Texting Dr. Pavlov

 
 
 
 
 
Is that your stomach growling? Perhaps you just received a text message from Scotty P’s Hamburgers offering a “buy one, get one” lunch special.

The seven-unit, quick-casual burger chain in the Dallas-Fort Worth area recently began experimenting with text messaging as a means of driving traffic. Co-owner and namesake Scott Pontikes says the concept took off quickly: A recent BOGO offering “yielded a 12 percent response rate with zero opt-outs.” At a cost of roughly 7.5 cents per text message, Scotty P’s has experienced a 1,650 percent return on investment – along with a considerable lift in revenues.

Part of what separates texting from e-mail as a marketing tool is the frequency with which users check text messages – and how quickly they respond, Pontikes says.

“If I wake up on Friday morning and the weather is horrible” – a strong indicator that lunch sales are likely to be slow – “I can create a campaign in 165 characters … and fully expect to see a $1,500 lift in sales,” he says. “You can’t beat it.”