Hello and welcome to Diva Strategies For Success where I get to bring you some dynamic guests and I’m so excited because I have a fabulous guest today. Her name is Mary Barnett but she is known as “MobileMary” in the industry as she is a mobile and social marketing right? Everybody needs one adult. And our company, Another Brilliant Idea incorporated helps businesses mostly restaurants drive hungry and happy customers back to their business again and again and they do most of the work for you. Welcome mary, I’m so happy to have you on the show today. How are you? I am well thank you Robbie, what an honor to be on your show. Thank you for inviting me. I know you do a lot of things. So tell me what do you offer someone to help them? Oh goodness! Well, um I have actually been in business for 32 years and we’ve had a marketing firm. Yes and I’m only 33. So that is my story and I’m sticking to it. Um but for the 1st 20 we offered all kinds of traditional marketing but 12 years ago we stumbled on this new marketing strategy called mobile marketing and it worked so well that we we dove headfirst and became kind of a cutting edge expert on this very new technology of using text messages to drive traffic to um your stores. And so we started off with a large company. We’re blessed enough to get Kawasaki very interested in this because their clients were actually mobile. Hello. They were at home getting their mail. They were at home to get their email. And in those days you had flip phones right back in 2009 And we launched a campaign that there’s a long story behind it. But we launched a campaign and we drove over 93,000 new customers to the dealerships across the country.
And not only was the client excited, I was blown away at the results that we were able to get for the client. We got them so much data, they knew everything about their customers through the whole process. We put this together. So so basically we kind of jumped all in into mobile. And then when social marketing came out we decided we’re gonna, it was kind of coming out at the same time we got to um kind of get to know social media platforms because no one wanted to invest in mobile but that social was free and it was the Wild Wild West. So we use social media to promote their marketing or their mobile campaigns.
So it all kind of came together. So we really feel that mobile marketing is what converts non customers into paying customers then paying customers into returning customers and then returning customers into your greatest marketing tool that ever existed, which is a word of mouth referrals, wow, that’s great. So what does your software do for your client? Oh my goodness! In one word automation. Um once it’s set up it runs in the background without any need to mess with it. It builds a list of your best customers and it keeps building while drawing them back to your store, your restaurant. So they buy more and more often. And even though it’s automated, everything that’s available for our clients to do something new and we’re always here and available to help with anything they want to do.
We really believe in being hands on with our customers. They literally can text us and we have a team that actually get a text out pretty instantly because our clients, they want results right? And then we all want results And we make it so affordable. We have packages for our restaurant that started $27 a month. But they don’t really have the time to really learn or manage another new thing or learn a whole new software. They have a business to run and manage and keep up with inventory and staffing and government relations and now with the ever changing rules with reopening and they really need a full time, full blown marketing agency behind them. But it’s really just too expensive. So what we have to offer is a proven system because marketing that costs only pennies per customer and it has an R. O. I. Or return on investment that just is going to blow their mind. It’s it’s I get I get really excited about it because we get calls from clients all the time saying thank you for even though I didn’t know what this was, thank you for making me buy your product like you know, I was forcing them for something, which is funny but they’re so grateful because when days that happened where you know a facebook goes down there, like how are we going to reach our clients?
They actually have a list in the palm of their hand to reach them anytime they want instantly. Wow, that’s good. So what is so important about a list? Well the money is in the list, right? If you don’t own your own list, you’re really at the mercy of whoever will promote you um or the mercy of facebook or instagram right with any anyone in marketing will tell you and you know this to Robbie um is your list is gold, but don’t get me wrong, I mean I love social media as it’s the best and easiest way really to promote your mobile campaign. I kind of see it as like the delivery um solution to you, right? But my point is is to use social media to promote and engage your customers and I should say promote your mobile campaign and engage with your customers right?
Then offer them an incentive. Some reason, right? What is the call to action? Give them a reason to opt into your list so you can capture their information so then you can talk to them offline, right? And this is a really good opportunity. Segue here is that I want everybody to be able to have a chance to kind of see how it works. Um So if you want to try it yourself, all you have to do is whip out your cell phone and and open a new text message and to the number. And in fact I think Robbie you did this once when I was speaking to one of your wonderful nafie groups um to the number 714 for one. So anyone who’s listening to this can do this and it’s kind of fun to 71441. It’s called a short code.
Then in the in the sand field. The words you would write instead of saying to your husband, bring home ice cream which is usually what I put in my my messages. Um just put the word mary which is my name. M. M. A. Ry. So to the number 714 for one put the word mary in and hit send and watch the magic happen. There’s no data entry. You just now basically captured my my phone number and then you can set up a whole string of automation to build to talk with them and kind of warm them up to the point where they’re just dying to buy what you have. Oh that’s cool. That is so so how do you get them on your list?
Well as I think uh stated best in the godfather. You make them an offer. they can’t refuse. But really it’s that easy because you’re making an offer to those who know like and trust you right? And they love what you do and what you offer. So they’re gonna want it. So one of our customers um restaurant customers which we helped mostly restaurants because really they need people to come every single day, right? So one of our customers, Miguel’s, they’ve actually built up over the last four or five years, they’ve built up a list of 76,000 hungry and happy customers who want their burritos. And so with everything shutting down with COVID they didn’t miss a beat.They were texting their people to come in for take out order online. It was the way they were able to get their new online messaging or online ordering system out to all of their customers.
They were busy the entire three months of the shutdown. So it just brought me so much joy. But as an example if you’re known for your world famous burritos, like Miguel’s is that’s what you offer. So they literally, when they start opening a new store, they put banners up and they’re like, hey, when the store opens, if you want a free burrito on opening day, text this word and they can actually segment their market or their their database by store. So we literally have like geo fencing and by separating them by key where we actually can say where they want to buy that burrito in the future. So that’s what they do. They offer them a free burrito a bean and cheese burrito doesn’t cost them very much. And then they have literally thousands of people waiting in line to get their free burrito and they have that opening day um It’s just amazing.
So it’s a one time thing it’s afraid you don’t have to give a whole food item. You can do like a free beverage or maybe 50 cents off or something like that. But that’s just a one thing and it’s a fair trade. Plus you’re offering them a chance at something that’s even more valuable. The exclusivity of being a member of your inside V. I. P. Circle and you’re going to treat him as such right? I mean that your V. I. P. S. Their gold because they have taken the 13 seconds right? Or the three seconds to text in. They’ve taken that leap of faith that you’re going to treat them well you’re not gonna you’re not gonna spam them.
You’re going to send them things when it’s important. Um And like at christmas time Miguel used it to send out a message about their tamales. They only make tamales at christmas. So people are waiting for that text almost salivating for the text knowing that as soon as they get that they can order their tamales for their christmas celebrations. So that that’s why it’s really important to get them on your list before we go to the next question, tell people your website now that can get in touch with you. Oh sure, but when by the way, when you text the word mary to the number 71441, it brings you right, it brings you a little message. And in there there’s a link to our website and I’m talking today about our software software called Brilliant Mobile.
So it’s brilliantmobile.com. And again I work mostly with restaurants but I help other businesses well drive traffic to their store, their online service. I work with speakers and entrepreneurs as well. Um but if you go to brilliantmobile.com um you can get all the information, you can get a free report on, how do you um get text text for success. And so that’s kind of a fun freebie that people can get when they go to that website. Good, I like that. Tell me why can’t people only use social media to bring customers in um because you never want to like live in a silo right? You have to be um you have to spread your message across, right? You have to be an almost omnipresent and as I call him affectionately zuruck, right, Mark Zuckerberg, um he changes the rules all the time. I’m talking about facebook of course specifically, but they changed the rules all the time, right? And the ads cost more and more money, It’s like in the, in the pioneer days when we first started back in 2009, you know, it was freewheeling, not as many people were on, you didn’t have to, there was no way of buying ads like your your stuff showed up in front of everyone automatically, right? But not today, you know, I always joke and say that mark had a baby so he has to feed the baby. So that’s why he now has to sell ads. That’s a joke added on his platform. But he also has the ability to shut you down.
Sometimes people make a mistake on their ads and their whole entire page goes down or their ad account goes down but you need to be in control of your media. So I believe that you know, you need to have social media in the mix, but it can’t be your only one because really one negative comment on social media can really sour others from being associated with your brown in this cancer. I’m doing air quotes, you can see this cancel culture. Um, these days you really need to avoid that issue. So our system is really built to help you avoid these pitfalls because there’s really no shared comments when you opt in it goes into our system, you can do to a text so they can, they can ask you a question and then through the, through the software you can actually answer them back. But really the only sharing that really ever happens with with Brilliant Mobile is if you allow your mobile coupons to be shared.
