How to leverage software for SMS marketing to increase return visits

Welcome to the Purple technical briefing series. Today we are talking about software for SMS marketing - specifically, how venue operators can use it to drive measurable increases in return visits. Whether you run a hotel chain, a retail portfolio, a stadium, or a conference centre, the principles here apply directly to your operation. Let us get into it. First, some context. Physical venues have a data problem. Millions of guests walk through your doors every year, and most of them leave as strangers. You know they visited. You might know roughly when. But you have no verified way to reach them afterwards. That is a significant commercial gap. Software for SMS marketing closes that gap - but only if you have the right data infrastructure underneath it. That infrastructure starts at the WiFi login. Here is how it works. When a guest connects to your Guest WiFi through Purple's captive portal, they authenticate using their phone number. Purple sends a one-time passcode via SMS to verify the number is real. The guest enters the code, connects, and has opted in to receive future communications from your venue. That single interaction gives you a verified, consent-compliant phone number tied to a specific visit, a specific location, and a specific timestamp. That is first-party data. And it is the foundation of every effective SMS marketing campaign. Now, why SMS rather than email? The numbers are stark. SMS open rates sit at 98%, compared to 20 to 28% for email. Ninety percent of messages are read within three minutes of delivery. Click-through rates for triggered SMS campaigns reach 36%, versus roughly 3.5% for email. And the return on investment figures are extraordinary. Industry data places average SMS marketing returns at between 21 and 71 dollars for every dollar spent. These are not marginal improvements. They are a different category of channel performance. But here is what separates the venues that see those returns from the ones that do not: segmentation and timing. A generic broadcast SMS to your entire database will underperform every time. The campaigns that drive return visits are triggered, personalised, and timed to the guest's actual behaviour. Let me walk you through the three campaign types that consistently move the needle on return visits. The first is the post-visit follow-up. A guest connects to your WiFi, spends time in your venue, and leaves. Twenty-four to 48 hours later, they receive a personalised SMS. Something like: Thanks for visiting us yesterday. Here is 15% off your next visit, valid for the next 30 days. This message is relevant because it references a real, recent interaction. It is timely because the guest's experience is still fresh. And it creates a specific, time-bounded reason to return. Purple's platform data shows this campaign type drives a 24% average increase in return visits across our 80,000-plus live venues. The second is lapsed visitor re-engagement. Purple's WiFi Analytics tracks visit frequency per individual. When a guest who previously visited weekly has not appeared for 45 days, that is a signal. An automated SMS fires: We have not seen you in a while. Come back this week and enjoy a complimentary upgrade. You are not guessing who to target. You are using actual visit behaviour data to identify guests at risk of churning, and intervening before they are gone for good. The third campaign type is event and promotion-based. A hotel running a spa weekend promotion can segment its SMS list by guests who have previously used the spa. A stadium can target fans who attended last season but have not renewed. A retail chain can push a flash sale to shoppers who visited a specific location in the last 90 days. The segmentation logic sits inside Purple Engage, which integrates with over 400 CRM and marketing connectors. You define the audience once, and the platform automates the sends. Now, let us talk about the architecture in more detail. Purple operates as a cloud overlay on your existing WiFi hardware. We are hardware-agnostic, which means the platform works across Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba, Ruckus, Juniper Mist, Ubiquiti UniFi, Cambium, Extreme, and Fortinet. You do not need to rip and replace your network infrastructure. Purple sits on top, captures the guest data at login, and feeds it into the Engage marketing engine. The captive portal is where phone number capture happens. When a guest selects SMS authentication, they enter their mobile number. Purple's gateway sends a verification OTP - a one-time passcode. The guest enters the code to connect. This OTP step does two things simultaneously: it verifies the number is real and active, and it creates a documented consent record. That consent record is what makes subsequent SMS marketing legally compliant under GDPR and PECR - the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations that govern SMS marketing in the UK and EU. Speaking of compliance - this is where a lot of venues trip up. GDPR and PECR require explicit, specific, freely given consent for SMS marketing. The consent must be separate from the WiFi access itself. You cannot make SMS opt-in a condition of connecting. Purple's captive portal handles this correctly by design: the opt-in checkbox is clearly labelled, separate from the connect button, and the consent record is timestamped and stored. Every contact in your SMS list has a documented legal basis. That is a legal requirement under UK GDPR Article 6 and PECR Regulation 22. Let me give you two concrete implementation scenarios. Scenario one: a 250-room hotel. The property runs Purple Engage on an HPE Aruba network. Guests authenticate via SMS OTP at login. Over 12 months, the hotel builds a verified database of 18,000 unique guest phone numbers. They run three automated campaigns: a post-checkout follow-up with a return booking offer, a lapsed guest re-engagement at 60 days, and a seasonal promotion to guests who visited the same period last year. The result: a 31% increase in direct bookings from repeat guests, reducing OTA commission costs by an estimated 140,000 pounds annually. The SMS list became a direct revenue channel. Scenario two: a 12-site retail chain. Each site runs Purple on Cisco Meraki hardware. Shoppers who connect to Guest WiFi and opt in to SMS receive a post-visit message with a personalised offer based on the product category they browsed - inferred from dwell time in specific zones tracked via WiFi Analytics. Lapsed shoppers who have not visited in 30 days receive a re-engagement SMS with a time-limited discount. Across the estate, the chain sees a 19% uplift in repeat visit frequency and a 23% increase in average transaction value among SMS subscribers. Now, the common pitfalls. First: list quality. An SMS list built on unverified numbers is worthless. Purple's OTP verification step eliminates this problem at source. Second: frequency. Sixty-one percent of SMS unsubscribes are caused by too many messages. The rule of thumb is no more than four to six SMS messages per month per contact, with clear relevance to each send. Third: timing. Avoid sending before 9am or after 8pm local time. Midday sends - 11am to 2pm - consistently outperform morning and evening sends. Fourth: missing UTM tracking. Every link in an SMS campaign should carry UTM parameters so you can attribute return visits and revenue back to the specific campaign in your analytics platform. Now for some rapid-fire questions. Can SMS campaigns work without a loyalty programme? Yes. The WiFi login is the opt-in mechanism. You do not need a loyalty app. Does SMS replace email? No. They work best together. Email for longer-form content and pre-arrival communications, SMS for time-sensitive triggers. What is a realistic list growth rate? Venues typically see 15 to 25% of WiFi users opt in to SMS. A venue with 500 daily connections can build a list of 20,000 to 30,000 verified numbers within six months. What hardware do I need? None beyond your existing WiFi infrastructure. Purple is a cloud overlay. To summarise. Software for SMS marketing is the highest-return channel available to physical venues - but only when built on verified, consent-compliant first-party data. Purple Engage captures that data at the WiFi login, automates the campaign triggers, and integrates with your existing CRM stack. The three campaign types that drive return visits are post-visit follow-ups, lapsed visitor re-engagement, and event-based promotions. Compliance under GDPR and PECR is non-negotiable and is handled by design within Purple's captive portal. And the numbers speak for themselves: 98% open rates, a 24% return visit uplift, and return on investment that consistently outperforms every other direct marketing channel. If you want to see how this works in your specific venue environment, speak to a Purple expert. We will map the architecture against your existing hardware and show you projected returns based on your current footfall data. Thanks for listening.