Thanks for the additional information. That definitely puts it all into perspective.

On an interesting side note for readers: Joe, the owner of Yats, is the inspiration for Kramer on the sitcom Seinfeld (literally).

Thanks for the case study! Here’s some additional info.

1. YATS has always done well with word of mouth because of a great value price equation and great customer service

2. They’re actively involved in the community

3. Have done well with traditional PR over the year

4. The menu changes every day so people flock to the website – 7000 unique visits per month, 5,000 visits to the menu page

5. Its an integrated campaign – SMS, Mobile and website plus real world messaging in the stores

6. every detail from traffic to conversations to POS redemption is tracked

7. Consistency in mobile messaging is hugely important. The message and the offer is key. the mobile club has grown from 105 on May 30th to 902 today. There have 8 unsubscribes (not bad for all that growth), 1028 opt in, double opt is at 89%.

8. No question the biggest factors are buy in from the top – Joe is progressive in his thinking and knows he doesnt need to understand it for it to work. Imagine how valuable this would be for implementers if CEO’s didn’t try to mess with every detail. And the good ones dont.

9. Yats overall is not struggling. Its one location that is struggline

10. Now while we monitor this all and we set the goals to be monetization based. The true value of the human interactions which are in the vein of the brand – friendly, funny, and irreverent, are impossible to measure but we know this. The audience loves it!

12. The inspiration for us in this program is that the technology itself is free, the creativity is in the messaging strategy, and the community management!

Thanks again!
duncan
duncan@firebellymarketing.com
twitter.com/firebelly

Thanks for the comment & the link. I look forward to reading the thread on Facebook.

There were a couple of other interesting components to the campaign that were beyond the scope of the post. I’ll try to share them on FB.

I think your first take away point – Management was open minded – is such a crucial element to doing something like this successfully. So many great ideas go to waste because management doesn’t want to take the plunge.

Anyway, thanks for sharing. If you’re interested, you can read our discussion here: http://bit.ly/bhE2o