Punch licensee launches marketing service
Maurice Toal, who runs two Punch pubs and three others through his Gusto Pub Company business, has set up Call2U, a cut-price marketing scheme for pubs that allows them to send out personalized SMS messages to 800 customers a month.
He has been attending Punch Roadshow events to show licensees how they can take advantage of the service. A total of around 50 Punch pubs are about to start using the service.
Punch business relationship manager Richard Pask, is to trial the scheme at a pub on his patch, The Starting Gate in Speen, Newbury, in the New Year.
Pubs pay a one-off fee of £80 plus VAT for which they receive data capture cards, pens, posters and display units. Then, for £15-a-week, the company will send 400 personalised texts twice a month to customers - extra texts are charged at £5 per 100.
One Punch licensee who has already tried the service is Tom Stopani, at the Chough, Salisbury. He said: “We used the Call2U text campaign for the first time last weekend. It went to around 80 of my customers advertising a live band. I couldn’t believe how busy it was - our best Friday in a very long time.”
Toal added: “This is cheap and effective - we do all the work for licensees and it’s proven to grow sales. If pubs send us ten filled-in data capture cards a week, they soon build up an impressive database. Every time I’ve done this in my pubs we’ve had a serious uplift in trade.”
Gusto Pub Company was set up in 2006 - Toal was previously a regional director for Spirit running the Two-for-One brand as well as stints working for Yates’s and Whitbread. Visit www.call2u.co.uk for more details.
