SMS for restaurants- recommendations?

Get a white label and have them pay you. I suggest Lime Cellular as the white label to us.

As for what to charge that depends on a lot of factors the biggest being what you do.

I personally suggest offering managed/semi-managed accounts. You will be hard pressed to compete on price so offer a service where you help them with the marketing and handle the techinical side. For something like this the prices seem to start at $99 but I believe most would pay at least $199 for a very small business and $299 and up for larger businesses with needs for bigger lists.

Base your prices on your costs plus your time. Remember once you sell them on the idea unless your prices are crazy high price will not be a factor in deciding to use your service. All you have to do is show them how it will benefit them.

In the end business owners/managers would rather hire a service vs the DIY solutions. This is always the key for offliners to make money. The money isn't in the product it is in the service offered.

You can check out this WSO:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...marketing.html

It utilize WP and Twilio to provide the SMS service.

You'll have total control over the whole process, also each SMS only cost 1 cent. You can also let the customer use it to send out SMS by themselves.

I just started using WreckingballSMS for $47/month which uses Twilio to send texts for $.01 each. It uses long codes instead of short, but while this initially bothered me, I don't have any issues with it now and it can be seen as a plus for local businesses.

Search for user "Dave Iago" here who created the system that has a few rally cool features that most sms resellers don't offer. I'm only a day into playing with this, but can see myself doing some really cool things with this.

Cheers,

Steve

P.S. I think a client paying you for your management/sending services is the way to go with this, as left to do it on their own, I can't see them sticking with that for too long.

Thanks!

Would you please explain the benefit of a 'white label' over using a standard service??

White label means that you are allowed to resell a company's service under your name. This lets you build your own business and have referrals pay you instead of going to the main company.

If you were planning to resell their standard service and manage each account yourself, you would be overwhelmed with all the different logins and passwords.

A white label is good if you want to have the customer log in on your web site and create marketing or send SMS couponse etc without your help.

You can usually keep a client longer if you provide Mobile Marketing as a Service and charge a bit more to do it for them. You can read more on in my eBook here Mobile Marketing as a Service eBook | by Anchor Mobile

At Anchor Mobile we offer both solutions (Agency Partner and White Label) Most our startup clients begin as an Agency Partner and grow into a White Label.

Stay away from long codes.

TJ

Managed means you are running the account. They tell you the deals they want to run and you often will be the one wording them for the 140 or so characters you will have.

Also I am a big believer in planning a campaign. While some clients may want to send blasts out when it is slow I think this kind of campaign is short sighted. I managed resturants years ago and you never want too much or too little labor for business. When it is slow you can cut hours. But if you are busy you will be hard pressed to get people in.

Also remember that people start thinking about what they will eat before hand. A resturant who normally has their dinner rush starting at 6pm will be hard pressed to send out a message at 7pm to make up for it. But a planned message going out at 4 or 5pm will get butts in the seats. The right times to send will vary by resturant but the key is to learn how their traffic flows. And never be afraid of multi-day deals such as sending out a message on Monday about your 15% off order for VIP Club members now through Thurs. Hell you might even get a regular in all 4 days vs the 1 he would have normally.

Just remember no matter how much a client might want to use it as instant blasts on slow nights it will do him no good if he ignores the normal cycles of his business. At 8pm you're never going to get his dinner crowd to come in if they normally come in before 8. They have likely already ate dinner elsewhere.

By working as a marketing partner with your clients you can help them maximize their list.

Ideas for when to blast and some other ways to use SMS to benefit your clients and make money for you too.

- 1 to 2 hours before the begining of the dinner rush

- Just before rush hour (even if your dinner rush starts at 9) as this will get people thinking about dinner and your client's resturant in the car.
- For lunch I suggest around 10am (in the places I have worked this is normally when groups start the lunch talks of where they are going that day.) Remember they are going to eat lunch and a good special will get they to skip the bag lunch. And if they go out every day like me it will help them choose your client over the other 5 to 15 place they eat regularly.

- Local game (professional or high school) get a big crowd? Plan a text for right before the game normally gets over. Even better have someone at the game who can send the blast near the end of the game but based on the timing and flow of the game. Tight game with everyone on the edge of their seats? Wait till it is done. One sided game? Maybe send it at the start of the 4th quarter as people start thinking of after. This one is a great way to tie into other marketing if the client sponsors the games.

