Starbucks is no stranger to using text messaging to engage their loyal customers, as seen in their campaign to introduce Bistro Boxes, and now they’re taking mobile engagement to a whole new level by testing SMS trivia style games. Check out the SMS trivia question they sent out last month to their SMS database, asking subscribers to respond with the year that Starbucks debuted the Frappuccino, for a chance to win a copy of The Great Gatsby soundtrack.

As you can see from the SMS trivia response below, I wasn’t a winner, but I did get pretty close to the correct answer so I gave myself a pat on the back as my own little reward.

I love what Starbucks is doing here mixing SMS trivia into their broadcast messaging campaigns, and I wouldn’t doubt if this campaign saw at least a 50% response rate from their subscribers. Great job Starbucks, keep up the good work with your SMS campaign, and look forward to seeing more SMS trivia questions in the future.

Who doesn’t love a good roast beef sandwich? Well if you do, you’re in luck because Arby’s now has created their own text messaging campaign to increase customer loyalty. The best part, you get a free small Dr. Pepper with the purchase of any sandwich when you opt-in, which is a great way for any text messaging campaign to grow their SMS subscriber database fast.

To sign up for Arby’s text message campaign, simply go to their website and find the “Special Offers” section, or click here. You can see below that when you sign up for special offers with your email address, you’ll have the chance to sign up to receive mobile offers as well.

After entering your information into the website, you’ll receive a double opt-in SMS confirmation message, asking you to reply with “OK” to confirm you would like to receive their mobile offers. After replying “OK” you’ll get your opt-in confirmation message, and the special offer of a free small Dr. Pepper with the purchase of any sandwich.

Are you not collecting mobile phone numbers from your website yet? Join these large brands that have already added the ability to collect customers’ mobile phone numbers directly from their websites. Contact Tatango today to find out how you can start collecting your customers’ mobile phone numbers from your own website today.

Fuze recently launched a text to win contest across major movie theaters in the United States, encouraging moviegoers to text “FUZE” to 26739 on their mobile phones to enter to win a luxury vacation for four people to the Caribbean. You can see their promotional material below, which was placed strategically at the concession stand cash register within the movie theater.

The one thing that Fuze could have done better with in regards to their promotional materials, was to have the text to win call-to-action bigger. I’ve enlarged the text to win call-to-action below, but in the image above, you can see it’s pretty hard to see. With a call-to-action that small, Fuze most likely missed out on a considerable amount of engagement with their text to win campaign.

Looking to run your own text to win campaign, maybe to grow your SMS subscribers, or even just to increase engagement with your brand, contact the text to win experts at Tatango and let us help you devise a plan to make your campaign a success.

The guys over at Pirq have completely embraced text messaging in an effort to make the process of downloading their mobile app more simple, and in-turn increasing the amount of consumers that download their app. Pirq is currently using text messaging in two different locations, one in the physical world, and the other in the digital.

The first place Pirq is using text messaging to increase app installs is in the physical world, with this gigantic indoor billboard in select Westfield Shopping Centers, which you can see below. They’re advertising for shoppers to text “SHOP” to 33133, their vanity short code, in order to download the app. In response, Pirq sends back a link that allows consumers to download the app to either their IOS or Android device. While we usually don’t recommend brands advertise their SMS keywords with quotations marks around them like Pirq has done in their billboard advertisement  it’s no long an issue now that Tatango accepts keywords with or without quotation marks.

I spoke with Keegan Hall, the Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Pirq about using a text message call-to-action on their billboard advertisements and he told me that “These banners have contributed considerably to the growth of our user base in the Seattle area, and the text messaging CTA has allowed us to simplify the download processes since the reply text includes a single link that can detect which device they’re using (iPhone or Android) and then direct them to the Pirq download page within appropriate app store.  This allows us to cut out several steps from the typical download process (go into the app store, search for Pirq, find the appropriate app from the search results, then download the app).  This make a huge difference in conversion.”

The second place Pirq is using text messaging to increase app installs is in the digital world, with a text-to-download field on the homepage of their website at Pirq.com. As you can see below, a visitor is prompted to enter their mobile phone number into the field, allowing Pirq to send them a link to download the app.

