Over the next several weeks I will be sharing with you marketing strategies that I have used in my restaurant to build a loyal following of raving guests and increase sales and profits every year for the past seven years.
Build your database of customer’s information.
This process is very easy to handle and can be started just by doing a comment card. The comment card should be given along with the check if not before. The card should ask for all the customers’ pertinent information such as Name, Spouse Name, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Address, Email, Phone and Fax number.
(I can email you an example of a card that we use)
On the back of the card you can ask for testimonials about their experience while dining at your restaurant. Then have a little box for them to check off asking them if it is alright to use their testimonial in your marketing.
All your marketing pieces no matter what they are should include testimonials from your guests. It is a proven fact that what your customers say about you and your restaurant is far more powerful than what you say about your restaurant. Testimonials will lend even more credibility about what you do. Make sure to include the person’s full name and the city and state they are from.
On the top of the comment card to entice your customers to fill it out you can give away a gift certificate every month. So on the top of the card you could add “This card will be entered into the monthly drawing for a $50.00 gift certificate. Of course the amount you give away should be determined by your per person check average. If you are a quick service restaurant with a lower per person check average you may not want to give away $50.00 maybe more like $10 or $15. But if you are a fine dining establishment then you may want to consider a higher amount. I think a good guideline is that the amount you give away should be enough for two people to have dinner.
Once you start collecting the comment cards you will need to determine how to track your information. One simple way is to enter the information into an excel spreadsheet. It is easy to print labels for future mailings from excel. There are also many other tracking programs such as mydatabase.com or getresponse.com. You will want to consider all the factors before you decide where you are going to store your information. If you think it will be easy for your database to reach into the 1000’s of names then it is best to start with a program that can handle and track all the information.
You can also do drawings to gather customer’s information. Guess the weight of the pumpkin is a fun one for the Fall or guess the number of candy hearts in the jar around Valentines Day and so on.
Always always be collecting your customer’s information and testimonials.
Next week I'll be writing about "Creating a Loyalty Program".
Ben Martinez -
El Jardin Restaurant
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