Customer loyalty clubs are awesome. You get your little punch card or barcode keychain at the time of sale and every time you go back and make another purchase you get points towards a reward. The reward usually comes in the form of a free product, special pricing, or branded merchandise. You know what we’re talking about: Buy 5 sandwiches and get the 6th free! So, how can we use SMS marketing to help drive the success of our loyalty rewards program? Let’s take a look at a three real world examples:
1) Starbucks Offers Mobile Coupons
Back in 2009, Starbucks ran a mobile coupon loyalty program in Mexico. The strategy behind the campaign involved not only rewarding loyal customers but also introduced Starbucks to new customers. Starbucks used a very traditional marketing channel – postcards – to encourage customers to subscribe to Starbucks’ SMS distribution list. By doing this, the customer would get a download link for a ‘buy one get one free’ mobile coupon. That was the part of the campaign to attract new customers. Existing customers were rewarded by an in-store display that prompted customers to text a different keyword to the same short code, which opted the customer in to an SMS list that offered discounts and offers. The cashiers at Starbucks were able to read the mobile coupons directly from the customers’ mobile phones at the time of sale. The current offer could be changed to encourage repeat customers.The Takeaway: An SMS campaign can be used to not only generate new customers with a static offer, but also to reward existing customers with coupons and offers that frequently change. The frequently changing offers give the existing customer subsequent reasons to visit the store.
Source: Mobile Marketer
2) Taco John’s Drives Participation
A more recent example comes from Taco John’s, which used a text message campaign early last year to drive participation in a customer loyalty program called “My Town Mania.” Customers were able to receive not only coupon offers, but also healthy living tips via SMS during the campaign’s six-week duration. As mentioned, the SMS campaign supported the “My Town Mania” loyalty program, in which customers could earn points by sharing photos and videos of their communities. Points could be redeemed for free food, gift cards, and merchandise.
The Takeaway: Taco John’s strategy ties in directly with another great mobile marketing campaign tip we covered earlier
in this blog: tie your SMS marketing message to information that your
prospect will want to see on a regular basis (e.g. the weather). In the
case of Taco John’s, it was healthy living tips.
Source: Mobile Commerce Daily
3) Vienna Beef Helps its Customers Reach Their Customers
The previous two entries were examples of business-to-consumer marketing via SMS. In this next example, we take a brief look at how a supplier acted as a third party to create an SMS business-to-customer program for its customers. The supplier was Vienna Beef, a hot dog maker based in Chicago. The pass-through businesses were restaurants that carried Vienna Beef products. The customers were hot dog lovers around the country. Vienna Beef offered its customers (restaurants) a ‘pre-packaged’ SMS campaign that the restaurant could in turn use to entice their customers (hot dog lovers) with offers and announcements. The restaurants would use point-of-purchase displays and other forms of marketing to promote the program. After the restaurant’s customers subscribed to the SMS list, the customer would receive coupons that could be redeemed by showing their mobile phone to the restaurant’s cashier. Restaurants owners had a great deal of control over the frequency and content of their store’s messages and offers, but Vienna Beef provided suggestions and support to restaurant owners who were charting new ground with this marketing strategy.
The Takeaway: Suppliers
can develop creative customer loyalty SMS campaigns that can benefit
each member of the sales chain, from the supplier (e.g. Vienna Beef) to
the business (e.g. restaurants) to the customer (e.g. hot dog lovers).
It’s a win-win-win for everybody involved.
Source: Chief Marketer
Source: by Todd Jensen on June 8, 2012
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