Pizza chain Papa Murphy’s is stepping up efforts to integrate mobile with in-store promotions via more personalized text alerts and incentivized calls to action at more than 1,400 locations.

The chain has partnered with cloud mobile messaging platform Waterfall to optimize mobile campaigns at both the national and franchise levels with the goal of driving in-store sales and Web traffic.  The chain will take advantage of Waterfall’s database platform capabilities to create smarter mobile messaging campaigns that are more sophisticated, consistent and personalized.

“The reason that we like mobile messaging so much is that it is really a way to speak with our customers in real time, in a personal way right on their handsets,” said Cynthia Hofmann, vice president of Papa Murphy’s, Vancouver, WA. “We find when we can get on their handsets, we can get their attention and really use it to drive traffic.”

Papa Murphy’s Holdings Inc. operates more than 1,400 franchised and corporate-owned fresh pizza stores in 38 states, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.

One-to-one match
Since January, Papa Murphy’s has been working with Waterfall – whose other clients include 7-Eleven, Neiman Marcus and Starbucks – to enhance its messaging strategy, with tests of a more personalized approach taking place on a store-by-store basis.

Internally, the chain is still developing its customer database and the ability to have a one-to-one match.

The goal is to reach the point where customers who only ever purchase vegetarian pizzas do not get offers for meat pizzas. Or, for customers who typically only shop on the weekends, to send them an offer to incentivize them to come in on a weeknight.

“We’re looking to do precision marketing to make sure that the offers we have out there make sense for the individual in that market,” Ms. Hofmann said.

“With the Waterfall platform, we can track who has been responsive and really try different things to increase average order size, increase number of occasions, change the occasion or an offer to what makes more sense for the customer based on their behavior,” she said.

Ms. Hofmann reports that the chain’s volume of mobile messaging has been conservative to date. However, she expects these numbers to increase as the more personalized approach gets into full swing.

Short-term offers
Papa Murphy’s has been engaged in mobile messaging for several years, with the strategy proving itself as a key revenue driver. The company delivers national campaigns while franchisees handle more localized messaging.

For example, at the national level, Papa Murphy’s recently sent out a St. Patrick’s Day campaign working with Funmobility and Waterfall that leveraged a spin wheel to provide multiple offers.

The chain reports it was able to quickly execute the campaign on a national level, helping to deliver double-digit engagement levels.

On a local level, the franchisee in Louisville, KY, took advantage of the excitement surrounding March Madness, to deliver a promotion.

The campaigns tend to focus on short-term offers that are redeemable within 24 hours.

Customers can sign up to receive text messages from Papa Murphy’s through a variety of means, including national keywords and local key words that appear on in-store signage and print coupons.

“We are on the path to one-to-one, but already we are getting smarter by leveraging the data that Waterfall enables us to store in our platform,” Ms. Hofmann said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York