Fanminder Blog

This small chain of pizzerias in Boston, Ma tapped Fanminder for its first-ever fan club at the end of 2010. To quickly grow its fanbase it launched a sweepstakes among its stores to see which could grow its fanbase the fastest. The sweepstakes ran for six weeks and awarded one lucky customer five months’ of free pizza. The winning store’s employees would each receive $50.

On Dec 31, 2010, the winning customer was chosen and the winning store’s employees each were a little bit richer. Crazy Dough’s gained hundreds of new mobile fans in its fanbase and was so satisfied with the results of its first contest it is now rolling out the contest in each store every month.

Watch the video of the winner.

Profile

Giordano’s is one of a handful of premier deep dish pizza parlors in Chicago. Joe is the owner of eight of these restaurants, including three in Florida, since 1996.

After 4 months, Giordanos has generated over $15,000 in incremental revenues:

• Thousands of fans have grabbed a Giordanos coupon to their phone via text message from a button in an email (see above screenshot). These fans come back to the restaurant and show the coupon to staff, who ask the fan to simply reply back to the text message with a code that’s automatically validated.
• Giordano’s has grown its mobile fanbase from zero to almost one thousand mobile phone numbers – with zero effort.
• Joe gets to look at the above screen in Fanminder to see exactly how much incremental business he’s making at any time.

The results speak for themselves: Adding a simple “Grab Coupon to Phone” button in your next email campaign to customers is the strategy for massive increases in revenues.

Background

The restaurant has been utilizing Restaurant.com to distribute $25 gift certificates good for $50 worth of food. Fully 15,000 consumers in the past year have bought and redeemed these gift certificates, leading to a large email list.

And that’s where Ruth, his Fanminder Local Expert comes into the story. She says “Joe does a lot of local print and coupon publications, including Restaurant.com. With the 15,000 email list, Joe asked me to create an email marketing program that would build his repeat customer business by reminding them he’s here, and by rewarding them for their patronage.”

Ruth continues, “Joe is also looking to kick his marketing up a notch and diversify his marketing, so with these goals I thought adding Fanminder Offers to the mix was a good idea. With automatic tracking, I thought we’d finally be able to track success down to the store and offer without anyone printing out paper coupons.”

Ruth crafted her first offer for a Buy a L or XL pizza, get a small one Free, to expire in 30 days. 5,000 emails were opened by fans. Embedded in each email is a button to grab the offer to the fans’ phone. On this very first campaign, fully 2,000 people clicked the button! Almost 600 fans downloaded the coupon and dozens came back to the restaurant to redeem the coupon. A whopping success right out of the gate.

Ruth is blown away by these results and concludes that “Fanminder Offers works because we’re sending something of value in a really convenient form. People like coupons but to have it in your pocket on your phone, now that’s really the key.”

El Pelon is a local taqueria known for its giant burritos and fresh fish tacos in the heart of Boston nearby Boston College. Jim Hoben is the owner of the business.

Results

• A ravenous flashmob cleaned out El Pelon of 45 extra burritos in ten minutes when texted an offer on a slow Sunday.
• Patrons ordered ‘about $5’ in additional drinks and chips to go with their free burritos. The promotion was so popular that the owner repeated a “half off” special immediately and fans streamed in all night long.
• “Within ten minutes, the restaurant was full and I couldn’t keep up with the demand.” Says Jim.

Watch Jim talk about the flashmob.

Background

El Pelon reaches its fans every which way – email, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. But Jim likes to keep his Facebook and Twitter marketing separate from his mobile list because “it’s a tighter list. My 500 Facebook fans aren’t necessarily all  customers. They could be foodies, out of towners, or others following us. But I know my mobile list are all customers.”

Jim loves to run contests and give fans freebies for answering trivia questions. He shares “I need to give students a reason to get their butts off campus and a good deal sent to their phone is doing the trick.”

On a recent Sunday, a mistake on a catering job created an extra 32 bean and cheese burritos. Since Sunday is the slowest night of the week, Jim powered up Fanminder and blasted an Instant Promotion to his 330 mobile fans offering a free bean and cheese burrito while supplies lasted.

“Within ten minutes, the restaurant was full and I couldn’t keep up with the demand.” Gushes Jim. “Within 15 minutes all the burritos were gone. So I blasted another message for half price burritos. When I reviewed the checks, very few people didn’t order soda or chips.”

FreshCatch restaurant is a chain of 7 casual seafood locations and butcher/fish shops in Massachusetts.

In the last 30 days Fanminder generated at least $750 in incremental business for a total cost of $70. Here’s how.

The business uses Fanminder Offers to reach 150 fans with specials when it has extra lobster while the lobster is still fresh. The chain sends about one Offer per week, for example: 20% entire dinner.

FreshCatch grows its fanbase by collecting emails and phone numbers from fans after they dine. In a typical week they’ll collect 15-20 names. To incent customers to join their lists, they give away a $100 dinner once per month to all those who joined in the month. The waiter or waitress who collects the most entry forms in a month wins a $50 AmEx Gift Card.

Fanminder Offers quantifies each Offer’s effectiveness by displaying redemptions and revenues. In the last 30 days, FreshCatch has generated at least $750 in Net Revenue from at least 15 redeemed offers. Total marketing cost? $70. Kevin Cuozzo, the Fanminder Local Expert, shared the insight he learned as he reviewed the effectiveness of each offer:

When I looked at the offers for the month, the offer that made the most money was the 20% off offer. Other offers that were for specific specials (for example, $5 Lobster Rolls) didn’t perform as well. It was easy for me to see this and now we’ll be sending more of the successful offers.

Ahoy!

This winner of the Best Wine Classes in San Francisco Bay Area knows a thing or two about engaging its customers. Owners Jennifer and Brent “look to first gain exposure to new customers, then broaden casual engagement by suggesting a class or wine tasting, and ultimately convert new customers into regulars or join our 200-enthusiast strong wine club.”

Brent says that “no single marketing vehicle is a panacea,” so he has crafted a clear role for each. The 3,300 emailing list works to drive more class sign-ups. On Facebook he converses with 1,600 fans about the “mundane aspects of the business they love to discuss,” such as events, wine tastings, and recently – surfacing a service issue that Brent immediately resolved.

Savvy’s text message list “fills a void of instant sales during low periods that we can’t fill with the other avenues.” says Brent. With texting, Brent can direct people to come on a Tuesday night or Saturday afternoon when he has capacity to serve more people. Brent sees signs of great results like a cork-popping 32% redemption rate for his standard mobile offer of 25% off a flight of wine.

What’s their magic for such a redemption rate? It boils it down to two simple methods any business owner can replicate:

• Great Offer - Brent offers a compelling 25% off a flight of wine for joining the list.
• Promotion “Everywhere” - Jennifer and Brent advertise the Mobile Club on each page of her wine menu, within email blasts, in-store, and on their website. While not exactly rocket science this “back to basics” approach ensures all customers who might want to join know about the Club.

I’ll toast to that!

Example Marketing