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angry emoji, smart phone, wooden table

Text Message Marketing: What NOT to do.

Text has become such a success for retailers reaching and retaining customers that we’ve found some great examples of senders who are working hard to do a terrible job at it. That’s right, not everyone is as good at writing puns as you are  and they’re really making a mess of this whole thing for the rest of us! Here’s a list of some of the ways you can help these people destroy the text message marketing industry: Using all Caps – USING ALL CAPS IS A FANTASTIC WAY TO SOUND LIKE AN ANGRY DAD TRYING HIS BEST TO RUN HIS DAUGHTER’S PROM DATE OUT BEFORE THE DANCE. IF YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE NO ONE EVER SIGNS UP FOR YOUR TEXT PROGRAM, DO THIS. Emojis – Nothing screams “awesome savings” like having to read broken copy mixed with crying faces and pictures of martini glasses. I’m sure that the quaint old couple who hasn’t the slightest idea what an emoji is will enjoy their new-fangled smart phone vomiting side-eyes and pray hands while they parse through what could’ve been…

Snickers Hungerithm

Ease “Hanger” with real-time deals

With Hungerithm a hangry internet means cheaper #SNICKERS for you. Get your Coupon Here: https://t.co/xh5arwKrnF #EatASNICKERS pic.twitter.com/cAvNz2OUFg — SNICKERS® (@SNICKERS) November 16, 2017 On November 16 Snickers announced a new program to offer discounts based on algorithm they created. The candy bar brand is monitoring social media posts for over three thousand words and phrases that indicate people are upset. The idea was debuted at 7-Eleven stores in Australia. Discounts for Snickers fluctuated in real-time based on social media monitoring. Obviously, this is going to be beyond the capabilities of most retailers. However, the principle can still be applied. The idea of real-time discounts has been around for a while. Use our text-message program to alert customers to flash deals. Do you have digital signage  in your store? Use them to call attention to a flash sale. You don’t need a big marketing agency running a fancy algorithm to let you know the mood of your potential customers. As a retailer you should be tuned in to your community. Do you need to discount liquor because the local team just lost…

person holding cell phone

New AWG Text Platform

It’s been a year since I wrote the blog post “Why You Should Be Texting Your Customers,” so it’s time for an update! No, the numbers haven’t changed. Text messages have more than a 97% open rate and your messages are usually read within minutes. AWG retailers will now have the option to write and send their own text messages through our partnership with Media Solutions Corporation. If you’re already using the existing AWG text platform, we’ll be rolling you over to the MSC platform. Your texts will come from a new shortcode, and you can change your keyword if you’d like to. You’ll have the option to write and send texts blasts on your own, or you can continue to have your AWG Marketing Specialist take care of everything for you. What else is different? The new platform will cost retailers significantly less every month. Give us a call for more pricing details. What’s the point to texting your customers? First of all, customers who sign up WANT to hear from you, otherwise they wouldn’t sign up. They’re not…

Photo of person texting and drinking coffee.

Text me, maybe?

Today, this post from My Edmonds News scrolled across my timeline asking why businesses “haven’t mastered text message marketing.” I was excited to read their theories. They lost me in the first few lines though: Quick quiz: Would you rather have a business send you a special offer or coupon: – Through email – where you have to wade through 100 daily messages to find it and then print it off and bring in to redeem OR -As a SMS text message (where you see it instantly and can redeem it simply by bringing in your mobile phone)? If a store can scan a coupon from my text messages why can’t it scan a coupon from inside my email? This obvious bias quickly distracted me from the rest of the post in which they didn’t actually provide any answers. Lucky for you readers, I am here to share my thoughts on SMS marketing. I like receiving coupons via text message. I feel like I often forget about things in my email. If I were to get a coupon from a restaurant…

