Mobile Marketing Case Studies
MOBILE MARKETING CASE STUDIES
1 - SL Green Realty Mobile Marketing Case Study
SL Green Realty Corp. is a self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust, or REIT, that predominantly acquires, owns, repositions and manages Manhattan office properties. The Company is the only publicly held REIT that specializes in this niche. As of June 30, 2010, the Company owned 30 New York City office properties totalling approximately 23,719,200 square feet, making it New York's largest office landlord. Objective: SL Green relies on brokers to fill their offices spaces. New York City brokers are inundated with email flyers about available properties, so much so that their email inboxes are flooded daily. And because brokers are always out and about, they tend to hit Delete the second they see most eFlyers hit their Blackberries. Melissa Libner, Director of Marketing for SL Green, wanted to find a way to break through the clutter. After watching the widely-covered success of Barack Obama’s text messaging campaigns, Libner began searching for a text messaging solution. Solution: She called a Texting company and a representative took her through a free demo, giving her all the information she needed to take a proposal to her management team. With a rate of 5 cents per text, the cost was a nonissue. That is much cheaper than the eFlyers she sends! From a broker’s standpoint, all they want to know is the key information: office location, square footage and cost. Sending this information via SMS is much more productive and gives the brokers direct access to understanding what the current availabilities are. Libner also includes a phone number they can call for further information. This program is positioned as a way for brokers to hear about exclusive availabilities before they are released to the public. To further strengthen the offer, SL Green promises to send only brand new space openings. Frequency can be anywhere from 1 to 10 messages per month. Implementation: Although New York City brokers are known to be a little “old school”, they quickly took to the program once they realized they would not be hit with daily listing (as they are eFlyers). As of November, SL Green has sent out two messages, as they are still testing the service and really want to keep it exclusive and up-to-the-minute. The first text message was to 400 top standing brokers in their database. In this message, Libner welcomed the users to SL Green’s new SMS notification service and invited anyone that wanted to be taken off the list to reply with STOP. So far, after sending two messages, only 8 of 400 people have opted-out. In addition, the brokers are able to write back to the messages asking for more information. 2-way texting communication feature allows Libner to write back to them one on one, a great means to monitor and keep track of response rates. Outcome: SL Green’s usage of Texting services is in the early stages, and so far the response has been great. They are working to add customizable web link to their eFlyers so they can take advantage of online signups. Because they are a publicly traded company, cost-effective means of marketing are highly regarded by their investors.
2 - Let's Eat! Mobile Marketing Case Study
Let’s Eat!, a meal assembly store based out of Atlanta, GA, is best described as a hybrid of a grocery store and a restaurant. Let’s Eat! customers order a number of meals in advance from the store, conveniently reducing shopping trips, avoiding all preparation work like cleaning meats and chopping vegetables, and with no clean up required! All meals are prepared fresh and then frozen, with simple cooking instructions taped right on the packaging. Let’s Eat! Customer’s enjoy the convenience of restaurant-quality meals at home-cooked prices. Objective: Let’s Eat! Franchise owner, Jeff Shumas, has a strong clientele who pre-order a number of meals to pickup and eat over the course of a few weeks or longer. These meals come frozen and require at least 24 hours to thaw before preparing. Shumas only has so much refrigeration space, so there are only so many ready-to-prepare meals that can be stored each evening before they run out of space and have to freeze the meals. Because there is not much space, the staff cannot assemble hundreds of fresh meals and expect to move the inventory that same day. Most of Shumas’ clients do pre-order meals and pick them up frozen; however, there are others who walk in looking for a meal to eat that same evening. Shumas keeps a few dishes available for these walk-ins, but if someone comes into the store and there are no meals available, that equals a lost sale. If there was a way to let his clients know about the available dinners each afternoon, they could come by that evening and pick up whichever meal they wished. Solution: In the summer of 2010, Shumas started looking for a way to reach his customers on-the-go with his daily meal availabilities, so they could move more meals without running out of storage space. After reviewing his options, Shumas realized emails couldn’t be timed properly, and personalized phone calls just didn’t make sense for a large store. The only thing that made sense was text messaging. After a Google search, he compared a few different companies, and quickly settled on texting services, due to its competitive pricing and no-commitment usage agreement. He signed up for free and purchased a couple thousand message credits, and rented the keyword LETSEAT so people could opt-in to his list. Implementation: To build his list, Shumas sent out an eBlast to his customers, introducing the “Dinner Tonight” program and inviting people to text LETSEAT to the number 313131 (or 393939 for Canada). Each person who opted-in expected no more than 5 messages per week. The messages would include 3-5 daily specials, allowing customers to know exactly what meals they could purchase that evening. Tuesday through Saturday, Shumas sends out a message around 4pm, right in time for the drive home after the workday. Outcome: Texting services has helped Shumas make this supplementary part of his businesses a reality. Every time they make a walk-in sale, they gain another customer. With more meals to sell thanks to the Dinner Tonight SMS program, Shumas is more willing to have his staff assemble extra meals because he knows they can be moved that same day thanks to the texting program. He tracks responses with a 5% off coupon on the text message that customers can redeem inside the store, and says that the service can be directly tied to transactions that add to his top-line revenue.
