Text My Deal: the in-house text marketing platform

There is little doubt that the last couple of years have been among the worst in the entire history of the Retail and Hospitality sectors. Trying to navigate a business through a global pandemic, with all the consequences of closed doors, loss of income and the impacts on family and personal health, pushed us to the limits. But now it is all about recovery.

To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘what doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger’, and returning to business with a powerful marketing strategy will do just that. So, what can you do that is different? Well, letting your customers know your status is a start, and the best way to send positive communication is not email or social media; it’s via Text Marketing.

SMS messaging is the most popular method of communication according to Ofcom, and text messages have an open rate of 98%. Compare that to open rates for email (15-25%) and social media (29% for tweets and 12% for Facebook posts).

The average click-through rate (CTR) of URLs included in SMS messages is 19%, compared to a CTR of just 4.2% for emails. When thinking about this, it can help to turn some of these numbers around; roughly 80% of the people you contact via email won’t even open it. That represents a massive waste of time, effort and money compared to the effectiveness and reach of text messaging.

Successfully launched at The Restaurant Show in London seven years ago, Text My Deal has been widely adopted by the hospitality and retail sectors. Our platform is completely ‘in-house’ and enables users to send broadcast announcements, special offers and deals to a receptive audience who have already ‘opted in’ and want to hear from you.

The TMD platform includes data capture (mobile phone numbers) at the front end. We can help you log your visitors, saving their contact details with a real time date and time stamp. Should you need to, you can very easily export this data to comply with Government requirements. We have several customer-logging options, including contactless.

The platform also comes with back-office features that allow you to segregate your database to send specific targeted text marketing messages for maximum response rates. Data capture is enabled in several ways depending on how you interact with your customers. We have a kiosk device for point-of-sale data entry, and both QR codes and ‘Keyword’ short code texting are integrated into the platform. TMD also provides you with quick view reports, presenting information including visitors by date and time, frequency of visits, and campaign redemption. The reporting function also shows the number of messages sent and delivered, and more.

We also have a digital cardless loyalty scheme as part of the service, designed to increase revenue and encourage customer loyalty. Messages can be sent by local branches, or from Head Office across the entire estate. We have low setup and running costs as well as being fully GDPR compliant. Captured data is owned by our customers and is for their exclusive use only. There is no third-party commission to pay on text marketing campaigns and special offers.

It has never been more important be able to communicate effectively with your customers. You need to let them know that you’re in business, and persuade them to come into your premises. The single most effective method for doing that is via SMS text. Text My Deal can help you achieve this.

To find out more about how your business can benefit from text marketing, please email Text My Deal at info@textmydeal.co.uk or give us a call on 0330 1222 876. Further information is available on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/neYYvLwtFds