Are you looking for ways to increase app downloads? Have you tried integrating text messaging into your app marketing plan? If not, give the team at Tatango a call at (206) 274-6599 and let us help you devise a plan to not only increase app downloads, but make the entire app download process easier for consumers.

Looking for examples of mobile apps that are using text messaging to increase downloads? Lately the best place, besides the Tatango blog, is to look in your local shopping mall for examples. Just last week we showed you how Pirq was advertising their mobile app in Westfield Shopping Centers, and this weekend our very own Steve found RetailMeNot doing the exact same thing in NorthGate Mall.While it’s super common for app developers to use text messaging on their websites to decrease the friction when downloading their apps, you don’t see as many of them using text messaging in real world advertising. This is starting to change though, and it seems like wherever you go it’s becoming more popular, and with mobile apps like Pirq and RetailMeNot leading the way, you can be sure other app developers will be following.

When you text “SAVE” to the short code 42767, you’ll get the following text message, with a link that directs you to appropriate app store for your mobile device. It doesn’t get much more simple than that folks!

Are you a non-profit organization looking to add text messaging to your marketing efforts? If so, check out the recently launched text messaging campaign for preventing fires sponsored by the US Forest Service.

As you can see below, the advertisement encourages shoppers to text SMOKEYBEAR to the SMS short code 30364 on their mobile phones to learn more.

After texting SMOKEYBEAR to the short code 30364, you’re prompted to reply ”YES” if you’d like to take a short Smokey Bear quiz to receive a free mobile wallpaper. Who doesn’t like a free wallpaper? Below is the text message quiz, and as you can tell, I’m kinda a genius when it comes to fire safety.

This campaign reminds me a lot of the text message quiz that Chipotle ran, but unlike the Chipotle one, this campaign didn’t require you go through the entire text message quiz to opt-in, which was a good thing!

As to where my free wallpaper is, I still have yet to receive it… and I was really looking forward to a free wallpaper for my phone.

Want to download the shopkick app to your mobile phone? Well now there’s an easier way, especially if you’re not in-front of your computer. All you have to do is text “SHOPKICK” to 74666 on your mobile phone.

Check out the ad being displayed in Simon Malls across the country below encouraging shoppers to download the shopkick app by texting “SHOPKICK” to 74666.

When a shopper texts “SHOPKICK” to the SMS short code 74666 they’ll receive the following SMS message, with two different links, one to download the iPhone version of the app, and the second to download the Android version of the app. You can see the text message below.

While the majority of apps using text messaging are doing so on their websites, like with these apps, we are starting to see more apps like shopkick and Pirq using SMS autoresponders to generate more downloads for their apps. This is great news for SMS marketing platforms, app developers and most importantly consumers as it makes the whole app download process easier.

Are you looking for a sports franchise that is utilizing text messaging to its fullest extent? Look no further than the Chicago Bulls. The Chicago Bulls have not only given a huge amount of screen real estate on their website to advertise their mobile alerts, but they’re also allowing fans to completely customize the type of mobile alerts they receive, which is super cool!

In the website pop-up above, you have the choice to sign up for generic Chicago Bulls mobile alerts by entering your mobile phone number, then clicking the “Submit” button. You also have the option to click “Customize” where it will take you to this page, allowing you to enter your mobile phone number and customize the mobile alerts you’ll be receiving.

For demonstration purposes, I signed up to receive just the generic Chicago Bulls mobile alerts. After entering my mobile phone number, I received the following confirmation message (double opt-in) from the SMS short code 28557, asking me to reply “Y” to confirm that I wanted to opt-in to receive these text messages. After replying “Y”, I received confirmation that I was opted into the SMS campaign as you can also see below.

While I could have customized my messaging preferences during the opt-in by visiting this page, what if I wanted to change or update my preferences in the future? Luckily the Chicago Bulls has come up with a unique way to allow SMS subscribers to edit their preference at anytime in the future. Here’s how it works.

First, a mobile subscriber would visit this page on the Chicago Bulls website. On this page it asks for your mobile phone number so that they can send a verification pin to make sure that the mobile phone number you’re using is truly yours. You can see this below.

