Why marketers need mobile metrics in 2010

SMS case study - Carmike Cinemas

By Giselle Tsirulnik

February 4, 2010

Carmike Cinemas

Client
Carmike Cinemas, Columbus, GA

Media Agency
Charter Communications, St. Louis

Mobile Agency 
Ping Mobile, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Campaign name
Carmike Cinemas Mobile Marketing Campaign

Keywords and short codes used
Text the keyword CARMIKE to 74642

Objectives
Carmike Cinemas’ marketing department wanted to find new and innovative ways to reach a broader and younger demographic while differentiating their theaters from competitors, and making the theater-going experience fun again.

Strategy
Carmike Cinemas reached out to Charter Communications to develop a strategy that would enable them to reach their target market and accomplish their objectives.

Charter recommended building a new 30-second spot with a mobile call-to-action to drive engagement of the target market and build an opt-in database to increase sales and cultivate loyalty.

When viewers of the commercial texted CARMIKE to 74642 they received a response which included a list of movies, show-times, links to view trailers and purchase tickets.

After the database reached critical mass, the second phase of the program was developed. It included weekly SMS reminders to view updated movie listings and show times, as well as interactive movie trivia and games that could be played via SMS.

Finally, the third phase of the program included strategically placed mobile calls-to-action at the point of sale in the theater location, which was aimed at measuring mobile user activity and identifying who the most frequent patrons are.

The program was so effective, additional Carmike Cinema theater locations were added, further increasing engagement and sales. The popularity of the CARMIKE keyword (and its viral usage) was leveraged to jumpstart the additional theaters’ campaigns.

Results
Over the first year of the campaign, monthly usage increased between 15 and 30 percent, on average, while attaining a very healthy double opt-in rate of over 30 percent.

In an attempt to learn more about the viral affect of the campaign, 30-second spots were discontinued for one month and usage continued to increase. However that increase was reduced to approximately half of the monthly growth average.

Carmike Cinemas continues to promote the mobile program and plans to add more theaters in the future.

Quotes
Dale Hurst, director of marketing at Carmike Cinemas
With Hollywood movies becoming more and more High-Tech our audiences are also doing the same.

People want up-to-date information about movies and show-times quickly and conveniently.

We have found the internet has majorly impacted the way people receive information about movies and show times and mobile marketing has and will continue to have a profound impact on the way people access and receive information as well.

These days almost everyone carries a cell phone and are, therefore, constantly connected.  It’s up to us as marketers to provide what people want, when they want it.

Matt Miller, marketing coordinator of ad sales at Charter
The success of this mobile campaign is due to the progressive thinking of Carmike Marketing and their constant employment of multi-level promotions.

Harnessing the power of targeted cable advertising paired with mobile calls to action and complimentary POS displays continues to produce strong participation in Dalton, GA, and now in Franklin, TN, one of the highest grossing theatres for Carmike Cinemas.

I am extremely pleased with the continued success of our targeted and creative multi-channel approach, and look forward to finding new and innovative ways to satisfy consumers’ needs.

Isaac Naor, Beverly Hills, CA-based regional client services manager at Ping Mobile
I see many clients who preach innovation and employment of cutting-edge technology, but not many truly embrace the tools available to them.

Carmike realizes their patrons always have their mobile devices with them, and that most are not smartphones.

This campaign utilizes the lowest common denominator technology, SMS text messaging (which is compatible with over 98 percent of mobile phones in the U.S.), in a truly profound way, allowing for the largest possible number of respondents to interact-with and benefit-from their system.

Moreover, for those roughly 35 percent of U.S. wireless handsets which can view the mobile Web, Carmike provides trailers, ticket-purchasing availability and much more.

The employment of the multi-channel approach has created a tremendous competitive advantage for Carmike, and I feel fortunate for the opportunity to be involved with such forward-thinking and resourceful team.

Senior Editor Giselle Tsirulnik covers advertising, video, messaging, search, commerce and video. Reach her at giselle@mobilemarketer.com.

A new report makes the case for SMS text marketing on mobile phones: Texting has become pervasive, and generates response rates two to ten times higher than Internet display ads, it says. That’s partly because messages are directed only at “hand-raisers,” since SMS marketing requires consumer opt-in.

The study from the Local Mobile Search unit of Opus Research portrays the mobile texting population as a vast, mostly untapped market. It estimates the number of people who use text messaging on a regular basis at 154 million, or 57% of U.S. cell phone subscribers. (A Pew Research Center study on wireless broadband released this month put the proportion of U.S. cell users who send or receive text messages on a typical day lower, at 43%.

