If you are pinning your restaurant’s success on email marketing then wake up and smell the coffee!

The latest research* shows how ineffective email marketing is for Restaurants and Food Services…

Only 9.58% of people open emails from restaurants – put another way 90.2% of the emails you send either get ignored or deleted!  If you put a link into the email, to get people to book on-line for instance, it gets worse only 0.64% of people click it!

Whenever I begin coaching with a new member I always have to spell out the reality of “Hard Mail Marketing” over email marketing, yes you have to pay for postage and printing with hard mail but the response to hard mail is much much higher.  

Remember email “open rates” and “click rates” have nothing to do with money going into the bank – it only means that the recipient looked at your message.  With hard mail some of my members are getting 70% (yes SEVENTY percent) RESPONSE rates – response meaning that these people actually come to the restaurant as a response to the marketing piece.

The $ return on their investment (ROI) for hard mailing is often thousands of percent over what they paid to send out the marketing piece – this is not unusual by the way – many of my members achieve these kinds of results.  The secrets of their success?:

1. Be relevant to the recipient the message has to be “All about them” not you!
2. Make them an offer they cannot refuse.
3. Have a strategy inside your business to make the most of each client visit.
4. Be consistent and persistent with your marketing messages.
5. Test, test and re-test your offers and messages to get the best response.
6. Be generous with your customers they are worth thousands to you.
7. Use email as a supplementary vehicle not the main one or only one.

The two biggest secrets though are these - 1. You have to have a good list to market to - therefore you have to collect or work with a database that is ideal for your business, 2. You have to understand the psychology of your customers and how to trigger a response from them.

If you want to know more about how to make more income from your restaurant business call me on  (02) 4362 2468 or contact me through this website.

I hope this has been useful for you.

Howard

*email research from email marketing metrics from http://www.mailermailer.com/metrics.rwp 

We just stayed in a five start resort and whilst the place was beautiful (and must have cost a fortune to create) it’s the little things let it down… to the point that would probably not go there again.  This got me thinking about our industry and how this same tragedy happens every day in restaurants.

So we have this beautiful holiday resort, highly equipped with the latest gadgets including an infinity swimming pool overlooking the ocean but… (Here are 3 examples of “buts”, there were more but I won’t bore you)… the cleaners didn’t clean the walkways and steps meaning guests had to wade through leaves and litter day after day.  The maid refused to vacuum the floor in our room (she did tell me which cupboard I could find the vacuum myself though!)  The manager couldn’t tell me where I could rent a DVD for the night and he didn’t bother to find out for me either.

Now don’t get me wrong, we had a great holiday but because the little things were not taken care of this place will not be receiving repeat business which in all probability would be worth tens of thousands of dollars to them.

It was quite obvious everyone was just doing “enough”, they were doing their jobs, but they weren’t doing anything to wow their guests.  This place has to discount their prices on a last minute booking website so obviously they don’t have their front end (new business) marketing strategies nailed down.  Therefore, they aren’t too busy to care about standards, yet they aren’t motivated enough to do the little things to get the easy sales (repeat business).  This smacks of the owners/managers not working “on” the business but “in it” and/or not having systems (standard operating procedures) in place for staff to follow.

In my experience most people will do the least they can get away with at work and so if there aren’t clear procedures, standards, a checking system and consequences in place the quality of work will be just above what the boss tolerates.

As an owner, it is your responsibility to set the standards and, procedures and monitor them; if you don’t then you have no reason to be upset when people work to their own standards.  In many cases their standards will not be high enough to create the “WOW Experience” that is required if you want repeat business and great word of mouth marketing.

Ask yourself these questions…

Do I know the exact dollar value of repeat business in my business?

Do I know what needs to happen to create wow experiences in my business?

Do I have very clear step-by-step procedures in place that mean those things will occur every time?

Do I have a system for checking and monitoring adherence?

Do I have a management system in place for managing non adherence? Am I willing to use it?

Am I willing to work on the business instead of being busy in it?

(NB the excuse of being too busy is often more to do with you needing to feel that you’re personally necessary for the roles you play than actually having someone else be 100% productive in them.)

The most important thing you can do with any marketing is answer this one question: “What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM)” That is all your customers are interested in.  They don’t care about you or your business and they aren’t interested in snappy sayings and logos… so if you are going to the trouble of putting a message out there do it in a way where they will take notice of it.  Make is obvious what’s in it for them if they come to you rather than anyone else they could choose to dine with.

Yesterday I saw a great joint promotion between a bookshop and a local restaurant - they are doing a literary dinner at the restaurant to launch the book (the author is a very popular sportsman).  The restaurant was able to advertise in the shop window of the bookstore in a very busy shopping mall in the school holidays.  That advertising opportunity is worth a fortune to that restaurant (who is located some 2 kms away).  I am sure that for no advertising cost they will draw hundreds of new customers to them – what a great way to attract new custom.  

So that makes 104 ways to market your restaurant!  By the way – yes I am going to the dinner -  What’s in it for me? - The “Exclusive” chance to be close to my sporting hero, to hear him speak on a subject I am passionate about while I enjoy a meal at a local restaurant.

This is one worth copying unless you are too busy working in the business to track down authors publicists, book shops etc of course.

Howard

Hi Howard,

I wanted to share with you that Sea la vie has as many booked for Father’s Day as we did for Mother’s Day.  Fantastic, hey!  Actually there is more for dinner than Mother’s Day.  Furthermore, last Father’s Day we had to make an offer to get people in (we gave away a FREE Main course for Dad), not this year, no offer and inside is full already.  I’m rapt!

Thanks Howard.  I wanted to share my joy with you who help me so much.

Kind Regards, Adrian Meredith
 

Howard,
Just to let you know, Hot Pipis won the Best Breakfast Award, Sunshine Coast, for the 2^nd yr in a row. This one means so much more to us as it demonstrates that we have been consistent with our product on every level. We were also finalist, sunny Coast, for speciality Cuisine (our Gluten Free). So it’s off to Brisbane in a couple weeks to see if we might pull off the state Award for breaky.

Cheers

Jo

…. trying to make the most of the time I have. Only problem is the customers just keep coming!  I know, don’t complain! - Mel.

HONOUR: Cate Milton, of Taco Villa, in Devonport. The restaurant has been named Tasmania’s Favourite Mexican/Latin American restaurant in the Lifestyle Food Channel Awards.

And even Howard….
Featured in Australia’s leading marketing Magazine and a speaker at Talk Business on all 4 days of The Restaurant 09 Expo and Trade Show in Melbourne and Sydney: