A couple of weeks ago I came across a stack of reading material that came in the mail from 2004. Like many authors and business owners, I have piles of magazines, articles and research material that seems to find a permanent place in my office, at least until boredom with the current project leads to a cleaning motivation. Apparently it's been four years since I have been bored! While flipping through the various refugees from a shredder I noticed that some of the old ads continue to sing the praises of technology as a solution for literally every minute problem a restaurant owner could imagine.
Reservations, online supply ordering, menu ordering, cost control programs, email marketing, customer loyalty programs and the same old babble from "consultants" who regurgitate whatever is heavily advertised in the industry rags. I couldn't help but notice that after four years, many of the software and internet solutions had yet to find a home in the restaurant business. Only one has become a real hit - email marketing.
Many of the other well hyped technology solutions still haven't made it into the mainstream of restaurant operations. Online ordering is still a minefield for customer service. Reservation systems have yet to eliminate bugs that require constant human intervention. It is apparent that some communications directly with the guest will never replace a real person taking care of real customer demands.
Four years ago email marketing was in its infancy. Today there are inexpensive solutions to marketing issues that can build your business and keep customers coming back for more. If you own, are planning or buying a restaurant, allocate time and research into the budget friendly email marketing systems available on the internet. They work!
In I outline the numbers for a planned program we did for a six month period. Over that time span we increased sales, that had become stagnant in 2007, by over $150,000 in one of our units. The total cost was under $100.
Even if you barely know how to turn a computer on, these online services can walk you through a program that produces results a $5000 investment in other media formats could never achieve. The Restaurant Ebook can tell you how to get the email addresses and avoid spamming.
You and your customers may not be ready for other digital operations, but restaurant email marketing is here to stay. Your guests want to be part of this inexpensive tool for building sales and repeat business.
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