Which by the way is super brilliant because it lets your customers promote your list, basically promote your mobile VIP program to their friends for you. So they’re literally helping you build your list and the result really is just more customers coming in. So um again you need to we need also Robbie never know what how our customers like to get information. Some people are auditory learners. So right, they listen to podcasts. Some are people are more visual learners. They want to watch a video and that’s why video is so amazing. There are people that are more tactile like reading a book or a magazine or a newspaper. So even though sadly those are kind of going away but we all like to consume information in different ways. So you really have to um be kind of omnipresent within reason because we want to feed in. And then as we get the results and we watch the analytics, we can say oh more of my target audience loves this.
They love videos. They love you know, so like in our system we can send a text messages. Just words with links. Right? That’s called an sms simple messaging system. Or we can also send mm s which is a multimedia system and that allows you to send little mini videos audit like a little video message um a graphic or a picture. Um and so it’s a great way to grab more attention for your message inside someone’s text string. So, so how do you keep them in there? Well automation of your monthly giveaways, questionnaires, polls, scavenger hunt birthday rewards. There’s so many cool features inside Brilliant Mobile that really keeps your audience happy and engaged and returning to your store. So those who stay on your list really are automatically entered for a chance to win things like dinner for two or a gift card or whatever you want to offer.
So I always say that um, uh we get them on the list by offering them something cool, right? Something that they value, but then we keep them on the list by dangling that carrot so that maybe just one person after you’re out of your entire list has a chance to win something even cooler and that will keep them on the list. So as an example, AM PM as a customer of ours, a gentleman we knew had a franchise of them. And or I should say a series of stores. And what he did is he used it to capture a list by offering a free 22 ounce soda, which to him, I think he said he cost him like three cents. Right? So they often get the soda, but then to keep them on the list so he could continue to market to them during the month.
He said once a month, but I’m going to give away a $50 gas card and people like, heck yeah, I’m going to stay on this list because I want a chance to win that car. But if they just opted in for the coke and then jumped off, they could not back in to get it. And, and that was spelled out in the promotion. Um, and then in between the two things the first time they text in and then that reward, he could send the messages like, hey, gas prices are going up tomorrow, come on in tonight. And with a fill up, you get a free slushy if it’s in the summer or a free cup of coffee, if it’s in the, in the winter. And he was now the good guy because he was letting him know. So on the four corners of his street where there was four different gas stations, his customers came to that to him first because they were tapped on the shoulder politely to say, hey, we’re, you know, we’re letting you know. So here, come on in here and we’re gonna reward you again, which is awesome. So, um, plus our customers always can deliver coupons and announcements that benefit their customers, drawing them back as we like to say like a moth to the flame, right? Because it’s so brilliant. Um, but it’s really, you’re just, you’re in their corner, you want what’s best for your customers. Um, but you also want, you know, out of sight out of mind. So text is a great way because you don’t have to have an app downloaded. You don’t have to be on a certain social media because people go through phases, right? Like right now, a lot of people don’t want to be on social media because there’s a lot of negativity out there.
So they’re like, you know, I’m just going to take a break, but if they’re already on your list, you can still communicate to them whenever you want. Write your email might not. In fact, as we’ll talk about email, but um, you know, email might be red might be not, but when you get a text message, it’s almost instant. So the next question is, why not only use email, like you’re right. Most people don’t eat them. Right. Right. So that’s the thing, statistics really play this out in an obvious way to answer this question. So the email, you’re lucky to get a 20% open rate, right? You actually get excited. Like, Wow, 20, 20% of people open my thing. But with text marketing, guess what? It’s a 94% open rate. It’s practically instant. Like you get a message like beep, it comes up or maybe it’s sitting on the phone next to your desk and it comes over the message, it catches your attention, right? So, you know, anything you can think of, you can do that, You could do an email campaign really if you can keep it short and sweet can be accomplished with Brilliant Mobile and you can segment your list by separate rating them geographically by age, by gender, by marital status, whatever you want.
But I have to say you can share more information an email. So I definitely say you need to collect an email um database as well. So we have our platform help you gather emails too. So we have like this email integration and it actually will build your email list automatically and then all those lists will actually go into your email service. So as you’re you know every month or whenever you do your newsletter all of a sudden your list is getting bigger and bigger because you’ve been promoting your mobile campaign. So I believe email, you have to you have to get it. But but again it just has a lower a lower open rate. So again a nice mix is really a great idea. So do you have a case study about some clients? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh and I get it. I’m on the list of all of them. And and you know what Robbie, I’m such a goofball because I get still get so excited when I get a text to my clients and maybe even if it’s not a product like you know like we have a client who’s um and they still believe they’re not pool supplies. They are a wholesaler to pull um, people who do, who clean pools and they found that pool. Um, I don’t know what their official title is. Pool cleaners. They are working so hard in the sun. They don’t ever answer their phone. Right? And of course they never go to their email and they’re like, how are we going to tell them about sales for chlorine and scrub brushes and all that kind of stuff. So they have used our service and they, the text message will come through and they will literally finish cleaning the pool, hold up on their phone and they’ll see the text. They can click on the link and buy their, their supplies right there before they get back in their truck. I mean, it’s amazing. Um, I mentioned that Miguel’s has 76,000, members on their list at 76,000 paying customers. I mentioned that Kawasaki drove over 93,000 new customers across their stores nationwide. In fact, that was the first national campaign.
