What did Pokitomik get from text-message marketing across 14 locations?

Pokitomik is a quick-service chain that mixes Japanese, Hawaiian and Mexican food. In January 2025, its texting vendor put its size at 14 locations in Southern California. The vendor is iVision Mobile, a text marketing company in Los Angeles. It described the chain’s results in a press release.

The design is plain on purpose. The kiosk sits where every guest already stops to pay. A birthday on file gives each store a reason to send a personal offer. Location-specific specials let one store push its own slow day without changing the others.

Arthur Arushunyan is named in the release as the owner of the Pokitomik franchise. He called texting and digital loyalty “our number one revenue driver for the overall cost.” He also said Tuesday used to be a slow day. The chain added the texting software in 2021. Since then, he said, Tuesday has become “one of our busiest days of the week.”

Those are large claims for a chain of 14 locations. They come from the company that sells the texting service. The release ran on PR Newswire. A newspaper, the Blue Mountain Eagle, reprinted it. The reprint carries the byline “By iVision Mobile,” not a reporter’s name.

A vendor release is marketing for the vendor. That does not make it false. It does mean each number needs a second look before you build a plan on it.

The biggest gap is attribution. A guest who redeems a texted coupon may have come in anyway. Counting that whole sale as text revenue makes the program look bigger than it is. The member growth has the same problem. A club can grow fast while its members stop coming back.

Spread the claim across the stores to see its real size. Pokitomik’s franchising page gives an average unit volume of $1.1MM per store, which is a typical store’s yearly sales.

Text revenue of about $690 a week per store is believable. It is a modest share of sales, not a new business. It also squares with the owner’s return claim. Say the return means revenue divided by cost. Then the program cost about $29,400 for the year. That works out to about $175 per store each month.

iVision Mobile publishes its prices. Its pricing page starts at $59 a month, and every plan includes its loyalty kiosk software. Setup is a one-time $99. Carrier registration adds a one-time $15 fee and a small monthly charge. The plan you need depends on how many texts you send.

Carriers also charge per message. Another vendor, SimpleTexting, puts that at about $0.0025 per message in the United States. At 48,000 texts, that adds about $120 a month. Prices change, so get a written quote before you sign.

Carriers expect a business to get permission first. CTIA, the wireless industry’s trade group, sets out the principles in a guide from May 2023. For promotional texts, it says “the Consumer should agree in writing to receive promotional texts.” It lists signing up at the point of sale as one way to opt in.

Any texting vendor will ask about these steps during setup. They are carrier expectations, not legal advice. A franchisee should ask whether the brand already runs a text club. Your franchisor may need to approve a local one before it starts.

Pokitomik picked one slow day and gave it one steady offer. Every Tuesday, members got a coupon for 10% off. A steady offer teaches the pattern. A member who skips one week still knows the deal comes back.

A discount gives up margin on every order it touches. It pays only when it brings orders that would not have come. If your Tuesday guests are already regulars, the coupon may just cut their price. The loyalty program guide covers how points and offers work together.

Test the idea on your own list before you scale it. The cleanest test holds back a small, random part of the list. Those members get no offer for a few weeks. Everyone else gets the usual text.

Count visits, not just redemptions. A redemption shows a guest used the code. A higher visit rate shows the text changed what guests did. Then bring the held-back members back onto the list. The guide on telling whether food influencers brought you customers applies the same test to creator videos.

A chain with a few stores can start small. Begin at one store with a kiosk or a sign-up code at the register. Pick one offer and one day. Choose a month-to-month plan you can drop if it does not work.

Budget it like any other marketing line. The guide on how much of sales to spend on marketing helps set the ceiling. Get your franchisor’s yes before a discount goes out under the brand’s name.

A text club only reaches guests who already walked in. A new or slow store needs new faces first. CreatoRain, which publishes this analysis, books creators from its food-creator network to bring them. Its team briefs each creator, pays them and checks that each video goes live. The price is $300 a video, and the creator’s pay comes out of it.