Punch licensee launches marketing service

14-Dec-2011 - Last updated on 14-Dec-2011 at 11:56 GMT

A Punch Taverns multiple operator has launched a bargain marketing scheme that is helping to fill other Punch pubs with customers.

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.