Kawasaki really took a chance on us. We were, I just had basically thrown the idea because our company name is another brilliant idea by the way. I have also have my corporate website website, which is anotherbrilliantidea.com because everyone needs another brilliant idea. Right? So you can find out more on there on that website as well. But they really took a chance because I said, you know, your customers are mobile maybe should try this. And it took two years to convince other agencies that we could make this work and we really build our software based on the needs that they had back in 2000 and nine. Which is kind of cool. But most recently so when Covid hit we realized that you know are are poor restaurants are going to be really strapped um because everything was being shut down. And so we offered a program we called it the free 90 days and starting on March 18th through june 18th we basically gave our services away completely for free to new restaurants. So one of one of the local restaurants, el taco Lucas. Um they had you know we help them promote their uh their their food and their programs and everything on social media and we promoted their mobile VIP list again no cost to them and we didn’t want any strings attached at the end of this. They have a choice not to go with us at all. But they had built a list of just 108 V. I. P. S. I mean that’s not very many if you think about it, 100 and eight people. I mean it’s a lot for just being you know doing this like the first month but you know 100 and eight. So we said you know what would you like to send out?
They send out a special with tacos that one text went out Robbie and they she texted me at the end of the night I said you know she said oh my God I have to thank you. And I said oh I totally forgot like we sent that text and how to go today. She goes that’s why I’m texting you. We have the biggest sales day of the year today. I said oh you mean since Covid? And she was like no the biggest sales day of the year because of that one texas for us. Right I actually have shivers right now like thinking about it it made me so happy because this is a little family owned store just like in a little strip mall like they’re not a huge corporate you know multi um you know location company, one little store and we’re able to have that big of a a difference in their life and it just that’s what gets me up every morning knowing that I can really make a major difference in in these companies lives and and the people who work there in the owner so they can keep their doors open.
So anyway thank you for letting me share that Children like that. I already have a couple of restaurants that I know owners in mind to have them look into your stuff. How do you sign up for an account? Oh sure so you go to our website brilliantmobile.com. Um Again if you text mary M. A. R. Y. 271441 you’ll get a little link to it. Um Or you can just go to brilliantmobile.com. Um And um you can um You didn’t go and like I said we have a little free report there you can give us your name and your email and we will then send you lots of wonderful information. Um and you can download and get in fact our restaurants we’re offering right now is the 1st 30 days are free because we have a guarantee You will you will get 30 new customers in 30 days. And if you don’t I mean either way you don’t have we’re a month to month some system um you don’t have to go with us. But we think if you can get 30 new clients and if you do the math, If you sold a $10 meal You know and you’ve got at least 50%. If you have 50% of those people let’s do the math here. 15. Right and you send that out Your $15 of course I shouldn’t do math in front of you because that math was never my strong subject. But here I’m actually going to calculate it out for you here. So if the script description cost is $27 and let’s say you get 500 people on your list You send out two campaigns a month. The average rate rate is 94%. Right? And the average response rate is even just half 50% and their average spend is $10 right? You actually make $4,673 From a $27 investment.
The numbers just blow me away. It’s amazing. So yes go to brilliantmobile.com. Sign up for a free service or a free subscription to our software. You can download our free report on how to use text for success in your business. Um And I really hope to make a difference in their business as well. What other services do you provide your offer? Well we try to focus on our software because it has such amazing results and it’s kind of a toe in the water for our um the rest of our services. Um But we also do um build anything mobile. So we have built um apps for clients that we just built one for the San Bernardino Medical Association.
