1. National Wholesale Liquidators

• National Wholesale Liquidators, the closeout discount chain based in New York, was able to build a huge subscriber database and achieve higher sales due to its successful SMS text marketing campaign.
• Whenever a new customer joined its SMS marketing campaign, the company offered a $5 flat discount on any purchase over $25. Most importantly, National Wholesale Liquidators advertised this offer online, inside the shop-window, and also via print advertising. This campaign turned out to be more successful because the company advertised this mobile campaign for people to know it’s a service it offers.
• National Wholesale Liquidators was able to acquire around 50,000 customers for its mobile campaign within one month. Further, the customers who received the promotional SMS text purchased 80% more on average as compared to those who didn’t receive the offer ($45 versus $25).

2. Jamba Juice

• Jamba Juice Bakersfield, a company operating in central California that provides freshly blended whole fruit and juices, was able to increase its footfalls with a low budget and not-so-experienced employees in the field of marketing.
• The company's aim was to attract local residents to visit Jamba Juice's stores using SMS marketing.
• The company applied the following strategies:
• The company created a keyword called “Jamba” for the customers to text it to 99000 to sign up
• The company offered an incentive of “a free 16oz smoothie coupon” to the customers as soon as they sent the keyword. In addition, the customers could use this coupon immediately on their purchase.
• Jamba Juice displayed large signs to promote its SMS marketing campaign at the point-of-purchase location which encouraged people to sign-up instantly in order to grab their free item.
• The company had also sent regular offers via SMS with ‘BOGO free’ and ‘20% off’ campaigns.

3. Seattle Sun Tan

• Seattle Sun Tan, “a 35-location tanning salon situated in Washington State”, was able to see a huge increase in sales and traffic with the help of promotional SMS marketing campaigns and advertisement of those campaigns.
• Stewart Kelpe, the Vice President of Marketing at Seattle Sun Tan, said that they chose SMS text campaigns due to high customer adoption and its suitability “across all wireless carriers and operating platforms”.
• The company made an attractive offer by rewarding customers with $20 off their next purchase if they signed up for the mobile campaign.
• Seattle Sun Tan also took advantage of its pre-existing email database that included over 80,000 customers to advertise this SMS campaign and advertised this offer on its website and social media platforms.
• Seattle Sun Tan‘s customers who redeemed this offer spent around 500% more when compared to the customers who did not receive this offer.
• The company was able to generate almost $200,000 in revenue within one month after launching its SMS marketing campaign.

4. Dunkin’ Donuts

• Dunkin’ Donuts used the SMS marketing strategy to launch its “new 99 cent hot lattes in the Boston area” by targeting young adults and university students residing in the area.
• Initially, the company sent about 7500 SMS texts with coupons to matching contacts from its pre-existing subscribers’ list. Every Thursday, this campaign was advertised by the radio DJs where people were invited to participate by texting to a short number. This was further promoted via internet ads on mobile encouraging people to sign-up for this SMS campaign.
• Dunkin’ Donuts witnessed a 21% surge in in-store traffic due to SMS text promotion while around 17% of customers who participated in this mobile marketing campaign had forwarded or showed the message to their friends.
• In addition, about 35% of customers who participated in this campaign said that they would prefer to purchase Dunkin’ Donuts’ lattes again.

5. Kiehl’s

• Kiehl’s, an American cosmetics brand, ran an SMS campaign for 6 months that used geofencing techniques to attract customers near 45 test stores of the brand.
• When customers opted-in for this SMS service, “they were asked to agree to share their location with Kiehl’s.” And whenever “a customer was within a certain radius of one of their test stores”, the company would send three location-based SMS notifications per month.
• After 6 months of running this SMS marketing campaign, the brand noted a fact that around 73% of its customers who opted in for the SMS notifications had purchased something from the stores.

CONCLUSION

RESEARCH STRATEGY:

#1 PERSONALISATION

•  Personal data like birthday, favorites, anniversaries are being used to create long-lasting customer relationships.
• The personal data is being employed to inform customers of nearby activities and special events.
• Correct information and application utilization data are essential for SMS marketing to succeed; it has been shaping the industry, lately.
• Subway's SMS campaign gathered a following of over 5 million subscribers with an 85% retention rate. The campaign resulted in 26% higher returns, 13% higher customer spending, and 15% higher purchases.

#2 INTEGRATION WITH OTHER MEDIA AND MARKETING CHANNELS

• SMS marketing is more effective when it is used side by side other channels of marketing like email and mobile applications.
• Successful integration of SMS marketing with other media channels has increased customer engagements for various big organizations.
• Recently, Facebook revealed its plan to initiate SMS marketing to complement its messenger services.

#3 AI AND CHATBOTS

• AI and chatbot technology create an opportunity for instant reminders, replies, and query resolution. These include voice assistants with natural voices.
• Chatbots use the latest innovations, including machine learning and advanced data collection that enables humanoid responses.
• According to Tractica virtual assistants will be available on more than 3.3 billion devices by 2020.
• An example of a company driving this is Facebook.

#4 SMS IS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN EMAIL

• According to Forbes, 95% of text messages are read in 3 minutes.
• It is found that about 75% of Americans are comfortable receiving offers via SMS. The response rate for SMS campaign is 45% while for email it is only 6%. This can also be attributed to the rising number of people using their phones instead of checking their emails.
•  Jack-in-the-box has reported that it's SMS marketing success is 3 – 5 times that of email.

Research Strategy: