As I have mentioned in previous posts, 94% of text messages are read within just a few minutes of being received. Almost all businesses should consider texting to increase revenue, whether it is a salon, spa, restaurant, etc. You have inventory or open time slots, this is the way to fill them. Emails take lots of time to compose and too many people don’t take the time to read them in the world of people always on the go. Businesses need to create the “call to action” versus hoping to have business.
Text messages being sent to customers should be kept short and sweet, typically 160 characters. Accessibility to creating these messages should be simple as well. That is why the texting platform offered through Integrated Mobile Marketing (www.immarketing.me) allows clients to login through a computer or generate and send the messages directly from their mobile device. Not everyone has time to sit at the computer so that is why we now offer it on the go!
The text messages need to be unique to get the consumers’ attention. Sending a text message of specials you always have on that night of the week is wasting everyone’s time. They already know what you offer. You need to pull the trigger for them to thing, “Wow, this is a deal I need to act on now.” Maybe they weren’t sure where they wanted to eat dinner that night or keep telling themselves that they need a massage, but won’t take the initiative to book one. Sending offers that aren’t typically available makes the consumers act upon them.
You have tables to fill or time slots to fill and your overhead is fixed so you’re paying rent, regardless of how much business you do. These customers are profit after the marginal cost of food or supplies they need…plus, some of the food would possibly be gone to waste.
For those that love finance and math as much as me, here is a simple way of calculating the ROI on texting. Assume you have 500 messages that you can send a month and you own or manage a restaurant.
500 Text Messages Sent
35% Reponse Rate
175 Customers Utilize the Message
2.5 Customer brings friends & avg 2.5 heads/message used
437 Seats Filled
$ 5 Avg. gross profit/person (much more if alcohol is consumed)
$2,185 Additional Revenue
At only $5/person in gross profit on food & pop, you would only need 8 people to cover the cost of the texting service! That is a 54.6:1 return! If you are a restaurant where alcohol is consumed by patrons, you could multiply the additional revenue exponentially!
Now assume you are a masseuse. You typically charge $70/hr for a massage and you notice the next week that very few slots are filled. You send out an offer for an hour massage at $55. If you send out 100 of your available 500 messages (save some for another week) and 30 people call to schedule, that is $1,650 of income that filled openings that would probably not have been filled. And there are still 400 more messages that could be sent and earn thousands more the rest of the month.
We have packages that range from 500 to 10,000 messages a month. Contact me for pricing and more information about our texting platform.
Michael Vanderhorst
(937) 470-8588
expressmobilemarketing 