Harborfront had an existing mobile-friendly website but wanted to take advantage of the broader mobile marketing landscape by including an SMS marketing campaign.

HeBS developed a texting campaign with the goal of increasing mobile subscribers as well as profit for the month of March. The campaign encouraged participants to: “Text HARBORFRONT to 55958 and receive 10% off your next stay and unlock a special secret ingredient add-on to this special deal.”

The campaign was promoted to the inn’s existing email database as well as through press releases, on Facebook, and on the Harborfront Inn’s website.

The results of the hospitality SMS marketing campaign were impressive. With a call-to-action sent to roughly 8,000 subscribers, 23 room nights were booked, 76 new subscribers were gained, and 17 mobile promotions were sold. This resulted in a 636% return on investment for the inn’s SMS marketing program.

Download HeBS Case Study

In an effort to attract new customers, the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino located directly on the Las Vegas Strip implemented a robust SMS marketing program with their partner Mobile Storm.

The casino was looking for a marketing solution that would be quick to implement, would yield a high return on investment, and could be easily tracked. Their end goal was to keep new customers playing casino games and promote the casino’s “A-List Players Club” reward program.

How The Program Worked:
Multiple SMS calls-to-action were strategically placed throughout the casino’s property. A different keyword was used (to provide tracking capabilities) at each point-of-action, allowing guests to opt-in to the mobile program for a chance to win casino prizes and discounts. The campaign auto-response included the message “$10 in FREE slot play for new A-List sign-ups. Visit the Players Club booth & show this msg to redeem.”.

Results
The multi-keyword program resulted in 348 unique opt-ins to the casino’s mobile campaign. Of the new mobile subscribers, 13.5% resulted in new player conversions, generating the casino over $2,800 in new revenue and 34 new “A-list Player Club” members.

Planet Hollywood used Mobile Storm, a mobile marketing provider located in Los Angeles, to implement the campaign. Mobile Storm offers their conclusion on the successful SMS marketing campaign for their client:

“…Planet Hollywood quickly realized a solid return on investment during a very simple and short-lived test campaign. Planet Hollywood generated enough revenue to justify the entire cost of the program with automated players club sign-ups executed through SMS, setting the stage for success across campaigns that addressed other revenue centers of the property.”

[via Mobile Storm]

Name and city and state of agency or marketing services firm:
TextBoard – N. Myrtle Beach, SC

Campaign/program name:
Legends In Concert Myrtle Beach SMS Billboard Campaign

Duration:
4 Months

Short code:
55958

Keywords:
BLING, POP, KING, TIM, BEACH

Objective:
Measure effectiveness of billboard advertising by using an SMS call to action to measure conversion. To build an SMS subscriber database for Legends In Concert to provide offers and fan deals for future events.

Target Audience:
Myrtle Beach residents and the 15 million annual tourists to the area.

Strategy:
Use unique keywords on each billboard to measure location effectiveness and place a coupon code within outgoing text messages to measure overall conversion.

Call to action:
Five billboards were purchased in the Myrtle Beach area on major roads and highways that encouraged any passerby to text one of the keywords to 55958 for a special offer from Legends. One keyword was shown per billboard. Each keyword related to the theme of graphic that supported the call-to-action.

Tactics:
Legends used TextBoard’s patent-pending staggered delivery method to send a higher volume of messages to subscribers only while they were in the Myrtle Beach area on vacation. Each day after subscribing to one of the keywords the automated system would send an alert suggesting the subscriber buy tickets. Each subsequent message provided a more aggressive offer similar to “Hurry, last chance offer”.

Results:
Legends was able to walk away with two solid measurements from this SMS campaign. Legends also built their subscriber database to a little over 1600 members and is continuing to grow daily.

Conversion rate was measured for the campaign by using a unique coupon code within each text message. The combined 5 billboards provided an average 16% conversion rate of all subscribers. Resulting in roughly a 1200% return on investment.

Additionally, with differentiating keywords being used per billboard, Legends was able to measure which billboard garnished the most subscribers and the highest conversion rate. Interestingly, the most expensive billboard had the lowest conversion rate of all.

Takeaway:
Legends In Concert accomplished their goal to build a solid SMS subscriber database and to measure a previously unmeasurable advertising medium. Legends will continue to market ad retarget their current subscriber base and grow the list even more in 2011. The campaign will be added to their Las Vegas, Branson and Foxwoods locations as well.

About Legends In Concert:
On Stage Entertainment, Inc. owns and operates Legends in Concert. Celebrating its 28th year, Legends in Concert is a live musical celebration featuring the world’s greatest celebrity tribute artists. Widely recognized in the entertainment industry as the original celebrity tribute show, Legends in Concert has been performed throughout the United States, and has  traveled to 18 countries on five continents, including Japan, Canada, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Australia, China, Brazil, Spain, and England, entertaining more than 20 million fans.

On Stage Entertainment operates numerous fixed-based, touring, limited-term and private engagements of Legends in Concert throughout the world. In addition to Las Vegas, Legends is presented year-round in numerous cities including Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Branson, Mo., on the high seas aboard Norwegian EPIC; and seasonally at such locations as Foxwoods Resort Casino (Mashantucket), Conn. The show has also been featured on the most popular television networks in the world.

About TextBoard:
TextBoard is a text-message marketing application designed for agencies and multi-location realtors that run complex mobile marketing campaigns for themselves and their clients. Developed by OIR Interactive in 2009, TextBoard has quickly become the industry’s leading application for SMS marketing campaigns. OIR built TextBoard in-house to allow marketers to rapidly develop, execute and analyze a variety of mobile campaign types. OIR assists companies with all aspects of mobile account creation, including short code setup and provisioning, aggregator relationships and mobile marketing strategies. With proprietary features such as click-tracking and a patent-pending message delivery method, TextBoard continues to pave the path of mobile marketing’s future.