- Like I suggested earlier a text the day of or the day before a multiday special. Get real sneaky and send it out like the timing above. Not only will they know the upcoming special but let's say the special starts monday but you send it two hours before your sat dinner rush. Think you will get a few extra butts in the seat who were thinking of where to eat and your client is now on the top of their mind? Sure you will. And those guys will be paying regular price.

-Have a normal special? Like a Taco Tues? Never hurts to remind your fans. Remember it doesn't always have to be a special just for them. Just a reminder that it is taco tues will get the butts in the seats. Up until a year ago I had 3 different taco houses that had a taco tues. So even if I had decided to get tacos you still could shift me from a competitor by sending that text.

- Why not put a special code in their newspaper ad vs their normal coupon? Why get the client in the door once with 15% when they can text Taco15 to 12345 and get a 15% off coupon to their phone. Now your client can use his newspaper ads to build his list. Talk about ROI for him. And he will love the fact that you noticed his newspaper ads, saw how he was a smart business owner for having them, and had a great way to increase the ROI.

- Want to make some extra money? Once you get say 10 plus clients why not have them make a food card like Martin always promotes. You can have them all blast their list that such and such is selling the cards for charity. This is goodwill for them. It supports a local school or charity who will be selling them. And it makes you money as you keep a few dollars per card for producing them.

- Holidays are always a great time to send out blasts. Especially for pizza places. Have them check their numbers from last year to learn the correct timing. You want it to hit pre-rush. Depending on their business volume this could even be a deal free texts. "Happy Thanksgiving to all our loyal customers. Remember if you are turkey'd out we are here to help. Open till 11pm today" or "Aaron's Pizza would like to thank everyone who helped make America stronger by voting today." With these kind of texts you are joining the holiday or event spirit while also getting their minds on your clients business.

If you truly build a campaign with them and show them what you can do they will love you. Also isn't it easier for you to spend 30 mins planning out the next month vs. getting a call at 7pm while you are in a movie. The key is showing them why a plan makes more sense vs. those who promote using it to blast after business is lost. Your marketing plan is about growth not about trying to "save" a night that is already honestly lost.

Also some times the MOD doesn't realize some event locally is changing his traffic. Wouldn't he hate it if his traffic was 2 hours behind due to some local event and now with his blast he has twice the traffic his staff can handle?

Since you will be helping multiple clients you will already know that the Festival of Trees parade is on Friday Nov 30th and you have a great idea on how your client can really pull in that post parade traffic. The same traffic that overwealmed his staff last year when he didn't plan for it.

Be that marketing person and he will never see text marketing as something to price shop. You are the value. It's why he pays you $500 a month for something he could get for $20 as a DIY solution.

Go eat at the restaurant.

Take your kids.

Spill your drink.

See how the server reacts after messing up your order.

Take note on how you're greeted at the front door.

Take note if they made a point to capture your name/info into their database.

Take note if they follow-up after the fact. How? How could you improve it? Is there a bounce-back offer.

Observe the experience of other diners.

Now, when you approach the buyer, you've got a potential $20,000+ consulting project and not a $800 dollar facebook sms job....You've got a chance to nurture a relationship based on expertise.

There are a thousand people who can do the silly facebook stuff - and hundreds of them will do it way cheaper than you. There's only one of you who can help exponentially grow their biz. You need to become THE expert - not just another face in the crowd.

Sorry dude I don't have enough knowledge about this topic but
I'm here to learn something about it.
thanks dude for your kinda awesome info.

We personally use txt180 for our text marketing service. They are extremely awesome to work with and their service is great.

I believe the initial cost is still a yearly subscription of $295. There plans are very affordable from there. Like $7 your cost for 250 message a month and you can charge what you want from there.

We use our text service as a foot in the door type of thing. We don't go for the home run on text marketing, but instead as a way in to up-sell other services.

Hope that helps!

Sean

The key ingredient to your success starts with the right presentation. Put up a high converting splash page with a custom video on text message marketing. If the restaurant owner is not sold it doesn't matter what company you are using.

I've found the most success with text marketing services in small communities where the average restaurant owner has between 300 and 500 weekly customers.

Show them how they can increase their profit within 90 days by increasing the repeat visits of the existing customers.

I've got an example of what I'm doing in my signature.

Thanks very much, some very useful tips here.