Connect98 Blog
The Reinvention of SMS marketing
As smartphones became connected to email and social media sites, many thought that SMS would soon become obsolete. So many marketers began to focus their efforts on reaching their mobile customers via Facebook, Twitter and email. There are, however, built-in limitations and not so obvious flaws with these platforms.
5 tips for successful SMS Marketing
In a world where customers are bored with email marketing and the effectiveness of social media is questionable, you stand a far higher chance of gaining the attention of customers when using SMS marketing, which is getting more popular than ever. There is something...
Do You Know Your Open Rate?
Open rate is calculated by taking into account all the emails that are accepted and read by the recipient. What if you sent a text message instead?
Top Strategies in SMS Marketing for Restaurants
Trying to get hungry customers to your restaurant? Consider SMS text marketing. Text offers such as these can bring in new or repeat business with every message.
Do You Think Advertising On Social Media Is Free?
Many businesses have convinced themselves that they could advertise to their target audience through social media without paying. A common argument has often been “why should I pay for text messages or app development when I can do all that on Facebook or Twitter for free?”
On average people pick up their smartphone 221 times a day!
Yes, you read that right! People carry out 221 tasks per day on their smartphones, compared to just 140 on a desktop or laptop.
“We have been customers of Connect98 across the group for several years now and consider them to be a valued business partner. Their service allows us to create a very valuable database of customers mobile numbers.
A short message with a little incentive always generates more business. Text marketing also helped us enormously when we came out of lockdown. It was the quickest and easiest way to let our customers know we were open again.”
Vinay Bhudia, General Manager,
Tiger Bay International
“One of the most useful features of the Connect98 system is that we can send messages out from Head Office to all our customers, or just locally from any location. We also run competitions using different keywords and always get a great response from that.
Because the response to text is almost immediate, we can send out announcements relating to real-time weather conditions, eg ‘Come and bowl when it is too hot, too cold, too wet...’”
Ana Pinto, Head of Marketing,
Namco Funscape (10-pin bowling)
“Vaping manufacturers are continually adding new products and different, updated vaping devices to their range. Rather than waiting for customers to come into any of our shops to see what is new and available, we often send a text message. We can include in this a link to our website where they can explore the entire range.
I would recommend Connect98 to any retailer that wants to encourage repeat business. It is a great way to stay in touch.”
David Carmichael, Owner,
Carmichaels Vaping
“We started using Connect98 a few months before lockdown and thank goodness we did. Coming out of lockdown it seemed like the whole country needed a haircut and every hairdresser was trying to greet them. We got in first, sent a message out as soon as Boris made his announcement and within 24 hours nearly 20% of our database had made appointments. It is all about getting there first. You know what they say, ‘if you snooze – you lose’.”
Lisa Harris, Owner,
Colour By Lisa
“The course was flooded a few years back and we had to let all our members know that it was unplayable. There was no point in sending an email as that may not be read for days. We ended up phoning all our most likely effected members. Following that incident, we decided to look at SMS as a medium for communicating quickly, mainly because of its instant impact and high open-rate.
The Connect98 platform suited all our requirements and even allowed us to capture the numbers of our ‘Pay & Play’ visitors. We now use it on a regular basis to advise of spare Tee times and Clubhouse events. We are very happy with the service they provide.”
Andrew Killing, General Manager,
Thorney Park Golf Club
“Connect98 has been extremely useful to us in keeping all my therapists busy throughout the day. We can determine when our advance bookings have dropped, and send out incentives to fill those slots. We also use the loyalty scheme rather than printing and stamping cards.”
Rumana Merali, Owner,
Rumiz Beauty Studio
“At Santa Pod we have been using texting and Connect98 for a long time. We are able to grow the size of our customer database when we interact with them on event days.
Between races we ask visitors to text us using ‘POD’ to 60163, followed by a record they would like to hear, or a Birthday/Anniversary they would like read out. With Connect98’s real-time monitoring our PA announcer is able to see these requests as they come in. We are also able to capture the mobile number and adding it to our database, we then have more people to market to for future events.”
Caroline Holden, Commercial Manager,
Santa Pod Drag Racing