3 - UAS Properties Mobile Marketing Case Study
UAS Properties was founded in 2001 to develop and renovate affordable housing in Chicago and surrounding communities. UAS Properties has assembled a highly qualified team of management professionals with experience in the maintenance, operation, management of market rate, affordable and condominium housing. Atukwe Newell, a senior principal of the firm was spoken about texting services. Objective: The majority of UAS’s time is spent managing over 800 rental properties, which includes keeping up and renovating units, collecting rent payments, etc. They also receive over 150 calls daily from potential renters looking for housing availabilities. Both aspects of their business require contacting a large number of people with time-sensitive information. Solution: When personal phone calls became too time consuming and costly to be effective in maintaining demand, UAS turned to texting services for both their property management and leasing business needs. Implementation: 1) Property Management: With over 800 units to manage and collect rent from each month, UAS often has a lot of late payments, especially in this tough economy. Using an advanced CRM software to pull reports, UAS sends their first rent collection text messages on the 5th of the month. This not only helps to alert each household that they need to take action, but also gives them a number to call to make an automatic payment within minutes. UAS used to make personal phone calls and send snail mail; however, since using texting services , Newell says that “communicating with all these people in any other way would be impractical.” 2) Leasing side: Over 150 people call UAS daily inquiring about apartment availabilities. Depending on what they are qualified for, UAS will show them a number of open units to consider. If none of those are a fit, these potential renters give UAS permission to send them SMS updates with new listings that fit what they are looking for. On a daily basis, often during lunchtime when the phones die down, UAS will send text messages to qualified buyers about any price reductions, new listings, etc. People can opt-out anytime, and UAS automatically stops contacting them after 60 days. SMS serves as the only form of communication with these potential buyers for that 60 day period. Outcome: On the property management side, Newell estimates that they save $140,000 per year by not having an internal collection agency. Instead, for less than $100 per month, UAS texts each of their delinquent renters with a single click. And in respect to the leasing side of his business, Newell says that just minutes after sending their new rental listings, their phones pick up for at least 30 minutes with interested leads. With the money and time saved using texting services, the service is an integral component to UAS Properties’ daily operations and marketing.
4 - ABC Red Top Mobile Marketing Case Study
Auction Broadcasting Company, parent company to the Atlanta, GA-based ABC Red Top Auto Auction, has nine auction houses across the country. For those who are unfamiliar with auto auctions, their primary business is to act as a broker to both independent dealers and franchises within a given area, helping sellers move inventory quickly, and connecting that inventory with other dealers looking to buy. All interested buyers come to a closed auction to view the latest vehicles up for sale. Jackie Calvert, Marketing Director for ABC Red Top-Atlanta, spoke with texting services about their SMS campaigns. Objective: ABC Red Top’s Georgia office hosts two sales per week, the largest being their dealer-only auction. Because there are other competing auto auctions in the area, the goal is to get as many buyers to attend their weekly auction as possible. In the past, Red Top has used telemarketers and mass faxes to the dealers in their area to inform then of special events, auction news, etc. For an idea of scope, there are approximately 3,300 dealers in their area, and usually 5-7 buyers within each dealership. Solution: About one year ago, while on a conference call with their corporate office, Calvert explored the idea to send text messages to their regular buyers. It sounded like a great way to break through the clutter, and she immediately searched online for a suitable SMS service. She found that texting services offered the perfect solution for their needs, and with the most affordable pricing. Implementation: Calvert’s Atlanta office has a CRM system with all of their buyers’ and sellers’ contact information. Clients are given the option to provide their cell phone number to allow ABC Red Top-Atlanta to contact them about upcoming auctions by phone call or text message. Within minutes of creating her texting account, Calvert was able to export a group of opted-in contacts and import them into two different groups: independent dealers and franchises. After buying message credits, Calvert was ready to send her first message: RedTopAA: This Friday @ 11AM 5/16 OVER 1000 CARS! Win $10,000 GUARANTEED & $1,000 Early Bird! Free Lunch before sale!! Now, Calvert regularly sends out alerts describing how many cars will be auctioned off in the upcoming week, special payment promotions like 30-day floats, giveaways, and other incentives. Outcome: ABC Red Top Auto Auction prides themselves on top-notch customer service. They are known to treat small, independent dealers with as much respect and courtesy as the large franchises, which greatly increases customer retention. Their use of SMS text messaging contributes to this “personal-touch” customer service mindset. In addition to increased overall attendance, buyers respond to messages requesting information about specific cars, asking general questions, etc. Because sending mass texts is so quick and efficient, Calvert has been able to cut back on other, more costly, forms of marketing, saving the company money in our current, challenging economic environment.
