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Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

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Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#11

Post by codegeek »

stevekemp wrote: post #9
cjbconnor wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is a big turn-off for me. The thing that keeps me coming back to a restaurant is the quality of the food, not their marketing. What I've experienced is that as the quality of the food goes down, the number of marketing notifications goes up. I've gotten an email from chipotle every 2-3 days for the last month, but the last time I went there the food was terrible. Also, your privacy p…

I went to visit a doctor recently, and booked the appointment online. As a result of that I received: - An SMS confirming my appointment. - An SMS the day before reminding me of the appointment. - An SMS the morning of the appointment inviting me to checkin. - An SMS after I left asking me about my experience on a scale of 1-5. That's four SMSs relating to one appointment/visit. The moment I read this post I could ju…

Except possibly the rating SMS, why is this a bad thing ? Doctors have the problem of no shows and it is good to send reminders. I personally don't mind receiving reminders for something I have agreed to. I wouldn't call a Doctor reminder SMS spam.

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#12

Post by shaneliammurphy »

pluc wrote: post #7
cjbconnor wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is a big turn-off for me. The thing that keeps me coming back to a restaurant is the quality of the food, not their marketing. What I've experienced is that as the quality of the food goes down, the number of marketing notifications goes up. I've gotten an email from chipotle every 2-3 days for the last month, but the last time I went there the food was terrible. Also, your privacy p…

You could say the same about virtually all marketing. A product should let its product speak. Marketing is the art of shoving a sub-par product down users throats despite better alternatives existing.

Totally - a product has to be great. With that said, getting feedback from your customers is also vital to making real improvements in the product and many restaurants are blind to what their customers think. Not everyone is comfortable telling someone that their food isn't great, or that there was a service issue, and we've been able to provide a more comfortable way to give that feedback, which leads to real improvements.

I also believe that there is a difference between marketing something to new customers that they might not want and what we do here. The only people who will raise their hand to join a text club are the actual fans who like the place and the product. Then this serves as a rewards mechanism to provide additional deals and incentives to continue to purchase more. This is retention marketing--not new customer acquisition.

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#13

Post by shaneliammurphy »

samch wrote: post #10

I can summarize my SMS marketing experiences in one word: stop

That's precisely why opt-in practices need to be observed. If you don't want to be in the club, you shouldn't receive texts and you should be pestered to join. If you did join and then you decided later that you don't want to be in, simply replying "stop" will remove you from the program. We actually include those opt-out instruction on every text, because it should be easy to know how to leave if you don't want to continue to receive those texts.

But if you really like a place and want discounts to them, this could be a good option.

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#14

Post by codegeek »

You are getting hammered by the HN crowd here but there is merit to stuff like this. I will tell you what I do want as a customer:

- Ask me to opt-in but only the 3rd or more time I am ordering from the same restaurant. Asking me to opt-in right away will seem more spammy. If I am coming to a restaurant for the 3rd time, I probably like the food and will be open to receiving some marketing stuff if it helps me as well

- Send me targeted messages and not generic. For example, lets say I frequently order "General Tso's Chicken", perhaps send me an offer that mentions it. I would be more inclined to act.

- Do not over text/SMS. You mentioned this already but cannot be understated. Thi is where you have to teach the restaurants. I would even say put technical limits ( a restaurant cannot SMS same customer more than 2 times a month etc) even though you charge by the SMS. It is in your long term interest that customers are not turned off by too many messages.

- Make it a bit fun and not all marketing/money. Send me interesting stuff on the food I just ate (may be how it was made etc).

- Coupons would be awesome if I haven't visited for a while and it could get me to order my fav. food again.

