How Birdcall turned SMS into their primary engagement channel in 60 days

Birdcall serves chicken sandwiches 7 days a week—even on Sundays.

It's a small detail, but it signals something important about the Denver-based restaurant chain: It’s built for customers who want things their way, on their schedule. Order from a kiosk, customize every topping of all-natural ingredients, pick up your sandwich from a numbered bay when the screen calls your name.

No conversation required if you don't want one.

"It's an introvert's dream," says Kayla Lindberg, Director of Marketing & Communications at Birdcall.

That same customer-first mindset extends to how Birdcall communicates with 163,000 subscribers across 3 states. The company has turned promotional days like National Fried Chicken Day into cult classics by offering exclusive bargains to people who've opted into their messages. You want to know about dollar chicken sandwiches on July 6? Subscribe. Otherwise, you'll find out later and catch the next one.

But social media algorithms bury time-sensitive lunch specials for days. Email inboxes overflow with out-of-office replies during holiday promotions. Radio ads reach people 45 minutes away from their destinations, when stopping for food isn't convenient. Birdcall needed a way to cut through the noise.

As one of the first brands to adopt Intuit Mailchimp's dedicated short code SMS, Birdcall discovered a channel that reaches customers when and where it matters.

The challenge: Algorithms and out-of-office replies

Birdcall's time-sensitive offers were expiring before customers ever saw them.

The company relied heavily on social media to promote lunch specials and dinner rush deals, but platforms like Instagram aren’t built for real-time marketing.

"The algorithm is changing by the minute, so what could work on a native feed might not hit your personal feed for another 2-3 days, so the offer could expire by then," Kayla says.

The company tried radio ads to reach commuters, and the ads generated traffic to landing pages that proved people were listening. But they weren't converting.

Email faced its own challenges. Holiday promotions, which should have been high-traffic periods, generated floods of out-of-office replies instead of customers.

Even brand loyalists using the app tended to opt-out of push notifications.

But when customers order a chicken sandwich at a Birdcall kiosk, they enter the phone number to receive an automated SMS letting them know their meal is ready. These messages had minimal opt-outs. The company saw the potential for reaching customers via text but needed a way to send marketing messages, not just transactional updates.

Managing 163,000 subscribers across Colorado, Arizona, and Texas presented targeting challenges, too. When winter storms hit Texas and Colorado but left Arizona untouched, blanket messaging wouldn’t feel personal. "Telling people in Arizona winter is coming doesn't make any sense. They're having 60-degree weather, they're wearing shorts," Kayla says.

Kayla brought experience from managing communications for 48,000 university students who received 50 emails per day from the institution alone. She knew that frequency mattered, but so does channel selection. "If my inbox is getting flooded with 15 emails about chicken tenders from all these other vendors, how do we break through that a little bit?" Kayla asks.

The answer required a channel where Birdcall's messages would actually get seen and opened when timing mattered most.

The tools: Short code SMS, segmentation, and automation

Birdcall adopted Mailchimp’s dedicated short code SMS in April 2025 and launched their first campaign the following month. That gave Birdcall a direct line to customers that bypassed crowded inboxes and unpredictable social algorithms.

The format matches how customers consume information." I don't know that TikTok brain is the right word, but we all have this short attention span, and it seems like an SMS fits that more than a full email does," Kayla says.

Segmentation and tags solved Birdcall's geographic targeting challenges. The marketing team now segments by state, territory within Colorado, and even down to individual restaurant locations. For example, when a specific location celebrates an anniversary, only customers within driving distance receive the invitation.

"Being able to segment down to the restaurant they frequent most," Kayla says, "we can send them an SMS with an offer that's just tailored to the location near them, rather than sending it to all of Denver, which might not be within a drivable distance for a guest to want to go to."

Marketing automation flows handle localized engagement sequences and SMS triggers, maintaining consistent customer touchpoints without manual intervention. The automation allows Birdcall to follow up with customers right before campaigns end, maximizing the conversion window.

Kayla tracks every campaign in detailed analytics dashboards, monitoring open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe patterns. Whenever Birdcall sent an offer via SMS, email engagement increased, too. When SMS messages didn't include offers, the team received texts back saying they were only interested in receiving information about special promotions.

The results: SMS became the primary engagement driver in 2 months

Birdcall achieved a 16.1% average SMS click rate, roughly 10 times higher than the email click through they were seeing (1.5%). Their National Fried Chicken Day campaign in July 2025 peaked at 17.4% with time-sensitive, high-value offers delivered via SMS connecting ways other channels couldn't.

"The SMS has really been able to pinpoint and target in a timely manner," Kayla says. "It really helps to catch them and drive ‘butts in seats’ when it matters most."

Since launching in May 2025, Birdcall has generated 109,582 total clicks through SMS campaigns. That volume of digital traffic translates to customers more often walking into restaurants during lunch and dinner rushes.

"While they might not directly correlate to dollars in the bank, it does correlate to [more customers]," Kayla says. "If it's someone's first time in Birdcall and they opt in to receive marketing, they can be on the next campaign."

By July 2025, SMS accounted for 50% of Birdcall's total digital engagement. The channel moved from experiment to staple in 2 months, shifting how the company thinks about customer communication.

When Birdcall launched SMS, email open rates dropped by about 2 percentage points, but SMS engagement more than compensated for the shift. Kayla noticed customers were choosing their preferred channel rather than abandoning the brand entirely. She also saw higher unsubscribe rates on email than SMS, suggesting customers find SMS less intrusive despite higher send frequency.

Birdcall maintained a 1.1% unsubscribe rate across SMS campaigns, a healthy average given their offer-heavy approach. Kayla credits intentionality and channel discipline for keeping the audience engaged.

The success has validated Birdcall's SMS approach. National Fried Chicken Day and National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day remain digital-only promotions with no in-store signage, creating exclusive experiences for subscribers.

"If you don't know about it, you don't know about it," Kayla says. "Find out about it and join us for it later in the year."