Do You Wish There Was An Easier Way To Collect Restaurant Customer Emails?

Is it starting to get to you? Email marketing this, email marketing that. Why should you care about email marketing? “I’m in the restaurant business. I should be worried about the menu and not about whether my newsletter is making the rounds in the neighborhood, right?”

Wrong.

You are in the sales business. You sell food and drinks. Delicious menu items at value prices don’t matter if nobody in your area of business knows what they’re missing.

According to e-marketeer, back in 2006, 90% of Internet users, more or less, use an email service programs for various reasons. In the US, that accounts for 56% of all Americans. The statistics are telling. If you want to put your brand name out in the minds of consumers, there’s no better vehicle to do it than an email marketing campaign.

But shooting blindly is not an option. If you want an effective restaurant email marketing campaign you need to set up a focused email database that allows you to collect customer’s addresses either online or at the restaurant.

Some tips.

1.    Solicit email addresses through your restaurant’s website
Your restaurant’s website is the best place to solicit customers’ email addresses in exchange for incentives and meal discounts.

The tricky part is getting the customer interested. Anyone could give away an email address or two. What you should do, as a restaurant operator, is to make sure that subscribers receive “relevant updates” – incentives, discount coupons, gift certificates – on a regular basis to keep them tuned in on your email campaign. According to a certain study, it takes four or more contacts, just about, with subscribers before they’ll actually visit your restaurant.

Online restaurant email marketing requires more effort and dedication than it looks. Once you get it down though, the rest should come in aces.

2.    Solicit email addresses at the restaurant
When was the last time you had dinner out with your family, and in the middle of the meal the waitress approaches your little daughter and gives her a small slip of paper that asks what you thought about their service and required your email address?

The waitress even left a pen at your table while she tended to the other customers. She was real nice.

This is how most restaurants find a way to contact you long after you’ve cleared your plate. For the restaurant operator, that small slip of paper is an invaluable tool in turning one-time customers to loyal patrons.

As I said earlier, you are in the restaurant business, sure, but you are first and foremost a sales person. Knowing a good way to establish a stronger relationship with your customers is just as good as selling burgers for $1, and you don’t even have to lose money in the process.

How’s your restaurant email campaign coming along?

For comments and feedback, leave a message below.

How Pizza Hut Turned Charity Work Into A Phenomenal Brand Promotion Campaign On Twitter

At a time of affordable burgers at McDonald’s and three-figure meals at Le Cirque, more people around the world spend their days hungry and without food. We all know this. But are we doing anything about it? Pizza Hut is.

Last month, Pizza Hut launched an ambitious online campaign to fight world hunger. Partnered with Twitter, the famous pizza chain turned to its 17,500, more or less, followers on the social media site.

For each re-tweet, Pizza Hut pledged to donate four meals to the World Hunger Relief, a support campaign of the United Nations World Food Programme and other hunger relief agencies worldwide.

President of Pizza Hut Scott Bergren says,

Global hunger has reached epic proportions this year — reaching more than 1 billion hungry people around the world. At Pizza Hut, our goal is to get the word out about what can be done to help feed the hungry. We’re asking our customers to help us spread the word through a simple tweet, and in exchange we will provide meals for World Hunger Relief.

The tweet goes like this: “We will donate 4 meals to World Hunger Relief 4 each person who RTs this: http://ow.ly/qWn8 #pizzahut (More: http://ow.ly/r3Cy).”

What does this say about reaching out to customers on social media sites like Twitter?

It’s very effective, especially when done right. The right occasion and the right message could put anyone’s attention on your restaurant, even people who aren’t familiar with your brand, with just a simple Tweet alert.

For tips on how to establish a good following on Twitter, view this post.

Pizza Hut pulled a good one this time – promoting brand name through charity works using an effective online campaign. Is your restaurant doing the same?

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment after this post.