For anyone new to the area, Smackers is a relatively new frozen yogurt shop, located near the intersection of Highway 45 North and Highway 82, just behind Chili”s. Since opening on Valentine”s Day this year, Smackers has done a tremendous job of branding themselves (The catchy name comes from a combination of the last names of the founders: Smith and Acker) and in using new technology for promotions.
I visited with owner Nelson Smith last week at his office in the Regions Bank building on Main Street about his use of technology.
In their planning stage Smackers was turned on to a company called Sundrop. Sundrop offers a text messaging loyalty program called loyalTXT. Rather than using yet another punch card, Smackers uses cellphone numbers to track purchases and to allow customers to earn free yogurt.
Each customer is asked for a cellphone number. Soon after providing their number the customer will receive a text message that tells them how close they are to earning a free yogurt. If they don”t have a cellphone or can”t receive text messages they can register with their email address. Once you earn a free yogurt, a code is sent to your cellphone. Providing that code at the register is all it takes to redeem your free yogurt.
Sundrop says that Smackers has used their service more effectively than any other company. In fact, Smackers is a featured case study on Sundrop”s website. Within five weeks of opening, Smackers had 6,673 cellphone numbers in their database. According to Smith Smackers now has about 11,000 cellphone numbers. These cell numbers represent a direct link Smackers now has with their customers. If they decide to run a big special, they can send a text message “blast” out to every one of those customers.
Sundrop also allows registered customers to connect their Smackers account with Facebook. When these customers purchase a yogurt a message gets automatically posted to their Facebook accounts, instantly promoting Smackers to that person”s Facebook friends. Smackers now has about 2,000 Facebook fans.
Smackers used a combination of new media (Facebook ads) and old media (newspaper ads, bumper stickers) to launch their business. Though they no longer use Facebook ads, Smackers does use their Facebook page and their Twitter account to connect to customers. A couple of weeks ago, Smith decided to try a spontaneous sale on Facebook. At 8:30 p.m. he told customers to come in and mention his Facebook post for 15 percent off their purchase. Thirty people responded in the next 90 minutes.
Though Smith says there are no announcements to make at this point, he would like to expand the Smackers brand to additional locations. Based on the phenomenal success he has seen with Sundrop, I”m sure these services will play a role in building future locations.
Peter Imes is publisher of The Dispatch. You can email him at [email protected].
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