The Opus study also cites data showing that text-messaging volume has grown to 3.5 billion a day, with messages now outstripping calls in a given month among U.S. mobile users. The reach of text messaging is also twice that of the mobile Internet, estimated at roughly 70%. Although the mobile Web holds much promise for advertisers, the report casts SMS marketing as an established, ready-to-go option that also doesn’t require a smartphone to work well.

“While much of the ad industry is focused on the iPhone and other smartphones because of the buzz and excitement surrounding these devices, they currently represent only 15% or 16% of total handsets in the U.S.,” states the report authored by Opus Senior Analyst Greg Sterling.

The study also emphasizes that the opt-in process for SMS marketing offers translates into more targeted ads or promotions, and ultimately better results. It points to broader research from Insight Express and Dynamic Logic this year showing that mobile advertising performed better than traditional online advertising across brand metrics including unaided awareness, ad awareness, brand favorability and purchase intent.

Still, neither marketers or mobile users seem to care for SMS marketing, despite reports of double-digit response rates. For marketers, the reluctance arises at least partly from the prospect of government regulation. This spring, U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) introduced legislation to curb unsolicited text messages by providing additional consumer protections via the m-SPAM Act of 2009.

Marketers also don’t want to risk alienating mobile users with unwanted messages. To avoid that problem, Forrester Research recently advised advertisers in a separate report not to send an SMS message if it can’t be well-targeted.

“After all, when your marketing is targeted well, users stop thinking of it as marketing and start thinking of it as content, or a service,” wrote Forrester analyst Nate Elliott on the firm’s interactive marketing blog. He recommends that companies build a list of qualified SMS leads through contests, Web site forms, or by using a short code in traditional marketing efforts.

Employees at JitterGram in Bedford include, clockwise from top left, Ric Pratte, Katie York, Chris Sosa, Ed Mitchell, Matt Pierson and his wife, Michelle, and Karen Grimmett.

: Sunday, April 5, 2009

Businesses use Bedford firm to promote deals by text

By MELANIE PLENDA, Correspondent

BEDFORD – Since e-mail is so 2008, a local company is capitalizing on the public’s new love for all things short, tweet and text with a venture linking businesses directly into customers’ pockets.

Jittergram Inc., a new Bedford-based business, has built a system that allows businesses access to the cell numbers of interested customers. With a list of opt-in customers and number in hand, business owners can send out mass text messages to their customers alerting them to upcoming or last minute, specials and deals.

“Say a restaurant is having a slow night,” said Katie York, Marketing Communications Manager for Just-In-Time Promotions & Notifications. “They can instantly send out a text message to all their customers around dinner time saying, ‘Hey we have a great promotion going tonight’ or a great special.”

The reach their customer base immediately, York said. 

“There’s so much spam out there, no one even checks their e-mail anymore,” she said. “But everyone checks every text, so customers are getting these messages and actually reading them.” 

The company was founded in September 2008 by New Hampshire entrepreneurs Ric Pratte, Ed Mitchell and Matt Pierson. Since the company officially launched the service in January, York said they have already registered about 25 companies with the service including restaurants, ski resorts and salons.

There are a couple of different ways to access the service, York said.

For customers, they can go to the Jittergram Web site, see which businesses they want sending them updates and sign up for free. They can also go to the participating businesses and sign up through the business.

As for business owners, they sign up through the Web site and pay a fee each time they send out a text to customers.

“The businesses do have to do some promotion themselves,” York said. “They have to make sure they are getting the word out to customers and getting their wait staff to tell people about it.”

But what the owner gets out of it is worth the price of admission, said John Bowen, owner of Foodees in Milford.

“The amount of customers we’ll be reaching is just unbelievable,” Bowen said. “… In these economic times, business could definitely be better. And this is a way to let people know they should come take a look at us, that we might have what they are looking for.”

Bowen, who only recently joined up with Jittergram, said he plans to use the service to recruit new customers, reward existing customers with a free cheese pizza just for signing up for the service and offer promotions such as free tickets to events.

Greg Stevens, owner of Stella Blu in Nashua, said he started using the system about a week ago as well. And while he hasn’t yet taken it for a test run, he too said he’s hopeful about the results.

“The technology to do this has been out there, and we’ve done some things with e-mail lists,” he said. “But with this, we can go about it in a more formal way and show that we are serious about getting this information out to people.”

York said that though Jittergram is not the first texting service, they hope to be the biggest. The company is already looking at branching out beyond the service and entertainment industries. For instance York said the service could be used by nonprofits to alert people of events, school districts to tell parents of a snow day or event at school and even public safety officials to tell people what to do in a weather emergency.