Brief:
- Sandwich chain Blimpie boosted average customer spending by 11% and saw a lift in visit frequency within the first four weeks of testing Mobivity's mobile marketing platform, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
- At 70 locations, the test sent personalized offers to customers' mobile phones and printed discounts on paper receipts for future purchases based on a person's individual order history. Offers ranged from free drinks to money off a dessert, or promoted new menu items.
- The Arizona-based sandwich chain plans to expand its use of Mobivity's platform, based on the positive early results. "While nearly every brand who implements our Recurrency solution sees an attributable and positive impact on their business, it's rare that we can show such an impact this early in the process," Mobivity CEO Dennis Becker said in the announcement.
Insight:
Blimpie's test of Mobivity's personalized offerings appears promising based on the increase in customer spending and store visits in just the first several weeks. By connecting discounts to a customer's unique order history and sending them to their phone, Blimpie is bridging the online-offline gap and alleviating a customer pain point of having to keep track of paper coupons while driving repeat customers.
Chains like Blimpie have recently deployed mobile marketing efforts to boost loyalty and counter broader trends that have negatively affected restaurants in the past decade. Papa Gino's and D'Angelo Grilled Sandwiches saw redemption rates on text offers sent to customers that were 14 times better than emailed promotions. Sandwich chain Subway saw a domestic ROI of 10 times by using Mobivity for one-to-one marketing campaigns that relied on customer data.
On average, U.S. consumers are eating at restaurants less frequently, and when they do, it's often for takeout or delivery. Cost is one of the biggest impediments to eating out, with restaurant meal prices rising at 2.2% a year, faster than the cost of dining in, per NPD. A survey by Facebook found that 83% of people pick a dining location within three hours of a meal, and 57% make the decision within one hour, pointing to how consumers may be more likely to select a dining location based on current deals that are easily accessible and personalized to their tastes and purchase history.
