It probably comes as no surprise that SMS marketing gets its best results in the summer months. People are in full spend mode, readjusting their personal budgets almost daily until the inevitable January hangover kicks in figuratively and literally. Moreover, the trick to SMS is getting people in their decision making window and as this window during the festive season is seemingly open permanently, now is the time to strike.
But if it was so easy, then why isn’t everyone making bank? 2019 has provided a tricky climate, with reports showing consumer (retail) spending down and a bigger shift to online than ever before. In short, people are spending less and going out less than in recent years. So as a club, how do you stand out in the crowd and harness this buyers climate to your strength?
Here are 7 ways you can get the most out of your SMS and marketing this festive season!
- Customise your message content based of your customers buyer behaviour
*“78.6 percent of consumers said they are only likely to engage with a brand using coupons or other offers if those promotions are directly tied to how they have interacted with the brand previously”. – Marketo
It stands to reason that people want what they want. But how do you know what they want?? The good news is, the data is right at your fingertips! Every clubs’ POS has more than enough data to exact who wants what and who everyone is. The trick is crunching through the data, but it’s not as hard as you think. First consider your offer. Is it cocktail, wine, steak, music focused or targeted to young families? Then find your last few events or promotions and find the members who swiped their cards at the appropriate tills during that time. SMSm8’s integration options can do the heavy lifting for you, but if you don’t have time to set that up, your POS company will often generate this report for you.
- Forward schedule your messages
This is important for 2 reasons. One, as mentioned earlier, you want to always target your SMS around you customers decision making windows. This is easier when everyone is on holidays but still requires some thought. We can guarantee almost 100% of people read their texts within the hour, so put yourself in your members shoes. Secondly, you will undoubtedly be up to your neck in promotions, so you don’t want to be waiting with your finger on the trigger waiting to send your messages at the best time. Log on now, set up all your messages for the next month or 2 and let the system do the rest. This should only take 10 minutes.
- Live free entertainment
The sun is well and truly out and Christmas is in the air. There is no shortage of business and social Christmas parties and the whole ‘Sunday Sessions’ format is both popular and effective. The good news is, finding acoustic artists is easier and cheaper than you may think. For 3 hours, you can pay as little as $300-$500 for quality artists. The trick is, to when possible, hire off the street. By this, I mean, take a stab on public forums or private websites/social pages as opposed to agencies. There is an illusion that you get quality control with agencies, which can be true. However, most artists will have plenty of video and audio samples on their pages for you to make up your own mind and too often, agencies rip artists off. Agencies such as The Launch Squad have taken up to 7 months to pay their artists and with the state of the arts, especially in NSW at the moment, local artists need all the support they can get.
- Don’t forget New Years’ Day!
Whether we articulate it or not, we all put a lot of importance on New Years’ Day. It’s a time we not only reflect on lessons, moments, successes and failures of the year gone past, but how we will harness another opportunity to make the coming year better than ever. Along with many other ‘Hallmark holidays’, it is nice to simply send a warm and fuzzy message to your members on the 1st of the year. Something along the lines of ‘wishing you a safe, prosperous and successful 2020 from…’ or even a ‘hope you survived last night ;)’.
- Don’t get cute with general appeal offers
To the first point, it’s important to target your members based on their buyer behaviour, but it happens too often that clubs refine their send out when promoting badge draws or giveaways around Christmas. DON’T. The most common mistake is to think that your older members don’t know how to use mobiles. They do. If they have given you their mobile numbers at sign up or during a membership drive, they at the very least can read their texts. So don’t get cute. If you have genre specific shows, sure, target the appropriate members. But everyone loves money and free stuff. SMS pays for itself, so send to 100% of your database when marketing general appeal promotions.
Final thought, it is Cricket season and there is no better Australian tradition than kicking back for 5 days with your family and friends and taking in the worlds longest game by osmosis. Get people in for it! It’s on free to air, too.
- That little thing called social media
Lets face it! Social media has taken on the world, with 9 out of every 10 using a social platform. So you’re most likely asking how do I reach potential clients to get them into my venue and taking one hand off the phone and put it to better use across the venue. A few simple techniques is all it takes!! To start with: Use eye catching content that screams look at me to the end user. Yes that’s right! A catchy headline “A bit like the one in this blog” along with an image that explains your content. After that it’s all down to strategy and ad campaigns. By using Facebook business manager you can break down areas of interest, age, location, wage and so much more. This brings me to our final point.
- Retargeting digitally
So many venues and businesses make the mistake of not utilising correct retargeting methods and end up costing them in the long run! Don’t be that person or team! Just don’t. Retarget, retarget, retarget! Every time that potential client or client jumps on your site, your social, in your venue and you grab some details… just keep adding them to the swimming pool. A giant list of engaged users that you could push content to whenever you want! It’s the simplest but most effecting way to stay in front of your clients when they are attending your venue.