Regional restaurant chain la Madeleine claims mobile app boosted takeout business

By Dan Butcher

Exit41 powers la Madeleine's mobile ordering

Texas-based restaurant chain la Madeleine claims that its overall takeout business has increased 6 percent, driven by opening up new customer touch points for placing orders across online, social media, a call center and mobile.

Partnering with Exit41 for online and mobile ordering, la Madeleine’s iPhone app went live in Apple’s iTunes App Store in October. To date, the average check for food ordered via mobile is right around the same as online – about $24, which is a significant increase from the in-store average check, and also higher than the average order via the call center.

“We have not yet made any grand promotions of the iPhone app, but we still have more than 1,000 downloads of the app in the App Store,” said Richard Hodges, senior director of technology at la Madeleine, Dallas. “One part of the strategy we call off-premise ordering, including online ordering, our call center and mobile ordering, and eventually social media.

“We have a catering and delivery business at some locations, and we’re looking at how a call center and mobile could augment our sales,” he said. “Our marketing team’s biggest push will be in the restaurant, with door signs, stand-alone point-of-purchase signage and a broadcast via our eclubs—each restaurant has one.

“When we describe la Madeleine’s target demographic, we call her Amanda, and she is much more likely to make her smartphone choice an iPhone.”

La Madeleine is a French countryside-flavored restaurant offering items such as Caesar salads, tomato basil soup, sandwiches, fresh bread and pastries. It has restaurants in seven markets, including Texas, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC, with a total of 61 stores nationwide.

Local restaurants going mobile
Mr. Hodges said that Amanda’s average household income ranges from $75,000 to $150,000 per year.

Amanda is 25-55, female, affluent, discriminating, does probably have a smartphone, is social-media-connected, is familiar with the online experience and expects great customer service.

“Our off-premise ordering strategy lines up very well with this target demographic, who is online, using their smartphones and active in social-media connection points,” Mr. Hodges said. “All of this is designed to make Amanda’s life easier.

“For our iPhone app, it has to be easy to use and intuitive—it is pretty simple to read, with big font,” he said.

Mmmmm…mobile menu

Customers can pay via credit card online or within the app, or they can pay when they pickup the order.

In-app ordering

Exit41 provides an additional access point for Amanda to order from la Madeleine in an easy and convenient way, per Mr. Hodges.

Amanda can use the app to get directions to the closest restaurant

With the implementation of online ordering, the call center and the iPhone app, all off-premise ordering channels have increased revenues, per la Madeleine.

For example, at one of la Madeleine’s Houston locations, online made up 8 percent of total orders. However, now that the app has launched, online and mobile comprise 20 percent of all orders.

“We have absolutely seen a big increase in orders since we have introduced these products,” Mr. Hodges said. “If you can get them on the phone, their check average is much larger, and the online and mobile ordering is even higher than the call center.

“The iPhone is still a very small portion of our overall sales, as we still haven’t promoted it very much,” he said. “But we expect mobile ordering to grow going forward.”

Dan Butcher is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily and Mobile Marketer. Reach him at dan@mobilemarketer.com.

Regional restaurant chain la Madeleine claims mobile app boosted takeout business - Mobile Marketer - Applications

Implicit Social Graphs Rise From Interest Not Location

Color Launch Generates New Round of Social Graph Discussion

Rob Diana | March 25, 2011 @ 10:49am

There has been a ton of conversation about social graphs, location and photo sharing lately. Most of this conversation has arisen due to the release of the photo-sharing application Color. The photo-sharing part of the discussion is only a gateway to the larger discussion of social graphs. I have been looking at the basic location-based applications a lot as well. Facebook Places, Google Places, and Foursquare are all fighting for the location crown. Granted, location-based applications are becoming very popular, but they were quickly outpaced by the group discount services like Groupon and Living Social. There is a very good reason for this as well. Location alone does not denote interest or intent. This is also why implicit social graphs are so important, they are based on interest or intent. Group discount services have a location aspect, but they are driven by interest and intent. All of the people involved in buying a discount have interest in what they are purchasing.

This is also why Color’s launch was received with such mixed reviews. They are trying to use location as the implicit social graph, but there is no real interest. Even if there are several people at the same location, the location may denote different purposes. As an example, if I am at a restaurant I probably do not want the interruption that would come with a location based graph. However, if I am visiting a tourist attraction I may welcome the location-based interaction, mainly because there is implicit interest in the location.

Fred Wilson has a very good description of how he was introduced to implicit graphs:

My first experience with this sort of implicit social graph came almost six years ago via my musical neighbors graph at last.fm. I don’t think I actually know any of these people in real life, but they are the last.fm users who have the closest taste to mine in music, right now. That right now is important because my musical neighbors graph looked differently last year and will look differently next year.

Obviously, people’s musical tastes change over the years, so a static graph is not entirely useful. The “musical neighbors” concept and Pandora’s music genome concept allow for discovery because they are using similar interests to create the implicit graph. A person’s friends may not have the same musical tastes and thus would actually clutter the listening experience with music the listener is not interested in.

In addition to the creation of implicit graphs, sometimes there needs to be a conversion from the implicit to the explicit graph. Colin Walker talks about this in reference to sporting events and other interest-based interactions:

Repeated interactions within implicit graphs can lead to a bleed from the implicit to explicit – once you get to know them some of those from implicit graph become ‘friends’ and, after a while, can be invited over in to the explicit graph.

