Techniques to Grow Your Restaurant Email List

Marketing research shows that most people prefer email as the method of contact when receiving information about products, services, promotions and company marketing.  This means that growing your email list is one of the primary goals any business owner should have—especially if you are in the restaurant industry.   

So how do you accomplish this momentous task?  It’s easy.  Make customers want to sign up to be on your email marketing list.  Below are some of the “tricks of the trade” to make signing up something that is too good of an offer to refuse.  

1. Make it personalized.  Inform your customers that they will receive special offers that only apply to them on their birthdays, anniversaries, or other important occasions.  Let their experience with your restaurant be a personal one and let this be reiterated through your email campaigns.  
2. Give them a reason to sign up.  Offer 5% off, 10% off, a free menu item, or some other promotional offer in order to convince people to sign up.  Without this—you’re never going to grow your list as well as you could be growing it.
3. Let them know that there will be promotions that are ONLY available to customers who sign up.  This exclusive offer will make most people more than willing to supply you with their email address. 
4. Offer incentives for referring friends. Make sure there is some way to reward referrals.  This is a double reward for many—they’ll earn the sign-up promotion as well as a promotional offer for convincing their friends and family members to do it. 
5. Provide sign-up opportunities everywhere.  This includes on every page of your website and on every social networking portal you use, as well as on every bill you provide them at their table and the credit card receipt you provide them when they leave.  Never miss an opportunity to let customers know the benefits of joining your email list. 

What is the biggest marketing mistake restaurant owners make?

How Your Restaurant can Benefit from Email and Direct Marketing

Restaurant marketing is crucial for any restaurant to grow to its fullest potential, but the sheer variety of marketing methods, tricks, tips and suggestions can leave any conscientious restaurant owner pulling his or her hair in confusion over which is the BEST way to market.  There’s a lot riding on how successfully executed your restaurant’s marketing campaign is, so how you focus your marketing is important.  And according to research, there is no better way to do this than to focus your marketing efforts (and budget) on email and direct mail marketing.  

A recent study conducted by ExactTarget shows that among online consumers in the US, email is still the most preferred way to receive marketing messages, promotional material and permission-based communication.  Out of 1,481 survey participants who answered the question concerning their most preferred method of receiving such messages, 77% of respondents chose email and coming in a distant second was 9%, who chose direct mail such as letter, catalogs, postcards, etc.  After these first two preferences, 5% of respondents chose text messaging (SMS) on a cell phone, 4% of respondents chose Facebook, and 2% of respondents chose the phone. 

The fact that email was preferred wasn’t any different among age groups, either.  While email was more popular among the 35-44 year old and 55-64 year old categories than the 15-17 year old category, all categories still preferred email to any other form of communication of marketing messages.  This means that regardless of your intended demographic, if they are internet users, they are likely to prefer email as their primary method for receiving marketing messages.  

So don’t stress over where your money should be going in marketing.  If you have an email and direct mail marketing campaign, you have covered two of the most preferred methods for marketing your business.  If you haven’t started an email and direct mail marketing campaign—what are you waiting for? Contact us, we can help you!

The 4 Biggest Restaurant Marketing Mistakes You Can Make

Restaurant owners tend to think that once they open a restaurant, all they have to do is provide good food and service and customers will come flocking through their doors.  This might work for some restaurants, but for the vast majority, you need something more than this: effective restaurant marketing.  

Effective restaurant marketing is more than just spreading the word about your business.  Effective restaurant marketing includes creating a marketing strategy that works for you and avoids some of these top mistakes that restaurant owners make when marketing their restaurant:  

Mistake 1:  Not focusing on your restaurant’s brand

There’s more to your restaurant than just a name and logo, and you need to make this clear to your potential customers.  Your restaurant needs a story, a philosophy, and a brand image that helps it to stand apart from the rest.  Is your bread made from scratch?  Do you use locally grown organic produce?  Are you a family-owned business?  Whatever your story is, and whatever your philosophy of food is—make this known through your branding and marketing.  

