It is a normal day during the week. Suddenly rain starts pouring right before the lunch hour.The restaurant should have been full during the lunch time. But it is not. The business is slow.Have you ever experienced that?
Weather does affect the restaurant business. Have you ever thought of any marketing strategy to attract those customers who might have decided not to come to your restaurant just because of the rain. Well, there might be an affordable solution for you.
I had a chance to see the video demo of the Blue Sky Local, a company that specializes in smart coupon marketing solution for the restaurants.They empower the restaurants to boost the customer traffic during the slow sales times especially when the weather condition is not so good. Thanks Matt Ackerson for the video. It was quick.
The main feature that I like about Blue Sky Local is that it is web based. Any restaurant owner or manager can do it online from any where. They have an access to dashboard where they can manage their customers. It is permission based which means that the mobile customers who have subscribed for the coupons will have to confirm to receive the coupons from your restaurant. The customers also have an option to unsubscribe by themselves if they choose to do so.
The other feature that I like is that the coupons have an option to be distributed via three different channels-email, text and twitter at the same time. This ensures that your mobile marketing campaign has a maximum effect.
If you are interested to check out this service you can find more information at their site http://www.blueskylocal.com
They even have a 30 days Free trial offer. So you got nothing to lose. Give it a try. If you think it is effective for your restaurant you can then upgrade it.
Once you try it and get some results please do share your thoughts with us about the service. If some one has already used it, I would appreciate your feedback so it would be helpful to other restaurant owners or managers to understand about the smart coupon marketing solution provided by Blue Sky Local. Thanks!
How can a personalised email with video integrated can give a life to the communication and take the customer relationship to the next level?
Yesterday I received an email about President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. Though I know it was sent by one of his email campaign manager, it is still a personalised email sent to Nash and that is me. It doesn’t start with “Dear All” and starts with my name and I feel that I was appreciated as a human being by a president in his email communication. Though as a marketer I understand that it was automated, I feel it is better than mass media communication because it gives a control of the message to the recipient. What I mean by that is that though I didn’t get a chance to watch the live TV address by president Obama, the recorded version was sent to me via email. On the next day while I was driving back from work, I had a plenty of time to watch and listen while driving. So the point here is that due to the email communication, I was able to have a control over when to consume the content. I took out my iPhone and linked to the email and watched the clips of president’s address on YouTube. I felt that with this email communication, I felt the communication via email was personalised to my lifestyle demands and challenges. It didn’t force me to stick to the television to get the information. Mass media like TV didn’t have a control over my time and my lifestyle. Rather I had control over the choice of media and the time when to watch with the power of internet, YouTube, iPhone and of course the valuable communication tool-email.
Restaurants can also use similar strategies. You can load the message in your email account like aweber or icontact email service provider. You can also load the videos and personalise the email by giving a life to the communication. Now your customer have a chance to see you in person even if you never happen to be in the restaurant. In most cases, the restaurant owners are so busy, they don’t have much time to say hello to all their customers. In this case, taking advantage of internet technology why not reach all your customers by uploading a personalised thank you video and sending to all your customers. At least your customers would appreciate that you took your time to thank them in person though it is virtually. This is just a simple example and there are so many other thing you can do with video integrated into your email communication that would take your relationship with customers to the next level.
During the early days of email it was plagued with spams. It was out of control. Till today, email marketing is affected by spams. It has given a bad name to the email marketing. Since then people are scared to give their email address to any company without building a good relationship. Some of the restaurants and many other small businesses have tried email marketing. Some of them succeed and most of them fail. The reason is that they fail to use it properly and effectively. In a simpler term, email is like a loaded gun. If you use it well, you will be able to shoot your target very well and get the reward. On the other hand, if you don’t know how to load the gun and fire the weapon properly, there is a chance that you will shoot yourself. It is same with the email marketing. If you use permission based email marketing then you will gain far more customers than by trying to spam. I don’t recommend spamming. It is like taking a shortcut to achieve your goals. It doesn’t work that way.
So the question is how can we make our email marketing more effective that works?
The answer to that is by providing valuable content to the customers. Just for an example, if you are an Italian restaurant, you can create a monthly newsletter and talk about the new pastas health benefits. You have to be informative rather than trying to sell the stuff. You could write articles like “7 tips how Italian pasta can help you from high blood pressure” just for an example. Now in the newsletter you are going with the mindset of teaching rather than selling. I call this selling by informing. Now with this equation, customers would be eager to receive the newsletter because there is some valuable information that is helful in their life.
Therefore I still believe that email is still one of the effective communication tool available for restaurant marketing.
Watch Seth Godin’s speech and you will change the way you think about your restaurant business and new marketing approach essential for your restaurant marketing success.
Seth Godin – one of the most prominent marketer of today strongly recommends to differentiate your business from the crowd.
Restaurants have to think of ways to differentiate themselves from other over crowded restaurants.
Every restaurant should have unique Selling Proposition (USP). For example Subway’s USP is Always Fresh Sandwich made right, right infront of you.
Those days are gone when shot gun approach advertising used to work. In todays time, customers have many restaurant options to choose from. So it is very important to create a system of direct communication with your customers. You can do this by simply implementing restaurant email marketing program. It is a low cost and high return marketing investment for your restaurant.
First of all know who your customers are by establishing customers email database. Communicate with them directly one on one. Ask them what they want in the form of email survey and deliver them exactly what they want.
The key here is to have constant communication with the customers to understand their expectation about the quality of food, speed of the service or anything else that changes with the time and trends. If you follow this simple formula your restaurant business is on track to marketing success.
If you are do it your self kind then I would recommend icontact email program. Though there are several email services out there, one of the reason I like this is because they are reasonably priced at $9.95 per month and there is no contract or any thing. You can also do 15 days test trial to see if you really like their features. The another thing that I like the most is that they have survey templates which you can create with few clicks and get some valuable feedbacks from your restaurant customers to improve upon them. You can also track exactly who opened your emails and who participated in your customer feedback survey. If you are interested in this email marketing program service you can check them out at www.icontact.com
If you are technologically challenged or you don’t want to do it your self and want to outsource this service then there is another company called Fishbowl Inc. that specialise in email marketing . The price is litte more expensive than the do it your self email program as it is a turn key email program where they do all the technical aspect of the email marketing, however it is worthwhile if you want to focus on what you are good at and that is restaurant business and let them handle, what they are good at and that is email marketing. If you are interested to look into this and want check out their email marketing service you can do by visiting their site at www.fishbowl.com
