What is your Gold Club?

Your Gold Club is a reward programme available to registered members. Regul­ar customers get loyalty points for each online order or booking that they make. Your Gold Club is where members go to redeem any promotions you wish to run.

Why your Gold Club is so valuable to you

Your Gold Club gets customers to return and spend more. Indeed, it gets them to come in the first place. Quite simply, the more members you have, the more marketing  you can do .

For example, once a week you can email your members to tell them about your restaurant or take­away. Sometimes there’s an offer, if you are running one. Each email contains a link to your online ordering and booking page. Gold club members clicking those links add about 7% to your turnover.   But the value of the emails is much greater than this. Many customers don’t click the link but go direct to the ordering page. They also order or book later. The purpose is to get them to think of you first when they want a meal.

Here’s more Gold Club value: members spend about 7% more than non-mem­bers. And they come more often.  Each Gold Club member is worth another £90 or so of repeat sales each year. Get a hundred or more Gold Club members and that adds up to an extra £10 000 of business a year. Not bad.

Mine that gold

Your Gold Club is a business generating machine. Consider this. If a hundred or so Gold Club members get you £10 000 of extra business, what will 200 members get you? Or 300? Think of members clicking all those emails, leading to more orders and bookings. Think about members spending 7% more than non-members.

It’s all about the numbers. As owner and manager you can take a few simple steps to recruit members to your Gold Club. It will give your restaurant’s business a huge boost. Here’s a summary:

• Recruit all customers as members, no matter where they came from – off the street, phone bookings or via online services such as Just Eat, Toptable
• Train your staff to mention your Gold Club to your customers
• Set up a registration promotion
• Just one website for your restaurant. Everyone goes through your Gold Club.
• Promote your website address on your menu and in your restaurant

So, are you getting the most from your Gold Club?

Parties make you happy

Parties are very profitable. You get a lot of people into your restaurant and more diners’ means more total profit. Bigger groups are cheaper to service per diner – one order, one service, several repeat dishes – so profits per diner are also bigger. Parties happen in addition to your regular diners, so you get more customers. In short, parties are happy events. You want more of them.

Market parties to your regulars

Regular customers who know and love your restaurant are most likely to book parties and bring in other diners. When customers join your Gold Club or loyalty programme, make sure to ask them for their birthday so that you have their permission to email them about coming to your restaurant for their birthday. This is a great opportunity for you to tell them about your restaurant.  Make sure to email your Gold Club members about any other party times such as Christmas, office parties, stag and hen parties, or sporting events taking place near your restaurant. In addition to email however, you should also promote your party packages on the Internet and your Facebook page.

Market your restaurant to your party go-ers

Parties consist of all kinds of people, many of whom won’t have been to your restaurant before. If they enjoy the occasion they will want to come back. Now is a good time to get them to become regulars by joining your Gold Club.

Hot Tip: You may want to distirbute promotional cards at your parties so that your new customers have a reason to join your Gold Club.

All the best for the holiday season.

Why people choose you is  a question I often talk about, but a key reason is a simple one: customers like you and they like your personal touch.  Job interviews often have a dreaded question, “Tell me about yourself”. The fact is, most of us hate talking about ourselves. But telling customers about your restaurant is one of the most effective forms of marketing you can do.

Tell them about it!

As I said, customers like you. Being human, they also want to know what’s going on. They are interested in hearing news about your restaurant. Restaurants are busy places with lots happening. If you tell customers what’s new and exciting at the restaurant, they will have another reason to come more often!

You have a new menu: point out some of the new dishes. You are closed for a refurbishment: Drop them an email to tell you have re-opened. They may not have noticed you were closed, but it doesn’t matter. It’s nice to be remembered and just getting the email may prompt a visit. Have you been back to your home country? People will be interested in hearing a short report – believe me! Staff member got married. You get a favourable review in a catering magazine. These are all newsworthy items.

Let’s celebrate!

As well as news that just happens, you can create your own events. These can be theme nights: Elvis nights, regional cuisine gala dinners, karaoke, midweek specials, early bird. Events create excitement which you can build on in your conversations with your customers.

Talk to your customers

Send out emails to your Gold Club members telling them about your events and major news items. And by the way, remember to keep recruiting customers to your restaurant’s Gold Club. This is when you will reap the benefit of more people to market to.

Facebook is also a great place to keep customers abreast of all your news and everyday events. Simply go to your Facebook page on a regular basis and add your short news  items. If you don’t have a Facebook page, get one! If you need help, I have created a guide with step by step instructions for setting up a Facebook account. Send me a note if you would like a copy.  To get the most out of it, you should update your Facebook page regularly with the latest news about your restaurant. It’s all really easy to do.

