10/19/11 by David Wachs | Cellit News, News | No Comments »
Cellit’s president, David Wachs, recently had the opportunity to speak with Small Business Technology on the user of CellitSpark for small businesses.
This cross promotion also means that small businesses don’t have to scrap their traditional media campaigns entirely. Wachs used the example of a radio spot. Even through less and less people are listening to the radio, those small businesses that already have a radio spot can simply add something at the end about the mobile program. This can encourage the radio listeners to interact with the business through a 21st century method.
You can read the full article here: http://smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2011/10/more-mobile-marketing-best-practices.html/
10/02/11 by David Wachs | Cellit News, News | No Comments »
MediaPost’s “Mobile Insider” blog recently ran an in-depth piece on AutoTrader’s mobile strategy.
A great example of a company that is redefining its relationship with its customers through mobile is the longstanding car classifieds brand Autotrader. Once a ubiquitous print pub, the company’s presence is now principally digital at Autotrader.com. It receives over 15 million uniques a month — and as you might guess, shas an evolving mobile program. The mobile site gets about 12% to 15% of the digital traffic each month.
But the real mobile success story is in the one area where the company still has a strong print presence, AutotraderLatino. “The Latino market still has magazines and a propensity for print,” says Jose Puente, director, mobile products and strategy, Autotrader. And at the same time, this is the market that is most heavily mobilized. In fact, at AutotraderLatino.com, 42% to 46% of monthly traffic is coming from mobile.
Read the entire article here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159496
08/01/11 by David Wachs | Cellit News, News | No Comments »
Chicago Mobile Marketing Leader Growing Rapidly Based on High Customer Satisfaction
CHICAGO, Aug. 1, 2011 — Cellit, a leading provider of mobile customer relationship management (CRM) systems for restaurants, retailers and other companies, today announced that it has sent its 125,000,000th text message on behalf of its clients. Cellit has more than 1,500 client companies that rely on Cellit’s Studio mobile marketing platform to create impactful mobile marketing communications, including surveys, contests, special offers and coupons.
“Our success is a reflection of not only the growth of mobile as a marketing tool, but the trust our clients place in us to manage their mobile marketing campaigns,” said David Wachs, president of Cellit. “We strongly believe that mobile marketing is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to build strong and profitable relationships with customers and we intend to continue helping educate businesses, both small and large, on the possibilities of mobile marketing.”
Cellit recently signed several new customers, including a Chicago-based national spa chain as well as Pizza Hut, a major clothing retailer, and Bar Louie, a national bar and restaurant chain.
Over the company’s six-year history, Cellit has grown from $50,000 in revenue to $5,000,000 today, representing a 9,000% growth rate. The company was named one of the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in 2010.
About Cellit
Cellit develops mobile customer relationship management (CRM) programs for retailers, restaurants and other companies who want to leverage mobile technology to create a deeper level of customer engagement. The Cellit Studio campaign management platform empowers clients to create interactive mobile CRM programs including coupons, contests, games, surveys and alerts that inform, delight and motivate customers, increasing knowledge, loyalty and ultimately spending. Cellit Studio seamlessly integrates with client enterprise and POS technology and provides an easy to implement and measurable way to maximize the potential of the mobile channel. Cellit also provides custom mobile sites and phone apps to some of the largest brands in the world. Headquartered in Chicago, Cellit was recently named to the Inc. 500 2010 list of fastest-growing private companies in the country.
For more information please visit www.cellit.com.
07/13/11 by David Wachs | Blog, Marketing Blog | No Comments »
In today’s social-buying, deal-of-the-day marketing environment, customers are scrambling to gobble up the deliciously-priced Groupon, Living Social and Gilt City offers. Half-priced this, 60% off that. Moving from deal to deal, these consumers have no plan to return to these restaurants and retailers; it’s a “one and done” mentality. Customers want deals. Why pay full price if you can get it for half?
So this begs the question: how can the retailer bring that consumer back? Should the retailer even consider participating in the program if they have no long term plan to communicate with the customer? When the flood of customers comes running through the door, how can the retailer turn the experience from a free product giveaway to something that benefits the business? Groupon and the like prove getting customers these days is not the problem; keeping them is! In fact, a recent poll of US and UK marketing execs by Forbes Insights found that their number one priority is customer retention not acquisition.
We see the answer in mobile communications.
My company, Cellit, powers mobile marketing for companies of all sizes, ranging from “mom and pop” restaurants to Fortune 50 retailers. We help these companies improve the dialogue with their customers, through creating engaging—and profitable—text messaging programs. At its simplest, a text message program (or “mobile club”) is similar to an email list: users sign up to receive alerts and offers directly from the brand. However, unlike email, mobile clubs send the messages directly to the user’s phone, through short text messages. Additionally, signing up for the program is very easy: users simply text a special keyword to an assigned number to join, such as “Text PIZZA to 12345”, which eliminates data entry for the business.
Many of Cellit’s customers, and other businesses with text message programs, are now starting to leverage mobile to turn the “Groupon effect” into a way to capture customers. When the customer comes in to redeem their deal-of-the-day offer, the business provides an incentive (such as an additional 10% off) to join the mobile program. With such a large volume of deal-of-the-day goers, businesses can quickly build up valuable lists of customers to market, directly to their phone.
But how valuable are these mobile subscribers? For many of our clients, they can be extremely valuable. As you can reach these customers any time, when used properly, businesses can deliver incredibly effective mobile campaigns. In fact, some of our clients find their mobile subscribers to redeem mobile offers seven times more often than their email subscribers, and often have larger total shopping baskets.
Gelato Spot, a group of 5 gelato stores in Phoenix, is pushing all Groupon-goers to join their mobile club. Those that do signup receive additional monthly offers straight to their cell phone. To-date, Gelato Spot is seeing a 12% redemption rate on these coupons, the highest they’ve seen with any medium! Moreover, their gelato goers are incredibly (pardon the pun) sticky; 80% of the members remain on the list three months or more.
While the results speak for themselves, is there ROI? Do the benefits of running a mobile program justify the costs? More than likely, the answer is “yes”. For a small business, the monthly cost is around a hundred dollars. While this cost increases as more messages are sent, the cost is tied directly to performance, so while this cost may eventually be in the thousands, this would only occur if your program is performing, and generating substantial returns.
Without a solid customer information capture strategy, whether SMS or email, businesses should reconsider jumping on the Groupon bandwagon. While those customers might come running in the door, they’ll be running out it shortly thereafter, and without a plan in place, they’ll never come running back.
