Domino’s is expanding its text marketing program with the addition of ordering capabilities, making SMS the latest in a growing list of new ordering platforms that are driving incremental sales for the chain.

The introduction of text ordering follows other mobile innovations such as Domino’s recent launch of ordering capabilities via tweets and the introduction of voice ordering last year. These initiatives are part of Domino’s AnyWare strategy to enable ordering across a range of popular devices, including cars, smart TV and smartwatches.

“For several years, we’ve had a text marketing program that provides hot deals and news to customers,” said Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications at Domino’s.

“When exploring the Domino’s AnyWare concept, we identified several opportunities to expand ordering capabilities to new platforms, including text ordering, and began working on those ideas concurrently,” he said.

“The order of launch was determined by several variables, including the complexity of the integration, the number of partners involved and potential gain to the business.”

Mobile reach
To order a pizza via text, customers must first opt-in to receive texts from the chain and add their mobile phone number to their existing Pizza Profile on dominos.com. Once this has been done, users can re-order by texting a pizza emoji or “Easy Order” to DPIZZA.

The new service went live on June 15.

Text is an important platform for marketers as it enables them to reach a large group of mobile users on smartphones and feature phones.

Domino’s underscores the reach of SMS in its announcement of text ordering, pointing to the estimated 8 million texts that are sent every year worldwide.

Domino’s also enables customers to place orders via Samsung Smart TV, smartwatch apps for Pebble and Android Wear and the Ford Sync AppLink system.

Digital sales
Just last month, Domino’s gave customers the ability to order a pizza in seconds using an emoji on Twitter. The move encompasses several key trends, including how important digital ordering has become for restaurants, the growing interest in leveraging social media – where consumers are spending much of their time on mobile – to enable purchasing and the use of hashtags and emojis to streamline engagements for mobile users (see story).

The company’s multi-platform approach has helped it shift a significant percentage of sales to digital, with mobile a key driver.

“Any time we’ve added a new platform – smart watches, smart TVs, voice apps, etc. – we’ve seen incremental growth,” Mr. McIntyre said. “Today, 50 percent of our sales come from digital platforms, with 25 percent of sales coming from mobile devices.

“Our objective is to provide an ordering platform on what devices our customers are using as their favorites,” he said. “We have a heritage founded in convenience, and we want ordering from us to be as convenient as possible.

“Once you’ve got a Pizza Profile set up with us, what could be more convenient than simply texting an emoji to us?”

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