After entering my mobile phone number, I was sent a verification pin from the SMS short code 28557. My verification pin was “JPMoF” as you can see in the text message below.

After receiving my verification pin, I entered it into the Chicago Bulls website to verify that I was the owner of the mobile phone number that I had previously entered into the website.

Once the verification process was complete, I was shown a whole host of Chicago Bulls mobile alerts that I could sign up for, as you can see below.

While there are many other companies like Charlotte Russe and Jack in the Box that use their websites to advertise their SMS campaigns, we commend the Chicago Bulls for taking their campaign one step further and allowing a subscriber to completely customize the messaging they receive.

Are you thinking about running a text messaging contest? Check out how Simon Malls has created their very own text messaging contest offering shoppers the chance to win a $1,000 shopping spree by texting “KIDS” to the SMS short code 74666.

You can see the text message call-to-action a little clearer in the image below.

When the shopper texts “KIDS” to the short code 74666, they receive a confirmation text message that they’ve been entered for the chance to win the $1,000 shopping spree. In the text message confirmation, they also ask to respond with the name of your favorite Simon Mall to join their Mobile Shopper Club. This is a great way to grow your subscribers as we found out in a previous blog post.

Did you read how National Wholesale Liquidators was able to generate 50,000 opt-ins for their retail SMS marketing campaign? Not to be outshined, Dollar General has recently launched their own text message marketing campaign.

You can sign up to receive Dollar General mobile alerts on their website here, or by texting “SAVE” to the vanity short code 34898, which spells “DGTXT” on your mobile dial pad. You can see what their website opt-in form looks like below.

After website visitors submit their mobile phone number, in addition to some other information such as their first name, last name and zip code, they see the following website page, informing them that they’re almost done, and that a confirmation text message is on its way.

Below is the text message received by Dollar General customers asking them to respond “DG” to confirm their enrollment in the Dollar General Mobile Alerts program. This is what we call a double opt-in in text message marketing.

Are you a retailer looking for the same kind of results that companies like National Wholesale Liquidators or Seattle Sun Tan have had with their text message marketing campaign? Give the text message marketing experts at Tatango a call at (206) 274-6599 ext 131 or drop us a line and let us help you launch your very own successful retailer text message marketing campaign.

Looking for a great way to grow your SMS subscriber database? Check out how Pet Supermarket is supercharging the growth of their SMS subscriber database by offering the chance to win free pet food for a year when customers opt-in to their text messaging campaign.

When customers text “PETS” to the short code 65047 on their mobile phones, not only are they entered for the chance to win dog food for a year, but they’re also signed up to receive “exclusive discounts & sale offers” via text message. You can see what this looks like below.

While offering a significant promotion to customers is a great way to get new mobile subscribers, much like Pet Supermarket has done, you have to be sure that you’re not pulling an SMS bait-n-switch on your customers. Keep up the good work Pet Supermarket on your text messaging campaign!

If you have a mall in your city, there’s a good chance that it’s owned by Simon Malls, and if you have a Simon Mall in your city, you can now join the Simon Mobile Shopper Club to receive text messages about special events, sales, insider deals, contest and giveaways. To join the Simon Mobile Shopper Club all you have to do is text “SMSC” to their SMS short code 74666.

What’s unique about this text messaging campaign is that after texting “SMSC” to the short code 74666 to join the Simon Mobile Shopper Club, you’re asked to respond with the name of your favorite Simon mall. This is interesting as usually most text message marketing campaigns will ask for a subscriber’s zip code in order to determine a location nearest to them, but Simon malls skips the guess work and just asks. You can see the interaction below. Pretty cool.

While we’ve always been pretty critical of the blunders that Chipotle has made over the last couple of years in the execution of their SMS campaigns (see here and here for examples), we have to give them credit when they get something right. What did they get right? They nailed the whole concept of needing to advertise an SMS call to action everywhere, and we mean everywhere!

See below for the ingenious place that Chipotle advertised their most recent SMS call to action. I don’t think in my six years in SMS marketing I’ve ever seen an SMS call to action on a customer receipt, so a big thumbs up to Chipotle for finding and capitalizing on this advertising space.

