Email Marketing

3 Things Smart Restaurant Owners Do to Grow Their Email List

3 Things Smart Restaurant Owners Do Every Day
to Grow Their Email List

How many people walk into your restaurant each day?

What about your website or Facebook page — how many people visit you there?

People are discovering and interacting with your business every day. And while many of them will be loyal customers who will come back on their own, there is a high percentage of people who won’t.

Smart restaurant owners know the importance of staying in touch with new and potential customers. And while there are a number of channels you can use to stay connected, no tool is more effective than email marketing.

3 Things Smart Restaurant Owners Do toA recent survey from research firm MarketingSherpa found that 91 percent of consumers like to receive emails from companies they do business with.

If you want to grow your email list and increase your profitability, there are a few simple steps you’ll need to follow.

1. Make it visible

Whether someone is sitting in your restaurant or visiting your website, they need to know that they have the opportunity to stay connected with your business by joining your email list.
Make an inventory of all of the places people interact with your business. You likely have a number of offline locations, including:

  • At the door when they arrive
  • At the bar when they are buying a drink
  • At your reception / till
  • Your menu
  • At the table when they are ordering or eating
  • As they pay
  • When they are leaving your restaurant

And there are probably plenty of online locations, as well:

  • Your Website
  • Social media pages such as Facebook
  • Online listing and review sites

Think about the ways people interact with your business in these different settings. Are you providing a way for people to sign up in-restaurant? When someone lands on your website, can they easily find a way to join your list and stay in touch with your business?

Never miss the opportunity to grow your email list by covering all of your customer touch points.

2. Make it convenient

At this point, you may be thinking — “Yes! I’ve heard this before. I know I need to grow my list and I always make sure to ask.” But the next question you need to ask is: Are you making it convenient to sign up?

When it comes to collecting email addresses in-person, a paper sign-up sheet is typically the go-to solution for getting people to join your list. But did you also know that there are tools like mobile apps that give you the ability to collect email addresses right from your smartphone or tablet?

When it comes to collecting email addresses online — whether it’s on your website, blog, or social media pages — convenience will be defined by how quickly and easily someone can join your email list. Website sign-up forms for example, give you the ability to add new contacts right from your website or blog and viral prize draws give an easy way to build your list as well as build an online buzz about your restaurant

When setting these tools up, make sure to only ask for the information that you plan to use. This will keep the sign-up process quick and easy for people joining your list.

3. Make it compelling

People will be more likely to share their information when they understand the value of signing up.

One of the best ways to add value for new subscribers is to provide an offer or incentive.

You could, for example, offer…

  • A free drink to new subscribers
  • A 10% discount voucher
  • A free prize draw
  • Special events and offers that are exclusive to newsletter subscribers

But along with creating an offer, you can make your list compelling by simply understanding the value that your emails provide and clearly stating it to your audience.

For a restaurant like Franklin Cape Ann, that value comes from their monthly event emails that let customers know about upcoming tastings and seasonal wine dinners. For you, it could be the regular special offers or the monthly prize draw where subscribers can win a meal at your restaurant.

What can people expect from signing up for your mailing list? How often will they hear from you? What type of information will they provide? Why do other people like being on your list?

Use that information to craft an “elevator pitch” for your email list and include it when asking new visitors to sign up.

What can I do today?

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to growing your email list. Here are three things you can do right now:

  • Make an inventory of all the places you interact with customers: Make sure to include online and offline locations.
  • Set up your online sign-up form to get subscribers from your website and Facebook page.
  • Craft your elevator pitch: Why should people join your email list? Check in with loyal clients that you know enjoy your emails to find out what they like about being on your list.

Of course, if you’d like help with any of the above, or you still don’t have an email list for your restaurant and would like me to help you to build one quickly, just give me a call on 01283 515606 or take a look HERE.

Best regards,
Chris Towland

 

This article was adapted from an article here.

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Email Marketing

Are you wasting the money you spend promoting your restaurant?

Are You Wasting The Money You Spend
Promoting Your Restaurant?

Where do you advertise your restaurant at the moment?

In your local paper? The Yellow Pages? A local website? Leaflet drops in your local area?

cut £20Each of these methods can of course bring you some extra customers but let’s look at where they could also be wasting your money…

Firstly let’s consider an advert in the local paper – this could easily cost £50, £100 or more for a display advert that appears in just one edition of the paper.

If you’re like many restaurants, your advert will give details about your restaurant and your food, maybe a special offer you are running, or perhaps a special event.

Hopefully you’ll get some customers from the advert… but the reader is only being given two options… 1/ Decide to come to your restaurant or 2/ Turn the page and read more local news.

For every person who turns the page, a little of your advertising spend has been wasted as he or she is gone, and you are forgotten. The only way to contact that person again is to pay more money for another advert in another edition of the paper.

Similarly with leaflet drops in your local area – You’ve paid for all of the leaflets to be printed and for them to be delivered, but every leaflet that ends up in the rubbish bin is wasted money for you.

With Yellow Pages or website adverts, your advert is only any good when someone sees the actual page that your advert is on, but again, will they just leave the page and forget you?

Is there a better way?

You’ll be pleased to hear that there is a better way – it’s only a slight variation on what you are doing already – it will prove instantly profitable to you – and any advertising you do will reap rewards for months and months rather than just for the life of one advert.

The answer…

Use your advertising to build an email list

In other words, instead of your advertising giving the reader a choice of 1/ Visit us or 2/ Don’t, we give them a reason to join our email list…

So it could be…

Join our free email newsletter for exclusive special offers at XYZ Restaurant. Join now at www.

or

Enter our free prize draw and win a meal for 2 people at XYZ Restaurant. Enter now at…

With both of these examples, the reader is encouraged to give us their name and email address which is then automatically added to our email list.

But why is it better to build an email list?

Because when someone joins your email list you can contact them again and again. Gone is the one-hit wonder of the advert that either gets you a diner or it doesn’t.

When they join your email list, you can email them once a month, fortnightly, or even weekly if you want to, with information about your restaurant, details of special events, and special offers as you see fit.

As with many of the restaurants that I work with, over time this email list grows to 500, 1000, 2500 or more people, all interested in hearing about your restaurant. All people that you can contact time after time, month after month, and at very little cost.

So all of your advertising is actually building you an asset that becomes bigger and more valuable to you as time goes by.

Doesn’t that seem like a better way of using your advertising budget?

I really hope that you will use an email list as part of your promo strategy as I know that it will make a huge difference to your restaurant and your profits.

Best regards,
Chris Towland
Local Marketing Solutions

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