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#15

Post by zbjornson »

stevekemp wrote: post #9
cjbconnor wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is a big turn-off for me. The thing that keeps me coming back to a restaurant is the quality of the food, not their marketing. What I've experienced is that as the quality of the food goes down, the number of marketing notifications goes up. I've gotten an email from chipotle every 2-3 days for the last month, but the last time I went there the food was terrible. Also, your privacy p…

I went to visit a doctor recently, and booked the appointment online. As a result of that I received: - An SMS confirming my appointment. - An SMS the day before reminding me of the appointment. - An SMS the morning of the appointment inviting me to checkin. - An SMS after I left asking me about my experience on a scale of 1-5. That's four SMSs relating to one appointment/visit. The moment I read this post I could ju…

Medical appointment reminders and other medical communications have a special cutout in the TCPA, including reduced consent requirements. They annoy me too though; they're redundant with my calendar reminders. The feedback SMS might not be included in the exception either.

https://blog.curogram.com/what-are-tcpa-and-traced-act-and-h...

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#16

Post by shaneliammurphy »

lucky_cloud wrote: post #5

> any experiences that you’ve personally had with text marketing that you wish had been different I wish I'd never received one single marketing text or notification ever in my entire life. I wish I could purge the entire world of such things.

Did you originally opt-in to receive the texts that you're referencing? If not, that would be incredibly annoying (not to mention that the government frowns on that). I've received spam texts in my time (soooo many "UPS package" scams), and those have left a bad taste in my mouth. That's why we've taken the approach of "expressly opt-in" and "easy to opt-out."

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#17

Post by madelyn »

Hey, first impressions- this looks great! I work in the space and know that HN can be quite rough for sms marketing tools. Couple quick questions:

How do you handle offer "staleness" if you're rotating through a set every so often? And additionally do you have tools that automatically remove unengaged numbers?

Is the long term plan to offer Boostly to larger businesses or chains?

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#18

Post by mikeylikey »

cjbconnor wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is a big turn-off for me. The thing that keeps me coming back to a restaurant is the quality of the food, not their marketing. What I've experienced is that as the quality of the food goes down, the number of marketing notifications goes up. I've gotten an email from chipotle every 2-3 days for the last month, but the last time I went there the food was terrible. Also, your privacy p…

A hacker after my own heart (Mikey here, Technical founder ). Thanks for you diplomatic critiques.

This was/is the sentiment of myself and a majority of our developers from a consumer standpoint. It's a curious experience being your product's chief skeptic. It's also been interesting to observe the number of consumers eager to participate, along with the degree to which it works on behalf of our restaurant customers. A few months ago my skepticism decreased when one of my favorite local pizza joints became a customer and I found myself ordering a lot more with them despite my aversion to being "marketed to". Fortunately, food quality appears steady so far .

One of the things I look forward to with more bandwidth and runway is to craft the product in a way that may even appeal to the segment of the market that shares our preferences. In the meantime, thanks for taking time to share your perspective.

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#19

Post by shaneliammurphy »

codegeek wrote: post #14

You are getting hammered by the HN crowd here but there is merit to stuff like this. I will tell you what I do want as a customer: - Ask me to opt-in but only the 3rd or more time I am ordering from the same restaurant. Asking me to opt-in right away will seem more spammy. If I am coming to a restaurant for the 3rd time, I probably like the food and will be open to receiving some marketing stuff if it helps me as wel…

These are great suggestions! I especially love the thought of going the extra mile to make it relevant to you as an individual. I like the idea of eventually allowing the individual consumer to set the limits on what they receive, such as frequency, type of content, etc. (For example, I only want to receive messages about events happening at this restaurant and no more than 2x per month.)

Re: Launch HN: Boostly (YC S22) – SMS marketing for restaurants

#20

Post by shaneliammurphy »

madelyn wrote: post #17

Hey, first impressions- this looks great! I work in the space and know that HN can be quite rough for sms marketing tools. Couple quick questions: How do you handle offer "staleness" if you're rotating through a set every so often? And additionally do you have tools that automatically remove unengaged numbers? Is the long term plan to offer Boostly to larger businesses or chains?

Offer staleness is a very real thing! We generally encourage a restaurant to start with 6-12 offers, and then every 60-90 days, we review how each offer is performing and optimize their rotations. That way things that aren't resonating get removed, and we can track the trends. We also encourage variety in the type of offers as well (i.e. you don't want to send a % off offer back to back). Generally, you want to refresh your offers on a regular cadence.

Initially, this has been built for the SMB restaurant or the franchisee to do local marketing rather than large brand based marketing.

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