Year Round Brown increased revenue by 20% with text promotions

Year Round Brown (YBR) opened the first full-scale tanning salon in South Dakota over 37 years ago. With 10 locations and over 90 employees, it’s fair to say that YBR knows its business.

It’s why it places such an emphasis on its busiest time of year–the transition from Spring to Summer. After all, people who are itching to get outdoors want to look good doing so.

To take advantage of this, the company runs what it refers to as its “Biggest Sale of the Year,” targeting past and current customers with the very best deals and discounts. While it typically runs around Memorial Day, it was pushed out several weeks due to COVID-19.

Anxious to ensure that the sales from this crucial time of year were not lost, the YBR team turned to text promotions. 

We spoke with Kaitlin Brodeur, a marketing executive at YRB, to learn more about how the retailer used texting to make this year’s sale the most successful despite the difficult circumstances.

“Text promotions are new to us. Many years ago, we tried it briefly, but the platform we used then didn’t have the same features and flexibility as SimpleTexting. It was a super affordable way for us to achieve what we wanted.”

The urgency and immediacy of text messages

The immediate nature of texting is an excellent tool for delivering urgent and time-sensitive promotions to customers. (Fun fact: 90% of businesses read a text message within the first three minutes of receiving it.)

In this case, YBR was anxious to ensure that customers knew that the sale was going to happen this year.

“Because of COVID-19, we decided to move our yearly sale by a couple of weeks. The problem is that many of our customers expect the sale to be around Memorial Day. We knew that text messages would let them know about the change and that they’d see it.”

From her days in the agency world, Kaitlin was familiar with different text message marketing platforms. Still, she did more research and decided on SimpleTexting.

“The price point was great, especially given how user-friendly and powerful it is.”

She’s also quick to compliment the smooth onboarding and the helpful support team.

"Getting started was not hard at all. Everyone on the SimpleTexting support team was super helpful anytime that we wanted to upgrade–which we did three times–or had questions about our account."

Kaitlin Brodeur

Marketing Executive

Finally, she’s a big fan of the easy-to-navigate inbox. When Kaitlin schedules a text promotion campaign, she receives tons of responses asking questions that range from opening times to simple requests to a book an appointment. 

Using the SimpleTexting SMS inbox, she’s able to manage all of the incoming messages.

Using MMS for an extra “glow”

Research has shown that those who use visual communication to persuade an audience succeed 43% more often than those who rely on words alone.

We’ve written before that including images in your text messages can improve CTRs. It’s particularly important if you’re in a highly visual space like tanning.

YRB uses MMS messages–text messages with engaging multimedia content like photos, videos, and animations–to send a graphic that highlights the main 50% off tanning offer. Here’s an example of one of its MMS messages.

Year Round Brown’s BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR! 50% OFF tanning, 40% OFF lotion, and 100 FREE minutes!

It’s no wonder that it’s led to some impressive results. 

“Being able to send an image with the text makes it feel very legitimate. Plus, seeing a tanned person makes someone want to tan.”

Text promotions increased revenue by 20%

Despite dealing with the repercussions of COVID-19, this year’s sale has generated 20% more revenue than last year’s. The marketing team at YBR is delighted with the return on investment.

"We can attribute the 20% increase in revenue to using text messages to promote this year’s sale. We’re delighted with SimpleTexting."

Kaitlin Brodeur

Marketing Executive

While they planned to use text messaging to just promote the yearly sale, they’ve decided to plan further promotions for the rest of the year.

Want to see similar results?

If you want to learn more about SMS marketing for retail, our retail SMS marketing industry guide is a good starting point. You can also sign up for a 14-day, risk-free trial. And, if you have questions about getting set up, email us at support@simpletexting.net.