By Giselle Tsirulnik

Mobile HomeStore

Ashley Furniture HomeStores generated $138,460 from a recent four-day “Secret Sale” advertised through an SMS and email campaign.

A whopping $85,438 was attributed to text messages. To quickly build its database, Ashley Furniture ran contests such as a free gas giveaway and a $500 weekly shopping spree, both encouraging users to opt into an SMS database for future offers.

“A few months ago, the corporate marketing folks began telling us about text message marketing and sharing some success stories,” said Charlie Malouf, co-owner and chief operating officer of Ashley Furniture of Charlotte, NC.

“At first I was pretty skeptical, because I thought text message marketing in the way that it was described to be was just annoying spam,” he said. “I did not realize it was all permission-based. That’s when my interest increased in this medium.

“I am still surprised that the text message marketing efforts performed so much better than the email marketing offer we had.”