Why You Should Be Texting Your Customers

Customers Will See Your Message When your phone tells you that you have a text message, you look at it immediately, right? So do your customers. Text messages have more than a 97% open rate, meaning your messages are seen by nearly everyone they’re sent to. The same cannot be said for other forms of marketing communications They Want To Receive Your Message Customers have chosen to receive messages from you. They want to hear what you have to say or offer. Don’t pass up that opportunity. Reward Your Loyal Customers Your customers are more likely to be loyal if you reward them for being brand ambassadors. These customers will feel special with the exclusive deals they’re receiving, which makes them feel more connected to your brand. Drive Traffic to Your Store As someone is sitting in the office wondering what to make for dinner that night, their phone buzzes and it’s a text from your store offering a special deal on rotisserie chicken. Boom. Dinner plans have been made, and someone who might not have been to your store that…

Millennial Shopper Taking Grocery Selfie

Marketing to Millennials as a Grocery Retailer

By 2017, Millennials will have more spending power than any other age group. For retailers, catering to Millennials is critical because they are setting the agenda for the food retailing industry. So what factors influence Millennials’ purchasing decisions? Millennials shop for low prices. Millennials are more in debt than any other generation. We’re paying off massive college loans, so saving money and budgeting is important to us. 85% of Millennials will change brands based on price and 56% will switch brands to save money off coupons. Convenient location is a major factor for Millennials as most shop at the grocery store closest to their residence or place of work. Very few Millennials will go out of their way to shop at a particular grocery store that is not located nearby. Millennials spend an average of 3 hours and 34 minutes browsing the Internet per day, so a retailer’s web presence is important. Not only should you have a website for your store, you should have a good website with an interactive weekly ad, shopping list, coupons, recipes, and more. Retailers should also…

Text Me: A look into text messaging marketing

Wouldn’t it be great if you could know that your marketing message or special offer would be seen by nearly everyone you send it to? No need to worry about a mailer getting thrown in the trash without a glance, or an email not being opened or ending up in a spam folder… and that they’d most likely see the message immediately? When you hear your phone beep or buzz with a text message, what’s your immediate reaction? You grab it right away? So do your customers. 95% of text messages are read within five minutes. With text message marketing, you’re getting a list of customers who sign up because they WANT to hear from you via texts. It’s important to reward them with information and offers they’ll enjoy, because it’s not about you. It’s about them. And when they feel special, they’ll keep coming back to your store. What to text Customer Coupons: Make your subscribers feel special with text-only specials. They have to show the text at the register to receive the deal. This is perfect for getting…

Slide with Springsteen in the background that says "The Audience is not brought to you or given to you. It's something that you fight for. You can't forget that, especially if you've had some success"

Audience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers

For years marketers have been trying to reach as many people as humanly possible. In the grocery industry, we print thousands of ads each week and distribute them through newspapers and direct mail. We cast a big net in hopes of getting the sales and foot traffic we’re looking for. But is that the best way to do it? Does casting the largest net, going after the largest audience, equal customers in the stores? In this age of subscribers, fans & followers, Jeffrey Rohrs says maybe not. I saw Rohrs speak at an American Marketing Association event recently and his talk centered around how we’ve become about numbers: which brand has the most likes on their facebook page or the most followers on twitter. Yet, in many instances that’s not what is most important. The important part of that audience, or those numbers, is how the people those numbers represent engage with the brand. Are they finding the posted content worthy of their time? The only way to know that is whether they are sharing, liking, retweeting and otherwise engaging…

Your Store's Brand graphic.

Your Store’s Branding

Birds do it. Bee’s do it. But what the heck does marketing have to do with it? Insects, birds, wind and even water are all vehicles for pollen, and they make cross-pollination possible. In nature, cross-pollination can produce stronger and more vigorous plants than those produced by self-pollinated plants. For example: butterflies need pollen for food and plants need butterflies to spread pollen, so each species has developed traits to aid in these goals. Plants that attract butterflies have developed very bright colors while butterflies have developed a strong sense of sight to see the colors. Without cross-pollination, this symbiotic relationship couldn’t be possible. Now think of your marketing strategy. What vehicles are you using to spread you marketing message to your customers? Website? Weekly print ads? Bag stuffers, text messages, email, Facebook or Twitter? When you try a new vehicle do you put it to the test with help from other vehicles or do you have a “sink or swim” philosophy? Our department has witnessed many times a key to a successful campaign is one that uses a cross-channel strategy to…