---
title: Text Message Marketing for Restaurants
description: Discover how to create a successful text message marketing program to help you engage your guests and boost revenue.
---

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# The Ultimate Guide to Text Message Marketing for Restaurants

If you’re having FOMO because you need to learn more about text messaging, fear not. The answers to all your questions are below.

### **Why Embrace Text Message Marketing?**

Everyone has a phone, but more importantly, everyone is set up to receive text message notifications. With text messaging, open rates hover around 98%. That’s pretty good considering the average open rates for emails are only 20% and other phone notifications are just 5%. With this kind of power, you can use text message marketing to nurture customers and get them to come back more frequently.

### USE THE CHANNEL THAT REACHES THE MOST PEOPLE

of consumers use text on a regular basis.

Open rate for texting.

### CONSUMERS TURN TO SMS FIRST

2nd

Texting is the second most common use for a mobile phone - the first is checking the time.

2x

Americans spend 2X more time texting than   
emailing on their phones

### PROVEN TO DRIVE GUEST FREQUENCY & SPEND

23%

 greater visit frequency

21%

 increase in customer spend

## **How Text Message Marketing Works**

Did you know that the average American spends more than 3 hours a day on their phones?

**It’s true.**

And when you consider that 90% of all texts are read within the first three minutes of receipt, it’s no surprise that more restaurants than ever are using text messaging to connect with customers.

Studies show that a text messaging program can be one of the fastest ways to digitally connect with your customers. Plus, it can help your existing channels like email, apps, online ordering, and loyalty programs work even better.

Keep reading to find out how to put text message marketing to work for your restaurant.

![text_marketing](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/text_marketing.png)

## **Text, Email, App, Social — Which Should You Choose?**

### **Text + Email**

A text marketing campaign can help your email campaigns generate even better results. Online ordering and loyalty programs work even better.

### **Text + App**

Want to encourage more downloads of your app? Great. A text message marketing campaign can help you do that.

### **Text + Social**

Using a text marketing campaign in conjunction with your social media campaigns can make both work better.

Text message marketing isn’t designed to replace any of your other marketing channels or technologies. If you have an app, terrific! If you have a robust email marketing program, that’s great! If you use social media to communicate, that’s wonderful! Adding a text message marketing program on top of these platforms has proven to actually make those platforms work better. It’s here to work with your other technologies

## **Text Message Marketing is More than Static Text Messages...**

At Mobivity, we’ve got the goods. Our clients are able to send all three of these types of messages to their customers and personalize them. Find out the difference between these three message marketing options and how you can use them to make your campaigns sizzle.

- SMS
- MMS
- RCS

## **SMS (short message service)**

Is the original text message and communications technology that only contains text.

With SMS, you can reach anyone that has a phone. And let’s face it — there are a lot of people with phone plans that include texting.

[**HOW PAPA GINOS SAW 17% MORE RETURN VISITS WITH SMS**](https://www.mobivity.com/mobivity-blog/2020/09/restaurant-chain-mobile-message-based-campaign-proves-old-adages?hsLang=en)

![sms-img-android](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/sms-img-android.png)

## **MMS (multimedia messaging service)**

Allows you to send messages with images, videos, or GIFs.

MMS is popular with text message marketing because you can include a brand logo, color palette, and food images. Not to mention a 99% open rate and a 4X better conversion rate than SMS.

[**LEARN MORE ABOUT MOBIVITY’S TEXT MESSAGING SOLUTION**](https://www.mobivity.com/products/text-marketing?hsLang=en)

![mms-img](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/mms-img.png)

## **RCS (Rich Communication Services)**

Is an advanced form of mobile messaging developed by Google.

With RCS, you can give your customers a next-generation experience by sending texts with rich media, swipeable carousels, in-chat multimedia transmission, and analytics. Oh, and it has a 5X higher conversion rate than SMS or MMS.

