How to leverage SMS marketing best practices to increase return visits

Welcome to the Purple technical briefing series. I'm going to walk you through something that, frankly, a lot of venue operators are leaving money on the table with: SMS marketing. Not the spray-and-pray bulk text approach from ten years ago. The structured, consent-first, data-driven kind that actually brings guests back through your doors. Let me set the scene. You run a hotel, a retail chain, a stadium, or a conference centre. Every day, hundreds or thousands of people connect to your Guest WiFi. They hand you their phone number at login. And then... nothing happens. That number sits in a database, unloved, uncontacted, doing precisely zero work for your business. That is the gap we're going to close today. So, why SMS? Here are the numbers. SMS messages have a 98% open rate, compared to around 20% for email. 90% of those messages are read within three minutes of delivery. The average response rate is 45%, versus 6% for email. And for every pound spent on SMS marketing, businesses typically see returns of between 21 and 71 pounds, depending on vertical and campaign quality. Those figures come from Falkon SMS, Emarsys, and the Salesforce State of Marketing report. SMS is not a replacement for email. It is a different channel entirely. Email is for long-form content, newsletters, detailed offers. SMS is for immediacy. A flash sale. A reminder that a guest's favourite table is available. A post-visit thank-you with a loyalty code. The channel works because it lands on a device the recipient checks dozens of times a day, and it bypasses the inbox clutter that kills email open rates. Now, let's get into the architecture. Because this is where most venues get it wrong. The foundation of any effective SMS programme is verified, consented first-party data. Not scraped numbers. Not purchased lists. Phone numbers that guests gave you directly, with explicit consent to receive marketing messages. The best mechanism for capturing that data at scale is your Guest WiFi captive portal. When a guest connects to your network, they land on a branded splash page. That page asks for their name, email, and mobile number. Critically, it includes a clearly labelled, unticked checkbox: 'I agree to receive SMS marketing messages from [venue name].' The guest ticks it. You capture a verified, consented number. Purple Engage stores that number, timestamps the consent, and makes it available for automated campaign triggers. This matters enormously from a compliance standpoint. Under GDPR in the UK and EU, you need a lawful basis for processing personal data. For marketing SMS, that basis is consent - and it must be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous. Under the UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, known as PECR, you need prior consent before sending marketing texts. The ICO is not shy about enforcement. A pre-ticked box, or bundling SMS consent into your terms and conditions, does not meet the standard. In the US, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, requires express written consent before sending automated marketing texts. The CTIA, the industry body, publishes additional best practice guidelines. Non-compliance carries fines of up to 1,500 dollars per message. That adds up fast at venue scale. The practical upshot: build your opt-in flow correctly from day one. Separate SMS consent from WiFi access consent. Make it a conscious choice. That produces a smaller but far more engaged list - and that is the list that converts. Let's talk segmentation. Because sending the same message to every number on your list is a waste of everyone's time. Purple's analytics layer captures behavioural data at WiFi login: visit frequency, dwell time, time of day, day of week, device type, and location within a multi-zone venue. That data lets you segment your SMS audience meaningfully. A guest who visits your hotel bar every Friday evening is a different audience from a conference delegate who visited once in March. The Friday regular gets an offer for your weekend cocktail menu. The conference delegate gets a re-engagement message about your meeting room packages. Segmented SMS campaigns achieve an 83% higher engagement rate than non-segmented ones, according to Falkon SMS data. That single change - moving from broadcast to segmented - is the highest-leverage improvement most venues can make. Timing matters too. Industry best practice, and TCPA regulation in the US, prohibits sending promotional texts before 8 AM or after 9 PM in the recipient's local time zone. But within that window, timing is strategic. Mid-morning, around 10 to 11 AM, works well for general announcements. Early afternoon, 2 to 3 PM, suits retail flash sales. Late afternoon, 4 to 6 PM, drives evening hospitality footfall. Test your specific audience and let the data tell you what works. Now, message construction. You have 160 characters per SMS segment. Use them well. Every message needs four things. First, identify yourself immediately - the recipient should know who is texting them before they read the second word. Second, state the offer or action clearly. No preamble. No 'we hope you're having a great day.' Third, include a single call to action with a link. Fourth, include opt-out instructions: 'Text STOP to unsubscribe.' That last one is not optional. It is legally required under PECR and TCPA, and it protects your sender reputation with mobile carriers. Here is an example of a well-constructed message. 'Premier Inn: Your exclusive 20% return visit discount expires Sunday. Book now: [link]. Text STOP to opt out.' That is 97 characters. Clear sender. Specific offer with urgency. Single action. Opt-out included. Done. Compare that to: 'Hi there! We at Premier Inn just wanted to reach out and let you know that we have some amazing offers available for your next stay with us. We really hope you'll come back and visit us soon!' That is 196 characters, split across two messages, with no offer, no link, no urgency, and no opt-out. It will be ignored. Let me walk through two real-world implementation scenarios. First, hospitality. A 150-room hotel deploys Purple Engage on its Cisco Meraki network. Guests connect to the Guest WiFi on arrival, complete the splash page, and tick the SMS consent checkbox. Purple captures the number and tags the guest with a 'hotel stay' segment. On checkout day, an automated message fires: 'Thanks for staying with us. Enjoy 15% off your next direct booking: [link]. Text STOP to opt out.' The hotel sees a 22% click-through rate on that message and a 9% direct booking conversion from the SMS cohort - guests who would otherwise have booked through an OTA at a 15 to 20% commission cost. The net revenue improvement more than covers the cost of the SMS programme. Second, retail. A fashion retailer with 40 stores across the UK uses Purple on HPE Aruba hardware. Shoppers who connect to in-store WiFi and opt in to SMS receive a post-visit message 24 hours later: 'You browsed our new autumn collection yesterday. It's selling fast. Shop now: [link]. Text STOP to opt out.' The retailer segments by store location and visit recency. Return visit rate for the SMS cohort is 31% higher than the control group over a 90-day period. Average basket value for SMS-attributed visits is 18% above the store average. Right, let's cover the pitfalls. Because there are a few ways to get this wrong. The first is frequency. 23% of consumers say they would stop supporting a brand that sends too many marketing messages, according to SAP Engagement Cloud research. For most venue types, one to two SMS messages per month per subscriber is the right cadence. More than that and you will see opt-out rates climb. Watch your unsubscribe rate as a leading indicator. If it exceeds 2%, reduce frequency or improve relevance. The second pitfall is poor data hygiene. Phone numbers go stale. People change numbers. Sending to dead numbers increases your bounce rate and damages your sender reputation with carriers. Scrub your list quarterly. Remove any number that has not engaged with three consecutive messages. The third is ignoring carrier registration requirements. In the US, the 10DLC system - that stands for 10-digit long code - requires businesses to register their brand and campaigns with The Campaign Registry before sending A2P, or application-to-person, messages at scale. Unregistered traffic gets filtered or blocked. In the UK, registering your Sender ID with the SMS SenderID Protection Registry reduces the risk of your brand name being spoofed in smishing attacks. Both are administrative steps that take days, not weeks, but they are easy to overlook. The fourth pitfall is treating SMS as a standalone channel. Brands that integrate SMS into their omnichannel strategy see a 47.7% lift in customer engagement, according to Omnisend. Your SMS programme should connect to your email flows, your loyalty programme, and your CRM. A guest who does not open your SMS should receive a follow-up email. A guest who clicks your SMS link but does not convert should enter a retargeting sequence. Purple Engage integrates with major CRM platforms to make those connections automatic. Let's do a quick rapid-fire on the questions I get asked most often. 'Can I use SMS for transactional messages without consent?' Yes, for genuinely transactional messages - booking confirmations, check-in reminders, order updates - you typically do not need marketing consent. But the moment a message includes a promotional element, you need explicit opt-in. 'What is the difference between a short code and a long code?' A short code is a five or six digit number used for high-volume sending. A long code is a standard ten-digit number. Short codes have higher throughput and better deliverability for mass campaigns. Long codes are better for two-way conversational messaging. Most venue operators start with a long code and move to a short code as volume grows. 'How do I measure ROI?' Track four metrics: opt-in rate from your WiFi login flow, click-through rate per campaign, conversion rate from click to visit or purchase, and revenue per SMS sent. Purple's analytics dashboard surfaces all four. A well-run programme should generate between 10 and 20 times its cost in attributed revenue within six months. 'What about double opt-in?' Double opt-in - where you send a confirmation text and the subscriber must reply YES to activate - produces a smaller but more engaged list. It also provides stronger evidence of consent in the event of a regulatory challenge. For venues operating in regulated sectors or handling sensitive data, double opt-in is worth the friction. To wrap up. The core principle is simple: your Guest WiFi is already capturing foot traffic. Purple Engage turns that foot traffic into a verified, consented SMS list. That list, managed with proper segmentation, timing, and message discipline, drives measurable return visits and incremental revenue. The three things to do this week: first, audit your current WiFi login flow and confirm that SMS consent is captured separately, explicitly, and in line with GDPR and PECR. Second, segment your existing contact list by visit recency and frequency, and build one targeted campaign for your highest-value segment. Third, set up automated post-visit messages to fire 24 to 48 hours after a guest's WiFi session ends. If you want to see how Purple Engage handles this end to end, the guide linked below walks through the full technical architecture and implementation steps. And if you want to talk through your specific venue setup, our team is at purple.ai. Thanks for listening. See you next time.