You’ve heard us say it many times before, and we will continue to preach it: if you aren’t texting your customers, YOU SHOULD BE!

And WHY should you be text messaging your customers?

• 95 out of 100 of your customers who have opted into your text messaging program OPEN and READ your mobile messages within 3 minutes. – Forbes Online
• Mobile text messaging, the same 160-character dispatches first popularized by nimble-fingered teenagers, may be the closest thing in the information-overloaded digital marketing world to a guaranteed read. – NY Times
• 90% of consumers who have joined mobile loyalty programs feel they have gained value from them. – Zoomerang
• On average, it takes 90 minutes for someone to respond to an email, but of course some people might takes hours or days to even look at it. With text messages, the average response time is 90 seconds. – Hubspot
• Around 98% of all SMS messages are opened, but only 20% of emails are looked at. – Digital Marketing Magazine
• Mobile coupons get 10 times the redemption rate of traditional coupons. – Hubspot
• 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7. – Morgan Stanley
• Nearly two-thirds of consumers subscribed to mobile marketing indicate that they have made a purchase as a result of receiving a highly relevant mobile message. – Responsys

Long story short, your promotions actually get read by your customers on the spot and they drive customers in your store faster than any other marketing medium out there.

So what are you waiting for? Watch this short video on how to send an effective text message campaign to your customers using your Fivestars Dashboard.

Don’t have time to watch the whole video? Here are the Cliff’s notes:

3 steps to make your text message campaigns more effective:

1. Know your goal.

This step dictates every other step listed here. It’s the most important! You have to know what you want to happen or what you want your customers to do once they receive your text message promotion.

Identify what you need from this campaign and sum up it up in one sentence. Here are some examples: “I want to get more lunch customers”, “I want to sell more of my entrees”, or “I want to drive business on a slow days”. Choose just one goal and set your promotion to reach that goal.

2. Identify your promotion & segment.

With your Fivestars program, you can reach out to different customer segments, like VIPs, at risk customers, customers who haven’t visited in the past 60 days, new members, etc. Fivestars automatically groups your customers based on how often they have visited, but you can also set up your own groups using the tagging feature. Decide which group of customers will most receptive to your specific promotion, and in your Fivestars dashboard you will be able to choose whichever group you see fit.

Here are some general guidelines: Any promotion you send out that has a discount of 20% or less will have a significant impact on the amount of customers who actually come in response to your promo. In simple terms, not many customers are going to come in for a 10% off coupon, it’s just not juicy enough for them to bite. If you give a free item, even if it is something small like a soda, the word “free” can be powerful and drive customers in the door. But don’t give something away for free without making sure you have them buy something along with it to get the free item. For instance, give a free soda with the purchase of any entree.

Once you know what promotion you want to send and which group of customers you want to send it to,  get initial feedback from your staff: do they think customers will be receptive to the promotion?

3. Write and send your text effectively.

How do you make sure your text message will get your customers out of their seats and into your store front? Have a “call-to-action”, which is fancy business speak for telling your customers exactly what you want them to do. Don’t just tell people about your promotion, tell them what they should do to get it. For example you could write something like this: “Come in this Tuesday at Julie’s Boutique to get two pairs of jeans for the price of one! Show your cashier this text!”

Is a holiday or big game coming up? Reference it in your text message promotion to make it more relevant to your customers. We’ve posted before July 4th promotion ideas, Memorial Day promotion ideas, football game promotion ideas, check out those blog posts for more ideas! Tying your promotions to something that is going on in your community can help drive up your customer walk in rates.

Last thing to note, be creative! Come up with a good “hook” to get your customers excited about your text promotion. One of our clients wrote to their VIP customers, “Toppings for days! Free toppings this week for VIPs only!” and another wrote a catchy list for draw in their at risk customers, “Latte, Mocha, Americano, Drip… All half off! Why? Because we miss you!”

Send a text message today at dashboard.fivestars.com

Want to get customers in the door today? Go to dashboard.fivestars.com and login with your Fivestars credentials. Once logged in, click on the “Campaigns” tab, then click the blue “Create Campaign” button, and follow the instructions to write your text. Remember to review your text with another member of your staff before you send it out to ensure you don’t have any spelling errors or grammar mistakes. Send a test, and once you’re happy with it, send it out to your customers!