Make Sure the Door is Open and the Tables Are Set
Did you know that with today’s technology it’s possible to turn around a slow sales day with the press of a few buttons? Text message marketing has drastically changed the way businesses and customers interact. While it used to be that marketing campaigns required weeks of planning, publication printing, and mail processing time, today this is no longer the case. With Spinnaker by JTECH, for example, you can instantaneously send a promotional offer via text message to your customers. What this means for your restaurant is that you have the ability to increase sales potential on your schedule versus being completely at the whim of your customers. In a specific example: let’s say you have extra inventory of a particular perishable item and if it isn’t sold it will spoil. Create a special promotion around this item and use Spinnaker to immediately inform your customers of the offer. While Spinnaker has many benefits beyond what could possibly be covered here, the utility of the text message marketing feature alone has the potential to elevate your sales.
The concern mangers sometimes have about using text message marketing is founded on a false belief that people will not read your text message or that people will be annoyed by receiving your text message.
Let’s address each of these separately:
In response to the first concern regarding text messages going unnoticed, independent research data suggests that 95% of text messages are read by the recipient within 15 minutes or less. Further, over 150 million people regularly use text messaging for communication. While all 150 million people won’t necessarily be in your target audience, there’s a good chance that your chosen demographic is well stocked with text messaging users. And you can capture contact information for these customers using Spinnaker.
With regard to the second concern, that people will be annoyed by your text message, you can reduce the likelihood of this in a number of ways. First of all, all of your contacts must be opted-in, meaning they willingly gave you their contact information. Through Spinnaker’s unique guest portal and the kiosk modes, this ‘opt-in’ process is simple and painless. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, make sure your promotions are timely and appealing to the customer. When you offer a strong value, your customers who already know your product are most likely to participate. Response rates for appropriate and compelling promotional offers can exceed 35-45%!
While Spinnaker can’t actually prepare the food for you or pour the drinks, it can help increase the number of customers who increase return visits, and that’s like money in the bank.
