April 2023 - 24

TECHNOLOGY
TapOnIt allows
for multiple
images to be
sent in a single
text message.
Lewis says that starting a text club for Meadows has
allowed them another way to communicate to their
customers - especially to the new, younger customers.
Content Creation
Text marketing doesn't have to mean creating new
content, Castillo says.
" You can repurpose a lot of the content you're making
shutdowns, extra free time and concerns about
food insecurity.
Meadows Farms, a full-service garden center and
landscaping business with 17 locations in Maryland,
Virginia and West Virginia, was one of many garden centers
to pick up a lot of new customers over the past three years.
Vice president Bobby Lewis says a high percentage of these
newer customers are also younger customers.
" Younger customers seem more in tune with text than
email. While I do not expect texting to replace email
anytime soon, I do feel like it is a better way to capture and
keep the younger customers. People who want to get texts
from you really like you - and tend to be some of your
best customers, " he says.
Castillo agrees. " People do hold their cell phone numbers
closer - they protect them a little bit more. They only
tend to sign up for the businesses that they truly want to
hear from, and so these businesses, these brands, these
retailers ... the lists that they're building have not only
100% opted-in, permission-based first party data, but
it tends to include their biggest fans, the most engaged
people, the ones who are like, 'Yes, here's my one cell
phone number - I like your business enough.' They want
to hear from you and they're going to stay up to date with
everything that you have going on. They're your biggest
fans, which then also tend to be the people who spend
the most money with you. "
for other places, so if you have someone writing blogs
and taking photos and putting together email newsletters
and making social media posts, you can use a lot of that
same content in your text messages. Marketers are always
re-purposing and sending content out via text message -
and guaranteeing that it's going to be seen, " she says.
" Taking the fact that you're already spending resources
and time and money putting together these email
newsletters and all the content that goes in it, sending it
out via text message makes sense as well because at least
you're guaranteeing that the biggest fans of yours are
seeing the content. "
Lewis suggests what he calls the R&D approach when
creating text messages. " You need to do a lot of R&D (Rip
Off & Duplicate), so you need to sign up for every nursery
possible text group. See what they are doing and duplicate
the ones you think match what you are doing. "
Terrell says using TapOnIt is a time saver for her.
" [Marketing] offers are quick to build and schedule, and
edits are easy with the TapOnIt team. Also, it's trackable -
every day, I get a report on the numbers of our database
and every week I get reports on redemptions on each offer. "
The platform allows campaigns to both be scheduled
ahead of time and planned out accordingly, or " super last
minute, " Castillo says. " If you want to set up a campaign
and have it deploy two minutes from then, you can do
that as well. "
April 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2023
