BarVision Case Study

The Business Challenge

The key challenge for BarVision was the ability to connect quickly with our clients. In the Bar and Restaurant business, owners/managers are rarely at their desk and in most cases they are focused on the day to day operations. After being featured on Bar Rescue TV show, BarVision was flooded with people who found the solution we offered interesting, but it also brought those who were still thinking of opening a bar and not yet in the business. Part of the challenge for a small team was the ability to qualify customers who might purchase in the short term vs. those still looking. What we needed was a way to contact the client and quickly gauge their interest level. The hospitality industry has a high turnover rate, so being able to identify real potential vs. those kicking tires is essential to this business. Our other challenge was management, we had spent months trying to convince management that we didn't need a big budget or months of planning to drive sales, it was tough because they the focus was on sending only email campaigns as we have done for years.

How Textmagic Helped

It was in September (2015) of our first full year working the new business model and like any startup, BarVision had a very tight budget. We had spent months trying to get management to spend money on different marketing approaches; of course, they were not comfortable with anything besides email campaigns. When we started looking for a text messaging platform, we wanted something that would allow us to connect quickly with potential customers, people who had already reached out to us at one point in time. Textmagic was one of many programs we looked at, but after a few tests, we quickly realized this application gave us the ability to move fast and work with a small budget until we were comfortable. Instantly we could see measurable results. Most applications like this are too complex, hard to navigate and difficult to set up for teams.Textmagic was fast, easy and it gave BarVision the ability to zip through our list and quickly identify real customers.  By mid-October, we knew we had selected the right application, and we were able to do it on a limited budget.

The Results

We were able to reconnect with over 1600 leads that came from our site over the years. 9.25% of them responded to the text campaign and requested more information. That’s almost 150 potential sales that were not engaged through e-mail. Textmagic and their platform allowed for our sales team to move forward quickly. Typically our email campaigns take time and in our business it is tough to get an owners attention. Textmagic gave us an opportunity to connect quickly, sort through who was truly interested and who was just looking for now. It also helped us identify those who are no longer in the industry and using the export features in Textmagic; we were able to remove them from our subscriber list. September ended up being the best month of Sales for the entire company. As we start to plan for our 2016 budget, Textmagic will be a part of that plan.