Do you have an SMS call to action that is being advertised in a unique place? Drop us a message and we’ll feature it on our blog. Again, good work Chipotle and lets hope this is a sign that we’ll see more good stuff coming from your SMS efforts in the near future.

Jack In The Box has been doing an amazing job this year advertising their SMS marketing campaign, starting with devoting a huge amount of website screen real estate to getting customers to sign up for their mobile offers. Now Jack In The Box has started advertising their SMS marketing campaign to customers using their drive-thru, with an offer of two free tacos when a customer opts-in to receive their mobile offers. See below for their SMS marketing call to action.

Not only is this a great example of where a brand can advertising their SMS marketing campaign, it also capitalizes on the fact that 44% of consumers are willing to provide personal information like their mobile phone number, in exchange for a reward, coupon or deal, like free tacos. The best part is that even with an attractive offer like free tacos to encourage customers to opt-in to their SMS marketing program, we’ve found that on average 97.7% of those customers will remain subscribers even after receiving the initial promotion.

One thing to be aware of though is that there’s a fine line between offering an attractive promotion to get new SMS subscribers, and tricking your customers into becoming an SMS subscriber. For more information on how to walk this fine line, watch this video.

So what happens when you text “JACKSB” to 31278? You can see below.

When you click on the image in the text message, you’re presented with the coupon for your free tacos, which you show the cashier to redeem. Pretty cool.

With 791 customers opting-in on average per QSR restaurant location, don’t you think it’s time to contact the experts at Tatango and see how we can help make your QSR SMS marketing campaign a success?

Does your brand have a lot of fans on Facebook? If so, we definitely recommend leveraging your fans on Facebook to grow your SMS subscribers, much like Pizza Hut has done on their own Facebook fan page.

As you can see below, Pizza Hut posted an image to their timeline, telling their more than 10 million fans to text HUT to 69488 to get free cheese sticks on their next online order when they sign up for Pizza Hut text message deals. You can see the image they posted to their timeline below.

When Facebook fans text HUT to 69488, they’re asked for their zip code, then sent a link to their mobile online order form. You can see this below.

Want to see how other brands are using text message marketing to engage with their fans on Facebook, check out these examples from Jurassic Park and RedBox. Want to learn more about how you can leverage your Facebook fans to increase your own SMS subscribers? Contact the text message marketing experts at Tatango.

Are you in need of some SMS marketing ideas? Some of the best ideas can be generated by seeing what other brands are doing with their own SMS marketing programs. Case in point, have you seen how ACE Hardware is advertising their SMS program in-store? If you haven’t, it’s an excellent example of a brand using all types of different in-store marketing collateral to advertise their SMS program.

Hopefully by seeing what ACE Hardware is doing, will give you some SMS marketing ideas that you can implement with your own brand.

Looking for more SMS marketing ideas? Check out these blog posts to get your creative SMS marketing juices flowing.

Shopping malls are filled with advertisements that try and attract the attention of a passing shopper. So how does a shopping mall like Northgate Mall, owned by Simon Malls get a shoppers attention when they want to increase their SMS subscribers?

Like many of our SMS marketing clients, Northgate Mall decided to offer an incentive for consumers to opt-in to their SMS campaign. While the majority of the time our clients offer some type of immediate reward when a customer opts-in, like 50% off a customer’s next purchase, Simon Malls decided to enter new SMS subscribers for the chance to win a $1,000 shopping spree.

To opt-in, and enter the SMS contest, consumers were told to text WIN101 to the short code 74666. Below is one of the advertisements you can find in Northgate mall promoting the SMS campaign.

After a consumer has texted WIN101 to the short code 74666, they’re asked to confirm their subscription to the Mobile Shopper Club by responding “YES”, as you can see in the text message below.

What I like about the way Northgate Mall advertised their SMS campaign, was the fact that they weren’t trying to pull a bait-n-switch on consumers, like we’ve seen with other brands in the past. Their advertisement was extremely clear to consumers that by entering the SMS contest, they were also agreeing to receive future SMS offers from Northgate Mall. Also, to make sure there was no confusion, Northgate Mall had consumers reply “YES”, creating a double opt-in.