This bleeding complicates the structures of explicit graphs because these new “friends” are not initially the same type of friends as those people you have known for years. Then there are some people in your explicit social graphs that you lose contact with. Even though they could have been friends previously, differing interests and the effects of time can change their relationship to you. This is where the concepts behind Color become interesting. Obviously, there needs to be some flexibility or “elasticity” in your social graphs, regardless of whether the graph is explicit or implicit. Color CEO Bill Nguyen had an interesting comment about this in a ReadWriteWeb article:

In the world of Facebook, once someone is your friend, they’re your friend until you return and re-evaluate that relationship, regardless of whether or not you’ve ever spoken to them again. In reality, the relationship could have fizzled long ago, yet it’s still a bond as good as any. With Color’s “elastic” social graph, these ties can fade and disappear. Color’s ability to accurately determine location and user proximity is what makes this sort of social graph – an implied, impermanent and elastic social graph – even possible.

As I previously stated, I do not agree with the importance of location in this quote, but the general concept is important. Location and time can both be an attribute of the implicit social graph, as can be seen with the SXSW conference. Just because you are in Austin does not mean that you share the social graph with a bunch of people. However, if you happen to be near specific locations in Austin during the same time as the SXSW conference and you have previously shown interest in web and technology startups, then you would be part of the same implicit social graph. Without the interest part of the equation, you could become part of the implicit graph purely by coincidence, maybe you work or live in Austin.

Om Malik has an excellent post this morning that really hits the same points, but talks about them differently. He mentions “happiness” and “utility”:

One of the reasons Instagr.am works is because it has that “happiness” attached to it. When I see my friend’s baby boy, it brings me joy. I see Mathew Ingram at an ice hockey game; it makes me warms my heart to see him enjoying time with his family. I reward Instagr.am with my attention because it makes me happy. That is its utility.

His examples and Fred Wilson’s examples are excellent reasons why some social applications really work well and others don’t get traction.  Implicit social graphs are really driven by interests where time and location can be attributes of that interest but they are not the primary definition of that interest.

Coupons, SMS to be most used form of mobile marketing by 2015: study

By Giselle Tsirulnik

November 10, 2010


New York Yankees’ YES Network SMS alerts are powered by 4Info
A new study reveals that coupons and SMS will become the most widely accepted forms of mobile marketing and advertising by 2015.

The study was conducted by mobileSquared on behalf of Airwide Solutions. Sixty-one percent of wireless carriers surveyed thought that coupons or vouchers would become the dominant form of mobile marketing by 2015.

“For years we heard that SMS will be eclipsed by all else,” said Jay Seaton, chief marketing officer of Airwide Solutions, Burlington, MA. “SMS is a tremendous opportunity: It is ubiquitous and works on all devices and consumers know how to use it.


“All the issues of interconnectivity have long been resolved and SMS generates a lot of revenues for operators,” he said. “There are no quality issues and consumers have a high degree of trust that the channel is secure.

“SMS will be and is incorporated into various applications and will continue to be an integral part of marketing strategies.”


Nobody does it like Sara Lee
SMS/MMS
Of the wireless carriers surveyed, 58 percent predicted that SMS and MMS-based messaging would be the second most widely accepted form of mobile advertising in the next five years, followed by search with 45 percent.

The close link between coupons and messaging, with SMS acting as a core distribution channel in the majority of cases, it is understandable why both categories attracted a similarly high response from the carriers surveyed.

The study reveals that users in 2015 are thought to be more likely to use mobile marketing or advertising promotions that are sent to them via their mobile phones than those generated through search, display or navigation.


Sybase 365's SMS-based geo-location services
Opt-ins
British mobile subscribers currently send more than 11 million SMS messages per hour, totalling an approximate 7.7 billion monthly. These stats show that clear potential exists for carriers to capitalize on the 15.4 billion engagements between consumers and the SMS medium that are generated each month.

As things stand, subscribers have to opt-in to SMS mobile advertising. However, as significant mobile marketing and advertising activity is expected in the future, the opt-out option will also become an important component in the 2015 mobile user’s experience.

“In terms of opting out, it is a comfort zone for the consumer,” said Nick Lane, chief strategy analyst of mobileSquared, London. “Once the content is contextualized, ideally opt-out will become redundant.”

According to the mobileSquared survey, 54 percent of carriers thought that an opt-out service would be more important to them than opt-in in 2015, compared to 39 percent in 2010.

The majority of carriers (53 percent) also believe that the customer should control and update their user profile in 2015, rather than the carrier (7 percent) or a combination of both (40 percent).

Industries to benefit
The mobileSquared study points out SMS is ideal for mobile coupons.

Mostly restaurants and retailers use SMS coupons to drive foot traffic to locations.

But other industries can benefit as well.

“I think any sector can benefit,” Mr. Lane said. “Research revealed that all messages are opened within a few minutes of receiving them.

“For anyone who wants to reach out to a database, SMS becomes incredibly powerful,” he said.

Final take
Giselle Tsirulnik is senior editor of Mobile Marketer



Senior Editor Giselle Tsirulnik covers advertising, messaging, legal/privacy and database/CRM. Reach her at giselle@mobilemarketer.com.