Restaurant Public Relations: Four Things You Must Know About Restaurant Newsletters
I have been in this business long enough to make this conclusion: customers are the key ingredients to the success of a restaurant, any restaurant.
Here’s what Jose L. Riesco, a consultant, has to say about the importance of public relations in a restaurant business.
While restaurant atmosphere, quality of food, value for the price, and a friendly and knowledgeable staff are important components for a good running business, long-term success requires a solid combination of sales, marketing, promotions and public relations.
One way to improve your restaurant’s public relations is to distribute newsletters in and around your area of business. Restaurant newsletters are done either in print form or electronic format, one or the other. E-mail newsletters are cheaper, but regular mail ones are more personal and less likely to get ignored.
Here are four tips in creating an effective business newsletter.
- Keep it relevant
The newsletter is a love letter to your customers. It is an attempt to boost your restaurant’s public relations, not brag about how many awards you received last year and the one before that.
The newsletter should include information for the customers, such as if you are changing your hours of operations, if you have a new wine director or executive chef, if you are supporting a new cause, etc.
- Communicate regularly
You need to determine the frequency of your newsletters. Say there’s always something new happening at your place, then consider a monthly newsletter. But on the other hand if the menu is fixed and doesn’t change much, a quarterly newsletter ought to do it.
I’ll sum it up in one sentence: do your best to send your newsletters at the right time.
- Offer an incentive
There are customers simply who hate business ads and all things in between, including newsletters. Here you are trying your best to reach out, and there they are bashing your restaurant public relation efforts to pieces.
Try offering them an incentive that has to be sent through postal mail. For example, a coupon for a free dessert or beverage. This way you can rest assured you are getting relevant customer information in response.
- Who are you?
It doesn’t matter what’s on the main body of your newsletter. But the thing is, the newsletter should always include information about your restaurant. Use the footer or side panel to tell your background story. It won’t get read every time, but that’s okay. The message will sink in eventually.
I’ll let Mr. Riesco wrap this up with a final tip.
With any restaurant newsletter, be sure to provide links. If you’re doing a printed publication, include the links so customers can visit when they have available computer access. And remember to include instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter list, as well as a forward to a friend link. Encouraging feedback by asking a question or taking a poll is also a great feature to include in a newsletter.
The newsletter isn’t everything about restaurant public relation campaigns by any means. But it’s a good start. If you can do this right, I’m sure you are more than ready to explore other ideas.
Check out this article for more details on how to improve your restaurant’s public relations.