The company is rolling out and testing performance mobile marketing across its various brands. To start, 241 Pizza customers are being offered $5 off their purchase of $25 or more and Eggsmart customers are being offered $2 off any lunch entrée.

“Mobile is now one of the primary ways to connect with consumers and deliver compelling content like discount coupons,” said Walter Kostiuk, CEO at MobileBits, Toronto, Canada. “Done correctly, mobile marketing done provides a significantly higher ROI and performance than traditional print media advertising.

“The challenge most businesses face today, if they desire their brand visible on the mobile channel, is how to engage mobile consumers,” he said.

“The SAMY is a ‘Mobile Mall’ is a out-of-the- box, ready to deploy mobile solution that enables Chairman’s Brands and their franchisees – 241 Pizza, Eggsmart, Coffee Time, New Orleans Pizza and Robin’s Donuts – to create, publish connect and engage with mobile consumers  on their smartphones.”

Mobile mall
Chairman’s Brands is teaming up with MobileBits’ Samy mobile application to reach consumers with offers and deals.

The Samy app enables users to receive the latest deals from their favorite stores, synchronize all of their loyalty programs in one place on their phone and earn loyalty points.

Users download the app and choose their favorite stores and restaurants from a list of participating merchants including McDonald’s to begin receiving instant alerts regarding offers, deals and promotions that can be redeemed in-store by showing their phone.

Users can also share deals with friends on Facebook, Twitter or by email.

On the merchant side, Samy is an out-of-the-box mobile marketing and engagement network that can be used to connect with consumers via coupons, discount offers, rewards and loyalty programs.  All the deals, offers and messages are organized by campaigns.

Test and learn
With mobile becoming a part of its customers’ everyday lives and behavior, Chairman’s Brands recognized the need to find a way to engage new and existing customers through their mobile devices.

Recent research shows that 61 percent, or 13.4 million Canadians, own smartphones and 74 percent say they what to stay connected to brands that send them coupons for discounted or free products.

The company will closely monitor the results of the program to better understand how to best leverage mobile to enhance customer engagements and stay connected to customers on the go.

“Mobile marketing and consumer engagement plays an enormous roll in any retail business today,” Mr. Kostiuk said.

“As mobile smartphones from manufacturers like Blackberry, Apple and Google – Android-based devices – continue to find themselves into the hands of consumer, retailers desire to connect with them providing a compelling opportunity to market products and services to a captive audience which drives enormous performance defined by product redemptions for each SAMY merchant partner,” he said.

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