” to Chipotle’s SMS short code, which is 888-222. After texting “RAINCHECK” to 888-222, customers received a text message autoresponder message, with a link to a free burrito. You can see the text message below.

Do you have a restaurant, and are you interested in SMS marketing? Learn more about how SMS marketing can help your restaurant here.

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4 Ideas to Drive More Repeat Conversions

Everyday your subscribers receive a large number of SMS. With so much competition for attention, it's highly likely that a percentage of your subscriber list will lose interest in and stop engaging with your sms marketing campaigns. This may not seem to be a big problem, but this will slowly crop up to affect a large percentage of your list if not careful. As your list engagement drops you run the risk of damaging your sender reputation and your sms deliverability rates.

We now know the problem, but how should you address this issue? By creating special re-engagement SMSs targeted directly at your "inactive" subscribers.

So what are some re-engagement SMS examples to inspire your next efforts?

1. Improvements on products, while you were away...

"We've made some improvement since you've been away, join over 5 million members who are"

What's good about this re-engagemnet SMS is it draws attention to the improvements you have in your products since your subscriber's last engagement. There is a tactful action to also include a social proof of how more than 5 million members are currently using their services.

2. Do you still want to hear from us?

"It's been awhile, do you still want to hear from us? We want to ensure that you continue to receive content that is relevant to you."

This is a simple question, but the focus is to allow subscribers to update their preferences and keeps them engaged with you. The benefit here is you are aware that your subscribers are still interested in your content.

3. Surprises

"Pick from two special gift sets exclusively for you, follow this link here ____"

We all love surprises. Make use of your subscriber's emotional instinct in their re-engagement SMSs.

4. We hate goodbyes

"We hate goodbyes so we're sending you one last message, Let us know if you want to continue receiving messages from us"

This is an emotional re-engagement SMS that informs a subscriber that it will be your last email to them. This is a good way to keep subscribers that are truly interested in your brand, but beware do not use this too often.

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