5 - Couch Tomato Mobile Marketing Case Study
The Couch Tomato Café is a family-style restaurant in Philadelphia, PA that offers wraps, dips, gourmet pizzas and more for take-out or delivery. They also cater throughout the Philadelphia area. Owner Craig Mosmen enquired about texting services. Objective: For the past six years, Mosmen tried various forms of marketing, including direct mail, online, local papers, magazines and more. He found that coupon books such as Val Pack and similar local books worked best, because you can actually track the results of a certain promotion to see what works and what doesn’t. With that in mind, Mosmen searched for other forms of marketing that were easily trackable, which brought him to texting services. Solution: Mosmen chose texting services because he’d heard of the company before and trusted its reputation. Over the previous year, his staff had begun collecting opt-in cell phone numbers from customers for the purpose of sending SMS coupons and alerts. Couch Tomato provided both simple paper forms for people to signup, as well as verbal signups at the point-of-sale. Implementation: To get started, Mosmen pulled approximately 5,000 numbers from his database that had opted-in over the past year and added them to his texting account. He sent one message to his customers welcoming them to the new service, and gave opt-out instructions for anyone who wished to unsubscribe. Over the next 6 months, Mosmen sent only a couple texts with general announcements and specials, and saw marginal success. Then, in March 2009 he sent a special offer just for SMS subscribers: *Special Offer* til March 31st; mention text - FREE QUESADILLAS with purchase of any Pizza AND Salad!! Outcome: The offer was good for seven days, and the response was excellent. To track their ROI, Mosmen totalled the number of tickets from Friday of that week. He estimates they had about 70 extra orders compared to an average Friday. With an average order value of $15, this is an excess of $1050! And this was just one of the seven nights the offer was running. After such a great response, The Couch Tomato Café plans to send more exclusive offers for text members on a monthly basis. Mosmen wants to keep the offers a novelty, so his customers never know when to expect the next one. Mosmen also finds texting services to be extremely convenient for in-house communication amongst his staff. He is able to remind staff members of meetings and scheduling updates. For such a large establishment, it really cuts down on time. He is also much more confident the messages are read, opposed to the voicemails he often used to leave on his employees' phones.
6 - Viking Cooking School Mobile Marketing Case Study
Viking Range Corporation, a leading home appliance company, has a cooking school with 16 locations throughout the US. Over 70,000 students including kids, moms and dads, business professionals attend the Viking Cooking School each year. If you love to cook, entertain, or just appreciate the pleasure of great food, the Viking Cooking School is the place to indulge your passions. Objective: Viking Cooking School contacted texting services prospective students.
to implement a couponing program for current and
Solution & Implementation: Viking Cooking School created an texting account. Within a few minutes they setup three groups:
Members – To communicate with all of their students. Instructors –To send messages about changes in class schedules, additions, cancellations and updates. Staff – To send messages regarding office schedule changes and other news.
To kick things off, Viking’s Ridgeland, MS location piloted the program. In order to generate signups, they sent out an email to their list with a custom web widget and instructed their students to text VIKING to 313131 to join their texting list. Over the past three months, the Ridgeland Viking location has built a list of close to 300 members. Outcome: Every week, the school takes a look at their class schedule for the week and decides which classes need help filling. They then send out a message about a low-enrollment class trying to fill spots. For example: Girls Night Out in Vegas! Cook shrimp to perfection, make herbed melt in your mouth biscuits and grilling meat to perfection Sun 4/18 5PM-8PM call 898-8345 One recent text filled eight class spots, valued at $79.00 each -- a single text message that cost less than $15 dollars to send resulted in an additional $632 dollars in revenue. Viking Cooking School has since brought two other locations on board, with plans for more in the near future.
We hope you enjoyed reviewing the mobile marketing case studies. These small businesses and many others have drastically increased sales by implementing mobile marketing solutions to their marketing mix. If you have any questions or would like more mobile marketing or online marketing case studies please visit our site at: www.GOsmartclick.net