Um We’ve built them for all the schools. You have a division called Brilliant School Apps. Um We also do um the websites, we also build bots, I call them brilliant bots. So it’s a way that you can use facebook advertising to capture a list on messenger. And then from messenger we can actually collect names, emails, phone numbers which then in turn drop into our text service, Brilliant Mobile. So you can then use as on facebook to build your mobile list as well. So anything to do that’s mobile, so social and also social marketing. So mobile and social marketing. So again text marketing um chat marketing which is bots on facebook messenger um apps. Um and again strategy. So a lot of companies will come to us and say okay this is what our goal is, you know, how are we going to get there so we can create kind of an omnipotent. Omnipresent, so to speak of what they need to do to get to the point, build them a funnel. Um not only with text marketing but with their social media as well. Oh that’s so how did covid affect your business? Oh my gosh, that is a good question because you know everyone around us were kind of freaking out and and we were like well you know we have we work from home, we have for 20 so years, 40 something years.
Um and so it was kind of normal for us right to work out of the house. I I did miss um you know talking to people in the three dimensional world but you know like everyone else but what was interesting is that we realized that the restaurant’s not only could we help them with our text and social, but I really wanted to do even more so um again I think I mentioned before that we did this what we call the 90 day gift. So we gave them our mobile And social services 100% for free for 90 days. And then to take a step further, I was reading this great article about a woman in New Jersey. She started a program called flag Front line appreciation group and it was basically paying restaurants raising money to pay restaurants. So they survived to deliver food to the healthcare, the frontline workers. So they thrived and I’m like, oh my gosh, that is phenomenal if I did that, I could actually give money to my restaurants, like I could help them even more and we could bless our local healthcare workers, our firefighters, our police officers, our senior care people that don’t have good ways to get. So the whole point of that was in the evening time when the cafeteria closes. They really don’t have options because unless they bring a lunch from home, they really were just eating out of vending machines. And so this woman, her name is, oh my goodness, lisa, sorry, she had this year with this article written on her, I was like, oh my gosh, I contacted and I said, hey, I said, is there any way I could start like a chapter out here in Corona.
I said, besides, we’re also named Corona, my city. I said, I think it would be a win win win will help our restaurants will help our hospitals and our everybody on the front line and will hopefully be known for the name of a city that cares not after the virus. So she’s like, oh my gosh, that would be great, please do. And now she has like 100 and 50 chapters. It’s crazy. But that’s what I did. So I just started telling people in my community, I went to our foundation at the chamber. They said, oh my gosh, we would love to help you. They took the money out of a nonprofit. So we were able to to raise like $15,000 over the last nine weeks. And what was awesome is I also added a little Sprinkle of sunshine on top. I asked the community members to make signs and I called them signs of encouragement and people are dropping signs off on my doorstep that said like, we love you, thank you for going to work so we can stay home. Uh, heroes wear masks and I just have shivers again. Even thinking about it.
We just um, served 1000 meals to the riverside community hospital yesterday. Um, because of the generosity of south. Um, so cal gas and the latino restaurant association. So I have just had this amazing experience during covid. Um, yes, I would never want this ever to happen again. But I was able to take our business and pivot to the point where we could be of service. We decided, you know, let’s use our power for good and not evil, right? Um, and I’ve seen so many people across the country doing the same thing across the world doing the same thing making this um a reason to have joy, the reason to appreciate the things that we have and if we can bless other people with the resources that we have it’s going to come back to you. So someday you know hopefully we’ll come back to us but we have been filled with joy knowing that we’ve had a difference in these restaurants, lives in the health care workers lives and the senior care facilities lives like we would deliver meals at night to ambulance drivers and they’re like what are you doing there?
Like well I know you can’t get out, you’re busy so we wanted to bring you food and they were just so grateful and they put signs up in their in their break rooms and it just brought a sense of love and joy to our community and so thank you for asking. I’m just it has been a real honor to be able to serve in our community. No. In fact I would say in fact if anybody’s curious about that they can text the word flag F. L. A. G. Which is an acronym for front line appreciation group to the same number 714 for one and you can get a link to donate or to join our group on facebook. Okay that sounds great. Alright, we’re down to one minute. So would you let everybody know how yes go to brilliantmobile.com or text the word mary. M. A. R. Y. 271441. And I would love to connect with you either online. In fact I’m on facebook, everything. I’m always as mobile mary. She just look up mobile mary and you’ll find me. Um and I would love to connect there as well and I’m again so thankful for you robert. You are amazing, you’re my idol. I want to be like you when I grow up. Oh thank you. Well thank you so much. It was great to have you on my show and we just running out of time so that’s great that you’re great that you’re doing and I have two restaurants I’m gonna send the link to so they can listen to the show. Thank you so much Robbie and thank you for having me on your show. Thank you. Bye bye now bye Robbie.