How B-Unlimited Uses Texts to Increase Merchandise Sales

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Since 1994, B-Unlimited has been printing high-quality, custom apparel. Find out how text marketing empowered their team to increase sales and deliver a better customer experience.


From the Hills of the Ozark Mountains to the Inc. 5000

B-Unlimited began as a small screen printing company in the hills of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. Over two decades later, they’re recognized as one of the top apparel printing companies in the country. For the past three years, they’ve appeared on Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

How did they go from a tiny operation to a team of over 100 employees shipping products all across the country? By carving a niche for themselves designing and printing high-quality apparel for college sororities and fraternities. They started with Greek organizations at The University of Arkansas and serve over 200 college campuses today.

Despite their huge growth, their team knew that they could be doing more.

“Eventually we did the math on how many members of these Greek Life groups were actually purchasing from our collections. We found it was only 25%,” says Jonathan Holder, B-Unlimited’s Vice President of Operations.

To close the gap, he sought out a solution to send text message promotions.

Seeking a Platform to Effectively Reach a Younger Audience

B-Unlimited’s target audience is 18- to 20-year-old Greek Life leaders. Jonathan knew traditional marketing channels wouldn’t cut it.

“We knew the open rate for SMS messages was so much higher than email. And we knew millennials, especially college millennials, aren’t on their email that often.”

SimpleTexting lets B-Unlimited reach college students on their phones, where they’re already spending time. B-Unlimited needed to create unique keywords for individual sororities and fraternities. No problem, we offer unlimited keywords at no extra charge.

Our easy-to-use interface also played a role in Jonathan’s decision.

“I knew I was going to transition other people to managing the keywords. I wanted the interface to be simple so that new sales people could easily jump in and use the platform.”

Using Keywords and Scheduled Texts to Drives Sales

The B-Unlimited sales team works with Greek Life leaders to help them plan out their events for the semester and decide what merchandise they’ll need.

“Part of our pitch is offering the custom artwork, soft shirts, fast turnaround and the ability to send text messages to your team,” explains Jonathan.

For example, let’s say Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Arkansas wants to promote their apparel. The KKG t-shirt chair (the sorority member in charge of printing and promoting merchandise) can encourage members to text the keyword “UAKKG” to their number. Then, the team at B-Unlimited schedules texts to alert members when new products are for sale.

UAKKG
YAY! Thanks for joining our notification system for UA KKG. Keep up with us on Instagram @bunlimited too!
Last chance, order Football Cups & House PR by midnight tonight! https://txt.tl/mJPLPM

B-Unlimited found that sororities and fraternities who had their members sign up for text alerts saw an average sales increase of 5 to 10%.

No Sign of Slowing Down

B-Unlimited’s relentless commitment to providing the best products possible has proven to be hugely successful, and they show no sign of slowing down. They’ve grown by about 30% for the last several years. They were even featured as one of the best places to work in 2018 by Inc. Magazine.

Find out how SimpleTexting can empower your sales team to move more products with text messages. Sign up today for a free, 14-day trial.

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