11/03/11 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Marketing Blog | No Comments »
Many retailers are turning to mobile to help enrich their customers interaction with their brand. According to NCR, 86% of shoppers currently use mobile phones, many of which use their devices for researching products, sharing information or making purchases. Some retailers have put in place mobile marketing programs to give incentives to consumers, which creates a more intimate relationship. These programs include mobile coupons, sending out timely alerts, or creating mobile applications.
Stores.org published an article featuring one of our clients OfficeMax, who offered how mobile has helped them:
“We have the ability, via mobile technology, to provide a better, more personalized experience for our customers, and customers are eager to use the technology to simplify their lives and engage with brands in a way that provides value”
Read more of the article at Stores.org. If you’re interested on how Cellit can help you move your mobile marketing program forward, drop us a line.
05/11/11 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
NFIB, the Voice of Small Business, just release an article outlining tips for boosting sales through text messaging, which featured Cellit’s David Wachs. The tips include targeting current customers, driving new business and going viral.
“Text message marketing is a low-cost way to get deals into your customers’ hands to drive sales. Texts are more convenient than email or print coupons, so it’s no surprise that they’re effective. Coupons sent via text message are redeemed eight times more often than those sent via email, says David Wachs, founder and president of Cellit, a mobile marketing company in Chicago.
To start sending texts, sign up for a mobile marketing service. Most charge a monthly fee, and some provide additional support, such as advertising materials and coupon-redemption tracking. You can send and schedule texts through an online account.”
Read more at nfib.com.
04/28/11 by David Wachs | Blog, Industry Blog, Marketing Blog | No Comments »
Every day, there’s another “mobile technology” company popping up…another competitor, for us to compare ourselves against. While I’m all for choice and competition, comparing us to them really isn’t doing either of us justice. Let me run through our typical competitive analysis (without naming names) and you can be the judge.
- History: Cellit’s been around for over 6 years. The competition? 1 year or less.
- Client Roster: Cellit has several Fortune 100 retailers and restaurants (at the corporate level) in addition to mom-and-pop clients. Nearly all of them are ongoing clients… not 1-off promotions. The competition? Typically 1 or 2 brands for which they’ve done a promotion here or there.
- Team: Our experienced management team comes from a mix of management consulting, technology, broadcast and advertising. The competition? Usually a few guys who’ve worked for an ad firm, with no technology background.
- Customer Support: We have three full-time, dedicated customer account managers that spend their entire day working with their assigned clients. We offer customer support for 10 hours each day, and have on-call tech monitoring and support 24 hours a day. The competition? Typically, as these companies are run by 1- and 2-person shops, it’s hard to provide any real customer support.
- Development: Our software was developed 100% in-house. We are able to turn around updates much faster than our competition, and often our programmers can develop custom software for our clients in less than a week. With five full-time developers, nobody can match our team for turnaround, experience or customer support.
- Connectivity: Cellit connects to all major carriers (“Tier 1″) as well as many of the “tier 2″ and “tier 3″ carriers through direct connections. Our competition: typically just the tier one carriers.
- Throughput: Up to 800 messages a second. Our competition: up to twenty (20) messages a second.
- Technology: Cellit offers all of the following:
- Robust campaign manager with 30+ rules that can be chained together with “and” and “or” logic”
- Scheduled, recurring, campaigns
- Dynamic branching
- Unlimited data collection, via “data fields” that can validate based off “regular expressions”
- Automatic, dynamic coupon code generation via our proprietary algorithm, or we can leverage client coupon codes
- Full, open, webservice based (SOAP) api, enabling the direct integration of our backend databases with theirs.
- REST-based triggers
- Our competition? Typically, not even close.
- Coupon Redemption: We offer plug-ins for MICROS, Agilysys (and shortly) POSitouch. We also offer the Widgit for Windows-based POS systems, and the iWidgit (for iPhone/iPad) and Widgit for Android. The competition typically has no solution!
- Security: As Cellit holds data for some of the largest companies in the world, we are PCI-certified and regularly audited by an independant third party for security holes. Our competition typically has not made security a priority.
In a nutshell, when you compare Cellit to the competition, hopefully you’ll come to the same conclusion our clients have: there is no comparision.
Call me. I’ll be happy to provide more insight.
Regards,
David Wachs
President
800-790-6597, ext 706.
03/02/11 by Cellit Staff | Cellit News, News | 3 Comments »
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How to achieve a 20%+ mobile coupon redemption rate, build customer loyalty and sales
Chicago, IL, March 2, 2011 – Cellit, a leading provider of mobile customer relationship management (CRM) systems for restaurants, retailers and other companies today announced the findings of a comprehensive review of successful restaurant mobile marketing campaigns. Cellit has analyzed the more than 25 million text messages sent by various restaurants and other companies to customers with the Cellit Studio technology platform to determine the keys to success of mobile marketing. Cellit’s findings are supplemented by the real-life experience of the Cellit team which includes a sales manager/former restaurant owner who knows first-hand the challenges of building customer loyalty.
“Cellit knows how hard restaurant owners work at building their customer base and marketing their business, so our goal is to provide easy to manage mobile marketing services that generate high ROI while improving the customer/restaurant relationship,” said David Wachs, president of Cellit. “Mobile marketing provides a unique channel for a restaurant to develop compelling, creative communications that build customer loyalty, drive restaurant visits, and increase the tender amount,” he added.
The following are Cellit’s tips for how restaurants can cook up an effective mobile marketing campaign:
- Cadence/Timing – Do you think your customers are in the mood for pizza at 10:00 a.m.? No, of course not! Send your offers when the time is ripe, especially right before the drive home around 3:00 p.m.
- Collaborate/Tie the Physical to the Virtual – Your store and your employees are some of your best assets. So are any “real world” marketing campaigns such as billboards, in-store posters or flyers. Make sure to leverage all of these to support your mobile marketing. Educate your employees; you may even want to incentivize them to sign up customers for your mobile club. Include your mobile offers on all marketing materials. Cellit has found that something as simple as a poster telling customers to send a text works well. Mobile marketing is great because it can help you engage your customers, but also help you measure the effectiveness of your other forms of marketing, by creating unique text codes for each. You will be able to know if your posters or your flyers drove more customers to take action.
- Content/Variety – Just like with your menu, it can pay to spice things up. No one wants to receive the same offer or message every week. Your messages do not always have to be offers, either. Sometimes a survey or a contest can generate just as much interest. The key is to alternate.
- Create Excitement/Exclusivity – Make sure that your mobile offers are unique from other forms of marketing. That can help create a sense of exclusivity that makes people want to join. Seeing someone redeem a mobile coupon can make other guests curious and motivate them to sign up.
- Commitment/Planning – Sending a one-time message does not constitute a mobile marketing campaign. Planning ahead, including tying promotions to major holidays or local events will help you ensure that you have a steady stream of communication and that your mobile marketing will continue, even when other parts of your business require your attention.
- Redemption/Integration – Many mobile campaigns for restaurants involve mobile coupons. To ensure these coupons are validated appropriately and tracked for future behavioral-based targeting, integration with the POS register is required. Ensuring this integration is streamlined and simple for the clerk or wait staff to manage is critical.
To request a free copy of the entire best practices guide, please call Cellit at 800-790-6597 or email sales@cellit.com. Cellit will also be exhibiting at the International Pizza Expo at Booth 663 in the Las Vegas Convention Center from March 1st – March 3rd.
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.
Media Contact:
Matthew Lindberg
ICR
203.682.8214
Matthew.Lindberg@icrinc.com