[**HOW RCS BOOSTED SONIC’S PURCHASE BY 50%**](https://www.mobivity.com/mobivity-blog/sonic-google-case-study?hsLang=en)

![rcs-img](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/rcs-img.png)

![Thrive SMS Video](https://play.vidyard.com/mnDy6P9TX5nE7NeAfW5bUA.jpg?)

## **How Text Message Marketing Can Help Your Restaurant**

In this video, renowned speaker and author Jamie Turner shows how and why most leading restaurant brands are regularly texting with guests to strengthen connections and drive return visits. Jamie's five SMS marketing guidelines include best practices for engaging your restaurant guests with the most-used app on their mobile phones.

[![Download the Playbook](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/d15d27d6-0860-477e-9324-27f0c2e9a890.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/d15d27d6-0860-477e-9324-27f0c2e9a890)

## **Analyzing a Text Messaging Platform**

We get it — you’re on a page written by Mobivity, an organization that has a vested interest in having you pick us as your text message marketing partner. Highly suspect, right? Our honest-to-goodness goal isn’t to have you blindly select us as your partner. Instead, we want you to see if what you’re looking for matches up with what we offer. That’s why we’ve created a buyer’s guide to help you analyze all of the options you have when it comes to text message marketing platforms.

[![Download the Buyer's Guide](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/3e3fc7bf-419d-451c-95a5-e15d5db1528a.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/3e3fc7bf-419d-451c-95a5-e15d5db1528a)

![pmq-img-get-guide](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/email_images/pmq-img-get-guide.png)

## **Giving Customers a Reason to Opt In**

Without customers to opt in to your text marketing campaigns, you basically don’t have a campaign. So, how do you get them to opt in? You gotta hit ‘em subliminally and give them a reward for doing it.

1. Maximize Support at Your Locations
2. Use Social Media to Promote
3. Incentivize Employees to Promote In-Store
4. Incentivize Customers to Refer a Friend
5. Use Receipts and Delivery Bags to Promote

Find out more about how you can get customers to opt in to your SMS marketing campaigns.

[![Learn More](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/dff83f40-ed94-47d6-98a6-41d1e9bbee00.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/dff83f40-ed94-47d6-98a6-41d1e9bbee00)

![img-blog-post](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/img-blog-post.png)

![mobivity_faq_img](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/mobivity_faq_img.png)

 Mobivity FAQs

### What kind of text messages are businesses sending?

There’s a lot of possibility with text message marketing. Restaurants use it for special promotions, deals, reminders, and behavior triggers.

![mobivity_faq_img](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/mobivity_faq_img.png)

 Mobivity FAQs

### What kind of text messages are businesses sending?

There’s a lot of possibility with text message marketing. Restaurants use it for special promotions, deals, reminders, and behavior triggers.

![mobivity_faq_img](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/mobivity_faq_img.png)

 Mobivity FAQs

### What kind of text messages are businesses sending?

There’s a lot of possibility with text message marketing. Restaurants use it for special promotions, deals, reminders, and behavior triggers.

![ebooksicon-01](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/ebooksicon-01.svg)

### Text Message Marketing Platform Evaluation Checklist

[![Download](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/9c8f4963-9d7d-4437-a7c3-4fc75b019cea.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/9c8f4963-9d7d-4437-a7c3-4fc75b019cea)

![ebooksicon-01](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/ebooksicon-01.svg)

### Playbook: 5 Top Digital Engagement Strategies of Leading Restaurants

[![Download](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/c2487bce-ecf2-46c0-b8f0-4961c312b1ec.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/c2487bce-ecf2-46c0-b8f0-4961c312b1ec)

![ebooksicon-01](https://www.mobivity.com/hubfs/Mobivity_September2020/Images/ebooksicon-01.svg)

### The Ultimate Buyer's Guide for Restaurant Text Marketing Platforms

[![Download](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/529587/4a561c51-2ac4-488d-972a-34d398f5e4d5.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/529587/4a561c51-2ac4-488d-972a-34d398f5e4d5)

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