Case Study: Acquire New Email Subscribers Instantly with Text-to-Join

BlueHornet Case Study: Chuck E. Cheese's
Uses Text Messaging to Grow Email ListAchieves Higher Open and Click Rates for Text-to-Join Subscribers
CEC Entertainment, Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in full-service family entertainment and dining for families with children ages 2 - 12. The company and its franchisees operate a system of 540 Chuck E. Cheese's stores located throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. For more information, visit www.chuckecheese.com.
Challenge:How to Grow Email List in Store LocationsChuck E. Cheese's offers personalized coupons, birthday reminders, and other promotional offers through their Chuck E-Club email program. The majority of their Chuck E-Club membership base is acquired through website traffic, and over the past 4 years, they've built a database of over 3 million valid and active opt-in subscribers.
What was missing? CEC Entertainment recognized an opportunity to further build their membership base if they had a better way to allow in-store guests to register for the Chuck E-Club email program.
According to Ryan Linders, Director of Sales and Marketing of CEC Entertainment, Inc., "We had issues with registering our guests in our stores. Originally, we tested a manual sign up system using register paper and relied on our operators to mail these forms to us. Once we received the forms, the data was manually typed into the system. This process sometimes created a lag time of 3-4 weeks between the time a guest signed up in one of our locations and receipt of the first email."
Need:An Immediate, Automated Registration Process "BlueHornet and SmartReply simplified The manual registration process proved to be inefficient - from the illegibility of the Chuck E-Club registration process the handwritten forms to the time it took to mail the forms and enter customer for our busy parents with young kids. Our data into the Chuck E-Club database. CEC needed a solution that would in-store registration process has now allow their welcome letter coupons to be sent to customers immediately upon become an instant registration process for registration, rather than weeks after they initially signed up for the Chuck E-Club email program. Welcome letter coupons are CEC's most aggressive offer and our guests. Now, our operators only have the largest driver of coupon usage, so the delivery of these coupons in a timely to focus on helping us drive the message manner is crucial to driving revenue in stores. in-store at the point of purchase. All other manual work to collect forms and data Solution: from the guest has been eliminated."Instant Registration Through Text Messaging Together with their email service provider BlueHornet, CEC partnered with Ryan Lindersmobile marketing solutions provider SmartReply to develop an automated sign Director of Marketing - Sales up process via mobile text messaging that seamlessly added customers to the CEC Entertainment, Inc.normal CEC double opt-in and welcome letter process and into the Chuck E-Club email program.
See reverse side Æ
BlueHornet | 2355 Northside Drive, Suite B250 | San Diego, CA 92108 | www.bluehornet.com | (866) 586-3755SmartReply's mobile solution to opt in or out of communications enables customers to sign up for email communications wherever they may be - in this case, a Chuck E. Cheese's location - by texting their email address to a number assigned to the company. Once the customer texts their email address, they receive a thank you text message in response, and an email is also delivered to begin the double opt-in and welcome letter process.
"Our top priority is to ensure simplicity of the in-store sign up process for our moms and dads with young kids, so it's important to only collect their email addresses at first," said Linders. "Once we collect email addresses, BlueHornet allows us to wait until after their visit to send a follow up email to collect more detailed profile information as part of their double opt-in process."
Chuck E. Cheese's Text-to-Join Process:1. Guest of CEC texts their email address to 355052. Confirmation text message sent to Guest3. Email address passed to BlueHornet; verification of new subscriber sent to email address4. Guest opens verification message, clicks on link to opt in and is sent to age verification page5. Guest verifies age and is sent to subscriber preferences page6. Chuck E-Club welcome... [download for more]