Encouraging Repeat Business- More Smart Marketing Strategies for Restaurant Owners

Encouraging Repeat Business through Loyal Rewards: More Smart Marketing Strategies for Local Restaurant Owners

There are few things restaurateurs find more satisfying than watching their tables fill up with familiar faces. Repeat customers, the kind that keep coming back for birthdays, anniversaries, or just to grab a quick bite on a Friday night, are crucial for the success of any restaurant. According to global management experts Bain & Co., repeat customers spend 67% more than do new customers. Thus, it is not only personally satisfying to see familiar faces return to your restaurant, but financially rewarding as well.

But how do you turn a new customer into a repeat one? While ensuring that your customers receive the highest level of service and the best food possible are crucial elements to encouraging repeat business, there are strategies that can help you to proactively build relationships with customers and increase the likelihood that new customers will become regular ones.

Previously, I discussed how smart marketing campaigns that target new movers can help restaurateurs to expand their customer base by reaching out to new residents. While inviting a new resident into your business is always a step forward, getting them to return should be your ultimate goal. Here's how you can do just that:

1. Restaurant owners should encourage their employees to approach each interaction with a new customer as a job interview. Hosts and servers should be friendly, well-dressed, and helpful. Explain to your employees that this type of behavior not only increases the chance that the customer will leave a good tip, but also that the individual will return to tip again in the future. Each time a new customer enters your establishment you are auditioning for their business in the future—and the effects of a negative first impression are very hard to break.

2. After the customer has finished his meal and is waiting for the check, ask that he provide an email address for future correspondence. Explain that your restaurant occasionally offers specials and free meals to its most valued customers, and that you would like to include his email on the restaurant's list. Most likely he and other customers will provide their email addresses, allowing you to create a database of information about your customers.

3. Use this database to distribute special offers to past customers and drive business to your front door on slower days. For example, if your restaurant is booming on the weekends but typically sees little business Tuesday nights, send out an email on Tuesday morning to your customers inviting them to redeem a gift certificate for a free appetizer or entrée. Explain that the offer is only valid for that Tuesday evening, and encourage your customers to stop by and redeem the gift. Suddenly, your restaurant will begin to fill up with customers who might have previously had dinner at home on a Tuesday night. With a few simple emails, you have turned a slow night into a busy one by reaching out to your customers and giving them a reason to visit you again.

The goal of the above strategy, which I call a Loyal Rewards program, is to create "top of mind awareness"—to keep your business clearly positioned in the forefront of your customers' minds. While you, as a restaurant owner, may forlornly pine after your customers during slow business nights, your customers will likely not think of you or your business unless prompted by an email, advertisement, or special occasion. In fact, they may always think of your restaurant as their "Friday night" bistro, for example, unless you give them a reason—a Loyal Reward—to visit you Tuesday night as well as on Friday. Thus, you should make it your goal as a successful entrepreneur to casually remind them of the great time they had the last time they visited your establishment, and invite them to repeat the experience with a special offer. By doing so, you are encouraging repeat business by reaching out to customers who you know already enjoy your services.

The bottom line is this: Loyal Rewards programs work both ways. Your customers are rewarded by showing their loyalty to you, and your business reaps the benefits of staying loyal to its past customers. It's a win-win situation!

Building and Growing Your E-mail Marketing List - Top 4 E-mail Marketing Software Programs

Email marketing is a very effective way to grow your business and send out a company newsletter or updates. Sending e-mail is less expensive than most other forms of contact. E-mail marketing has demonstrated to be flourishing for those that do it correctly.

Now that you have decided to do email marketing, just how do you go about getting your e-mail list. Do you grow or build your list or should you go out and buy a list.

The quick and easy thing to do, would be just to go out and buy a list and have an instant list of e-mails all ready to go. Sounds easy, but I would avoid this method. There are plenty of people ready and willing to sell you a list of e-mails. These folks that sell e-mail list, will tell you that you are the only person that is getting this e-mail and it is guaranteed to be opt-in or even double opt-in. Don't believe it. Good list are hard to get and unless you know for certain the person responding is expecting an e-mail from you, don't buy it.

I hope I have made the first method clear, don't buy a list. Now there can be other methods to using an existing list, such as renting a list. The main thing to understand here, you never get to see the email, the list owner is sending an email for you. You basicly pay a rental fee for using the list. The owner will send your information out for a fee on your behalf.

How to Build your own list?

There are many proven methods to building your own list. It does take work and patience in this process.

1. PPC – Paid search advertising is a method where you place an online ad in Google, MSN or Yahoo for example. As people click your ad, they can sign up to receive more information. This can be an expensive method. You can use some type of free item or giveaway to invite your guest to sign up. For example, you could give a free E-book, discount, how to information, trial offer etc… to someone that as a reward for responding.

2. Newsletter – If you already have an existing product and website, you should be using some type of newsletter signup on every page on your site. The key goal here, is to make it very visible and easy to signup. Look at this as long term project. It takes time to build a list and it also depends on how many visitors you have to your website. Get started now on this and over time, you will build a large list.

3. Discounts and Coupons – Offer a coupon or some type of price discount for those that signup on your existing website. Develop a special list of customers that want to know when the next discount or new product is available.

4. Business Cards – Hand out business cards to everyone you meet. Let them know about your website. Promote yourself in your daily life. We sometimes think that you have to make all your contacts on the internet, but why not use what you are doing on a daily basis to build contacts. Place a note on your card that they can sign up for more information and if they mention a special word, they can get a discount.

Once you get the list built or at least in the process of building, you are going to want to have a specialized e-mail marketing software to make all this happen. Do not be sending e-mails from your Outlook Express or personal e-mail system.

Here is a list of the best e-mail marketing software programs.

1. Atomic Mail Sender

2. GroupMail

3. MaxBulk Mailer

4. Mass Mailer