Mistake 2:  Being a copy-cat

Copying the look and feel of the brand of the restaurant across town isn’t good for your image.  When you do what everyone else is doing, you automatically fail to set yourself apart.  Focus on something unique, catchy, and interesting about what your restaurant provides, and then market that quality to make you stand out from the rest.  

Mistake 3:  Having a poorly-designed website

Your website is the window that potential customers look into to determine if they want to visit your restaurant.  It should be user-friendly and easy to navigate, and should contain your restaurant menu and prices.  Without these basic elements, no amount of fancy flash animation or otherwise distracting elements will make people want to visit. 

Mistake 4:  Failing to build a customer database

Maintaining customer loyalty is crucial in today’s restaurant market and there is no better way to do this than with a restaurant customer database that helps you keep in contact with both old and new customers.  This database can help you acknowledge birthdays, inform your customers about special offers and menu items, and make customers feel like their experience with your restaurant is a personalized one. 

I read a survey that said email was the preferred point of contact most people chose for receiving marketing messages. Is this true?

Reasons Why Email and Direct Marketing (and not Facebook/Broadcast Media) Might be the Better Choice for Your Restaurant

Have you ever been in a store browsing, only to be annoyed by a pushy salesman who doesn’t understand the concept that you just want to look around?  We’ve all experienced this and it isn’t a pleasant experience.  In fact, it’s the primary reason why the foundation of successful marketing is the understanding that your approach needs to be something that your end-audience invites.  If you attempt to market in a way that your intended audience feels is intrusive, you might be negating the point of your marketing attempt in the first place, which is to attract customers without annoying them.  

For this reason, Facebook as a marketing platform has lost its luster for many companies for one very simple reason: people use Facebook to connect with friends and a social network—not necessarily to read marketing messages on their home page.  The same works for broadcast media.  People listen to the radio or watch TV to enjoy their favorite music or shows, and will often turn the volume down or change the channel entirely when confronted with too much marketing.  

You might ask, then, so what is the least intrusive way to market?  Well, according to surveys conducted regarding customers’ preferred method of contact for marketing and promotional material, an overwhelming majority stated that email is their preferred method for receiving marketing messages.  

Think of it this way: people access their email at a time of their own choosing, and can open emails or not open them according to their own whims.  This puts the end-user in control of when he or she reads a message, making them much more receptive to what the message contains.  Their lives, social networking, and entertainment time are not interrupted, and they are always subconsciously appreciative of this consideration on behalf of the restaurant marketing to them. 

Why Direct Mail and Postcards Still Work

Don’t assume that direct mail and postcard marketing is dead; in fact, it’s alive and well and should be a major part of your restaurant’s marketing efforts.  With direct mail and postcards, customers have a tangible, in-hand reminder of your menu, specials, location(s) and promotions.  The battle becomes one of how to separate your advertising from the piles of other junk mail they might receive on any given day.  So how do you make sure that the money you spend on direct mail and postcard marketing isn’t wasted and is seen by more people?   

Simple.  The answer lies in the design and excitement your direct mail and postcard marketing campaigns bring to the potential customer.  Things like eye-catching wording and graphics can play a major role in assuring your direct mail advertising is seen, as well as including coupons or important “by invitation only” events in which the customer needs to keep the mail in order to receive a particular discount or promotional offer.  Even if they are not sure if they can use the coupon or attend the event, the simple fact that they have an invitation or coupon in-hand will likely encourage them to keep it “just in case.”  

A recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine gives the following tips for increasing direct mail response:

• Give a free gift to increase response
• Highlight the free-gift offer prominently
• Use short copy to tease the reader to read further or respond
• Minimize the use of buzz words
• Use graphics and color to support the message and text
• Hire a professional copywriter for your content
• Hire a professional graphic designer
• Make your offer easy to understand at a glance
• Use all the formatting available with taste
• Have your direct mail reviewed by an objective third party
• Use colored paper to make impact and save on printing costs

To read more direct mail tips, read the full article here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/193436