Is couponing a big part of your marketing strategy? If so, you have to see how Family Dollar, a regional chain of variety stores with over 7,100 locations, is using SMS auto replies to eliminate the need for consumers to print coupons from their website.As you can see below in the screenshot taken from the Family Dollar website, all of their coupons have an SMS auto reply option. When consumers text one of the SMS keywords associated with a coupon to the short code 28767, they receive that specific coupon sent to them in a text message. How cool is that?

For example, lets say you find the coupon above for $1 off Pampers Diapers on the Family Dollar website. Instead of printing off the coupon, you want to send it to your mobile phone by using the SMS auto reply feature. To receive the coupon, you would text “PAMPERS” to the short code 28767. As you can see below, the coupon from the website is sent to your mobile phone as a text message.

While this is an awesome use of an SMS auto reply, there’s one thing that would make this even better for Family Dollar. This is if the customer had the ability to opt-in to receive future SMS coupons after receiving their SMS auto reply. There’s really no better time to ask a customer to opt-in to receive future SMS coupons, then immediately after they’ve requested their first text message coupon.

How would they do this? It’s actually pretty simple, at the bottom of the SMS auto reply, Family Dollar would advertise their SMS broadcast call-to-action, something like “Want More? Reply DEALS to receive future SMS coupons”. After a customer responds “DEALS” to the SMS auto reply, they’ll be opted-in to the Family Dollar SMS broadcast campaign, where they’ll receive future SMS coupons. Want more information on how to setup this type of campaign, check out this video we made on this very subject.

The one thing Family Dollar wouldn’t want to do is create what we like to call an SMS marketing bait-n-switch on their customers. This would happen if customers were automatically opted-in to the Family Dollar broadcast campaign, when all they did was interact with the SMS auto reply. Want an example of this happening, check out the SMS marketing bait-n-switch Pro-Cuts pulled on Rangers fans. You never want to do this to your customers!

While Target has had issues with their SMS marketing efforts in the past, I recently found a great example of how they’re using SMS in-store to increase downloads of their mobile app. If you’re not familiar with Target’s mobile app, one of the features it provides to consumers is the ability to scan a barcode in-store, and get more information about that product, in addition to seeing other customer reviews of that specific product.

If you look below, you’ll see that Target has placed a sticker on this can of paint, instructing consumers to “Scan product barcode with Target app to see more information and read guest reviews.” What if the customer doesn’t have the Target app? Well to resolve that issue, and make it super easy for consumers to download the mobile app, Target instructs consumers to “Text APP to 827438″ to download the app.

After a consumer texts APP to Target’s SMS short code 827438, they’re sent a text message with a link to download the app from the appropriate app store. You can see the text message below.

While most brands that have a mobile app are using text messaging to increase app downloads from their websites, we’re starting to see more brands like Target, use text messaging to increase app downloads through the use of an SMS autoresponder. Some additional examples you can view are 7-eleven, Dunkin’ Donuts, and you’ll definitely want to read how Pirq gets a 92% click-through rate for their text messages.

When a brand is exploring the idea of launching their own text message marketing campaign, a common question is what should they be sending their mobile subscribers? While we’ve posted in the past about different types of SMS coupons that a brand should experiment with in their text messages, a lot of brands want to do more than just offer coupons to their mobile subscribers.

An example of a brand offering more than just SMS coupons is Victoria’s Secret, with their Pink Nation program. While the first message you get after signing up for Victoria’s Secret Pink Nation SMS messages is a coupon, you’ll see below that a lot of their SMS messages aren’t coupons, but SMS messages aimed at engaging their SMS subscribers in different ways. Below is the first coupon you receive from the short code 877465 after signing up to become part of Victoria’s Secret Pink Nation program.

After signing up, I then received an SMS message from Victoria’s Secret with a link to listen to the playlist they created on Pandora and Spotify for spring break.

Then I received an SMS message from Victoria’s Secret about their new iPad app, with a link to download the app.

Then I received an SMS message with a link from Victoria’s Secret to go watch the “biggest (&best!) dance party video ever – made w/members’ pics!”.

As you can see from the four SMS messages received from Victoria’s Secret, a brand doesn’t always have to send SMS coupons to their subscribers. It’s always a good idea to mix things up, but always remember the golden rules of text message marketing.