You Don’t Have To Be An Award-Winning Novelist To Write An Effective Restaurant Newsletter

I once sat down with a relative of mine over coffee to talk about restaurant marketing. We talked about a lot of things, but mainly about her restaurant newsletters. She said she’s had great success as a restaurant owner thanks to her newsletters, which brought her more clients and patrons than she could ever imagine.

Here’s a brief excerpt of our conversation.

Q: Where did you get the idea to start a newsletter?
A: I’m a restaurant owner. I’m a business woman, you could say that, but I also love to write. I guess it’s this love of writing that urged me to sit down and write an “experimental” newsletter for my restaurant. Before I knew it, I was getting calls out of nowhere—take-outs, events, etc.—mostly from people who’ve read the newsletter and had become interested in my restaurant.

I said to myself, I might be on to something good here…

Q: I told you there was something special about newsletters. When done right, of course. How many years has it been?
A: Yeah. When I realized newsletters were actually effective in marketing my restaurant, I remembered your advice about them when I was first starting out. I’ve been writing newsletters for about three years now.

Q: I remember you sending me an email one time about how you were shocked when you stopped sending them for a month or two?
A: I did. I remember that. I think it was about a year ago, when something suddenly came up in my life that I needed to fix, and I couldn’t find the time to write newsletters. So I stopped sending them out for about two months. You wouldn’t believe how much business we lost during those two months. I didn’t expect my newsletters had this much impact on our sales until that time.

I guess you really need to try it out and see things for yourself before you jump to conclusions, especially when it comes to newsletters.

Q: What’s your style in getting more subscribers?
A: I’ve tried lots of approaches. But a really effective one is to tempt them with a promo—say, free wine for three. If they come in and make a reservation for three people, they get to sign up for our in-house wine event and receive the free wine. Right now I have 1,500 subscribers, give or take a few.

Q: Did you think about what I wrote you about putting ads in your newsletters to cut down on costs?
A: There was a time when I did consider the option. But I didn’t follow through. You see, I was too busy managing the restaurant and I simply didn’t have the time to shop around for advertisers trying to pick out the best deal. I could hire someone to do that job, but that would just defeat the purpose, don’t you think?

I guess it depends on how much attention you’re willing to put into your restaurant newsletter. Hiring that sales person could still offset the cost of having to shoulder the entire thing yourself. All you need is time to balance the figures out. Anyway, successful as I’ve been with my restaurant newsletters, I’m not spending too much on them, so in my case I didn’t think it was worth the hassle.

Check back on Restaurant Marketing Zone next week for more restaurant marketing tips.

Five Sure-Fire Tips For Your Email Campaign To Boost Restaurant Sales

Email marketing is an effective and important way to reach customers and boost restaurant sales. There’s no denying it. Email marketing is convenient, cheap, and most importantly, it works – if done right.

Here are five simple tips on how to maximize your email campaign to help with restaurant sales.

1. Register your customers
There’s no point in sending out newsletters and emails if there isn’t anyone in your list. If the customers have no plans of coming back, there’s no point in sending them emails, either. Bait their attention by giving away deals and prizes. For instance, give away discount coupons or host raffle events to collect their addresses.

2. Don’t send unsolicited emails
Sending out unsolicited emails is one of the things that’s been giving email marketing a bad name. Again the best way to get customers to request restaurant emails from you is to give them back something in return—exclusive recipes, free wine tasting, etc. It’s up to you to figure these tactics into your budget.

3. Keep track of your conversations
You can’t measure success, or failure, if you don’t keep track of it. Try different offers and observe which ones contribute to your restaurant sales the most. Are discount coupons bringing in more customers? Or was last week’s eating contest a bigger hit?

4. Make up a plan and stick to it
It sounds tempting but resist the urge to send out emails everyday. A good schedule is one newsletter a week, or even twice in one month. Remember to stick to the schedule so you’re sending out emails on the same day, improving the chances of them being opened and read and therefore increase restaurant sales.

5. Readability first
Avoid spam. Period. Spam filters are allergic to words like “Buy now” or “Free” and other obvious keyword phrases causing them to flag the email or article. Too much capitalization and unnecessary punctuation also does the same thing. Avoid these spam words at all costs if you don’t want your efforts going down the drain.

The best advice I can give regarding email marketing is to always stay flexible. Different restaurants cater to different people, and each market niche responds only to certain types of email marketing campaigns. Always look for opportunities to improve your email campaign to help boost restaurant sales.

See How Easily You Can Pull Off Effective Marketing For Restaurants Through Unique Personal Invitations

Effective marketing for restaurants is the Holy Grail of doing business in this industry. After the food, advertising is right up there as one of the most crucial factors that make or break a restaurant business. I’m sure you’re well aware of this by now.

