Mobile is the future: The future is NOW! Part 13: Surviving the Off Season

Having grown up in Palm Springs and having worked at a seasonal restaurant in San Diego, I have witnessed first-hand the difference in turnover between “off season” and “off season.” The good winter weather drives tourism in the area. Thousands of people flock to the desert to play golf, enjoy world-renowned restaurants, and generally just relax and enjoy the sun. But Palm Springs turns into a ghost town during the summer. The 120 degree temperatures make playing golf pretty unfathomable. Eating outside is completely out of the question. Many companies closed completely from mid-June to early October. While not that extreme, business at the restaurant I was working in was heavily influenced by the warm weather. Dining al fresco was our draw, which meant our summers were very busy, but business was inconsistent from October to May. While they are not identical, both situations present business owners with the same basic challenge: How do they improve their bottom line during the offseason?

While various marketing strategies can benefit seasonal businesses, mobile media fits the model very well. The first thing Mobile Media is able to do is harness the power of the season by helping a business owner develop a database of mobile phone numbers. A hotel, for example, can be booked solid during the season. This is an opportunity for the hotel to promote its mobile offering to its guests. When a tourist checks in, the person handling the reservation can offer the guest a free night or a discounted rate by simply texting a keyword, usually the hotel name, to a recognizable short code such as ” 90210 “. The guest will receive a confirmation text message to show the hotel employee to redeem their discount. Almost everyone is willing to get a discount for a good or service that they were already planning to pay full price for anyway.

By sending that simple text message to receive a discount, the customer now enters that hotel’s database, which can be accessed through a mobile back office on the Internet. When the season ends the hotel is practically empty. Now the hotel can use the information they collected during their peak business season and engage their former guests through a simple text message. Even in bad weather, people who are stressed from their day to day would still love an excuse to get away from it all for a weekend. Getting a phenomenal and urgent deal via text message could turn out to be an offer they can’t refuse. Why can’t you do the same with an email? Statistics show that a text message is more than six times more likely to open compared to an email, with most being opened within an hour. So if you text on Thursday, the potential guest will see you in time to make a reservation for Friday. A similar strategy can be implemented for a golf course or other businesses that may be affected by seasonal volume. Similar strategies can also be used for a restaurant simply looking to increase sales between the lunch and dinner rush.

Mobile media can harness the power of peak season volume and redirect it to help drive sales increases during downtime. The basic strategy itself is nothing new – offer phenomenal deals at times when people are typically unwilling to sponsor your business. The difference is that Mobile Media is the fastest and most efficient method for a company to get those offers into the hands of its current and potential customers.