75% of consumers want to receive texts with special offers
Connect98 makes it easy for your business to market to your customers
SMS marketing features & facts
Connect98 provides you with a dynamic and versatile marketing tool that will allow you to communicate with as many, or as few of your customers quickly and effectively. Discover the direct benefits to you and your business here. It does not matter what social media platform your customers use, or whether they have iOS or Android handsets, every mobile handset irrespective of make or model will receive an SMS. See the direct benefits to your customers here.
How it works: the customer journey
How it works: the customer journey
How you can use Connect98 for your business
Send announcements and confirmations
Send exclusive rewards to your database
Share details about new lines added / restaurant menus
Share details of new branch openings
Run competitions using SMS Keywords
Send special offers and deals
Text discount codes to your customers
Notify of last-minute offers & availability
See for yourself how Connect98 can help your business
Personalised with your company logo
Customers choose to sign up for your SMS text marketing using our simple devices, branded with your company logo.
Benefits direct to you and your business
BESPOKE DATA CAPTURE TOOLS
Build a database of customers that want to hear from you using our highly intuitive software. Captured data is exclusively yours to use. Data is not shared with any third party.
NO THIRD-PARTY COMMISSION
Complete ‘in-house’ marketing tool means you control the customer inducement, and there is no third-party commission to pay.
NO NEED TO BUY TEXT BUNDLES
Virtually unlimited credit, we charge in arrears and only for messages delivered.
GDPR COMPLIANT
GDPR compliant — customers choose to ‘opt-in’ and can ‘opt-out’ automatically at any time.
YOU OWN YOUR DATABASE
Data is not shared with anyone else and is exclusively for your own use.
QUICK RETURN ON INVESTMENT
You pay for campaigns once they have generated revenue, giving you the quickest possible ROI.
ONLY CHARGED FOR DELIVERED TEXT MESSAGES
If a number no longer exists, you will not be charged for trying to send it a message.
SIMPLE BACK-OFFICE SYSTEM
No special training is required; our back-office software is highly intuitive and easy to use.
Benefits direct to your customers
SIMPLE TO OPERATE
Customer sign-up device is simple and straightforward to use.
CARDLESS CUSTOMER LOYALTY PROGRAMME
Encourages repeat business and keeps your customers coming back with automated incentive messages.
WORKS ACROSS ALL MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEMS
All mobile phones, irrespective of operating platform, will receive SMS messages. And studies show they are read within minutes of being received.
NO ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE NEEDED
SMS has long been a standard feature on mobile phones. All mobile phones accept text messages.
IT ONLY TAKES 90 SECONDS
83% of millennials open SMS messages within 90 seconds of receiving them. This means customers can fill your ‘same day’ booking voids and you get almost immediate attention from your target audience. (Source: InfoBip)
SMS Marketing Facts
Here are some facts regarding SMS Marketing. We think you will find them compelling.
YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT TEXTS
64% of consumers think businesses should contact them via SMS more often (Source: Textbetter).
TEXTS ARE READ WITHIN TWO MINUTES
Text messages are read on average within two minutes of being received (Source: Frost & Sullivan).
VOUCHERS 10x MORE LIKELY
SMS Marketing vouchers are 10x more likely to be redeemed and shared than mail or newspaper coupons (Source: Slick Text).
WE LOOK AT OUR PHONES 150x
On average people look at their smartphone 150 times per day (Source: Nokia)
HIGH CLICK-THROUGH RATE
The average click-through rate (CTR) of URLs included in SMS messages is 19%, compared to just 4.2% CTR for Emails (Source: TextBoard and Mailchimp).
4.5x MORE LIKELY TO RESPOND
Compared to email you are 4.5 times more likely to get a response from a text message.
23 BILLION TEXT MESSAGES SENT
23 billion text messages are sent each day worldwide, and that figure is increasing. (Source: SMSEagle). SMS is the most popular form of communication in the UK. (Source: Ofcom).
DON'T MISS A TRICK...
75% of consumers want to receive texts with special offers (Source: Zen Business), 39% of marketers currently use SMS and that number is growing. (Source: Slicktext).
%
And did we mention the 98% open rate?
This is compared to 22% of emails, 29% of tweets and 12% of Facebook posts. (Source: Frost & Sullivan)
Contact us if you are ready to see how Connect98 can help your business
Businesses we can help:
HOSPITALITY
RETAIL
LEISURE & ENTERTAINMENT
HEALTH & BEAUTY
No matter the size of your company, whether you are an independent restaurant, a high street retailer, or a large multinational, if you need to communicate with your customers quickly and efficiently, with the best possible response rates, we have the solution for you.
Don’t see your industry here, but like the sound of text marketing?
“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