But there’s one thing most restaurant operators–or most business owners, for that matter–don’t seem to understand about efficient advertising. It is not about sending generic paper to random strangers. The shotgun approach, it doesn’t really work very well with small restaurant owners.

In this case the best marketing for restaurant advice is to stop advertising altogether.

Or…

Start sending unique personal invitations.

Unique personal invitations are customized newsletters that you, the restaurant operator, can send to individuals based on their needs, interests, wants, lifestyle, etc. It’s very efficient in increasing your marketing dollar. Finally, you are no longer throwing darts with your eyes closed.

Computer database technology have advanced far enough to be able to help you with your marketing for restaurant strategies like this one. Some companies like American Clearinghouse and Sales Genie specialize in unique personal invitations. Check out these videos–Basic Count, Counts by Radius, Advanced Radius Selections–for your references.

Before you begin your campaign, you must…

• Know your community
• Know your customer
• Know what you can offer potential and past customers
• Determine which company specializing in unique personal invitations works best with your operations

Now you can identify patrons over 55 and send mail to them with a click of a button. You can advertise within three miles of a grade school about family events happening at your restaurant over the weekend. Marketing for restaurants has never been this easy and effective.

I know, these services cost money. But even so, would you rather target specific customers with relevant advertising? Or send newsletters to 10,000 random households, just about, and treat everyone the same thing, hoping somebody out there gets interested? Think about it. Random advertising is the kind of gamble you don’t want to get yourself into. Not in this business.

Bottom line is: make your advertisements work for you, and unique personal invitations are indeed an interesting approach to this marketing for restaurant dilemma.

Restaurant Promotional: Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Email Newsletter?

My grandfather owned and operated a small restaurant. He did it for many years, and back then he didn’t need to worry about restaurant promotionals, such as email newsletters, that kind of thing. For my grandfather having good food and sometimes running a small ad in the local paper was all he needed to run a good business.

We all wish it was that simple.

Today restaurant operators need to worry about restaurant promotionals. Period. If you want to keep your patrons interested, maybe even encourage some new customers over, a monthly newsletter is the budget-friendly way to do that.

Here are some tips on what not to do with your restaurant newsletter.

1.    Don’t be a cheapskate.
Subscribers will get tired of your newsletter quickly if they think of it as nothing more than an advertisement.

Solution: Don’t give them a reason to think it’s just a virtual ad. Instead give them something they wouldn’t find at the restaurant—dessert coupons, invitations to special events, chef profiles, exclusive recipes, etc.

Co-owner of Niche Restaurant Jody Richardson says,

People love feeling like they are getting insider info and a sneak peak behind the scenes.

Simply put, give your subscribers an offer they can’t refuse.

2.    Don’t be boring.
Subscribers aren’t going to bite your promotions if they’re the same old same old.

Solution: Get creative with your restaurant promotionals. In my experience, the funnier the promotions, the better. I remember receiving an email from Four Corners bar inviting me to join their “Merry Moustachemas” event party. Anyone with a moustache gets a free beer, even women with hand-drawn facial hair.

3.    Don’t be brief.
Subscribers are like selfish children. They’ll walk away as soon as they get what they want from you.

Solution: Build anticipation for events.

Ali Mackani is the managing partner at Restaurant 55 Degrees. She tries to build excitement by focusing on just one or two events per newsletter, no more. The method paid off. Their monthly newsletter currently has an open rate of 400, just about, out of 2,200 subscribers, well above the average rate for online newsletters.

4.    Don’t send newsletters like there’s no tomorrow.
There really won’t be any tomorrow for your newsletter campaign if you keep sending spam every other day.

Solution: Send at the right time. Most restaurant operators send their online restaurant promotionals in the evening when mail servers aren’t loaded. Big mistake. Think about it. What’s the first thing you do when you open your email in the morning? Clear out the spam. There goes your funny and creative newsletter.

I found that sending newsletters in the morning achieves the highest open rate. Elliot Feldman agrees.

I would launch campaigns between 9:30 and 10:30 in the morning, to avoid being grouped with overnight spam.

Feldman is the owner of Nova Bar and Restaurant establishment in San Francisco.

If you’re looking for a cheap, efficient way to market your restaurant—I mean come on, who isn’t?—then the path of email newsletters is the way to go. But here is the thing. Email newsletters are definitely inexpensive, and they are very effective ways to promote your restaurant too, if used right. Keep that in mind.

Here’s my final tip. Don’t make these mistakes with your online restaurant promotionals.

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.