Jessie, owner of Posie’s café explains on her blog: “ Today one of our most loyal customers, Lucinda, came in and asked if she could use her Groupon that had expired the day before. I felt terrible, but I had to say no. She came to tell me later that she was really disappointed and that she never wanted to come back.  I explained to Lucinda, and now to all of you, how Groupon works for businesses, and why it has been the single worst decision I have ever made as a business owner…”

Jessie made the mistake of starting a promotion that could never make her money. The more business she got through the promotion the more money she lost. She ended up counting the days until the expiry date so she could pull the promotion .It’s too easy to make this kind of mistake. Let’s take a moment to discuss the right kind of marketing: sustainable marketing.

What is sustainable marketing?

Sustainable marketing contributes to your long term business value. Sustainable marketing pays for itself from first use. Sustainable marketing concentrates on getting customers to come to your restaurant in the first place and then keep returning. Sustainable marketing is not so interested in one off orders. Sustainable marketing builds your brand because that’s where the value of your business lies.

Tactical marketing

Another kind of marketing is tactical marketing. This picks up orders and bookings where it finds them. Groupon mentioned above is an example of tactical marketing. There’s nothing actually wrong with tactics: restaurant goers tend to be opportunistic and we need to find customers where we can. However, do make sure that your tactical marketing pays for itself first time, as there likely won’t be a second time. Second, put your main effort into switching these orders into long term customers – ie your sustainable marketing. This is where a sustainable marketing system in your restaurant or takeaway comes in.

What does sustainable marketing look like?

It is devoted to increasing your business value. It promotes your brand and your restaurant whether they order online, book by phone or come off the street. It gets customers to return again and again through email and Facebook.

How to convert tactical orders to sustainable customers

Very simple: point your customers towards your loyalty programme or Gold Club. Whether they have come off the street, via Groupon or Just Eat for example, they will benefit from the one-off registration promotion. This encourages them to return and we now have their details to continue marketing to them.

More for families

Families on holiday

Families are good customers for you as they spend more. They have more mouths to feed and more meals to buy. At the same time they have many expenses. They will only go to restaurants that give value for money. So, offer them a set meal deal: you get a good order and they get plenty of food.

Family-friendly food

Provide a good selection of dishes in your family meal deal. Children have strong likes and dislikes – some prefer plain food; others are happy with the same spicy food as adults. Parents worry about the healthiness of the food their children eat, so you need to be aware of the fat and sugar content of the dishes you include in the family menu.

You might consider including a small toy to make your family menu different.

If this sounds a bother, be re-assured that once you get it right, families will keep coming back to your restaurant. Parents will usually choose whatever makes their children happy.

Early dining

Families with children tend to eat earlier. Do you have an early bird offer to attract them to your restaurant? We can then promote this through your website. Even better they come off peak and you still have space for your regular crowd.

Teenagers are social

Much of what applies to younger children also applies to teenagers. They also have strong likes and dislikes and are very influential in deciding where the family eats. There’s even a Facebook campaign to get restaurants to supply crayons to teenagers! Which brings us to the other important thing about teenagers: they love Facebook. Do you have a well managed Facebook page for your restaurant?  If so, why not update it and add some comments to your Wall to prompt the conversation about your restaurant?

Catching the tourists

If you are lucky enough to live in a tourist area then don’t forget to catch the passing trade. It’s worth dropping off your menus at the local hotels and bed and breakfasts and perhaps slipping in an offer for the hotel staff and owners so they are more likely to recommend your restaurant. Not being familiar with your town, tourists rely heavily on your website and Facebook. Let us know if you would like us to do any special promotions.

Restaurant Marketing - Strategy vs Tactics

Are you sure your marketing your restaurant strategically? You may have come across coupon advertisers like Groupon, online ordering websites like Just Eat and discount dining clubs like Taste Card. These are all examples of tactical marketing.  I’ll explain what I mean by strategic and tactical marketing. Clearly strategy must be better than tactics? Well yes, but a good chess player or gen­eral knows how to use tactics to serve their strategy. Here’s how you can do the same.

What’s strategy and what’s tactics and why does it matter?

A great strategy does two things in particular that the other services I mentioned don’t do: it builds your brand and it builds your business by developing your customers – get them to come in the first place, return and spend more.

Brand is much misunderstood and often people think it has no value. More than just your logo or colour scheme, your brand is the reason why customers go to you rather than the restaurant next door. It’s the way in which your rest­aurant is good, and different from others. It’s your promise of what cust­omers can expect when they come to you. Your marketing strategy must pro­mote your brand exclusively; your website only mentions you, and especially not your competitors. Same with the ordering and booking system. Your marketing pro­gramme must give customers reasons to visit your restaurant and only your restaurant.  Groupon, Just Eat and Taste Card promote a brand: their own brand.

Groupon, Just Eat and Taste Card have their own custom­ers. They obviously want their customers to keep returning to them but are in­different to who supplies the food – it could be you, it could be your comp­et­itors. A powerful marketing strategy on the other hand strengthens your cust­omer relationship. Its focus is to get your customers to come once, come often and spend more each time. This is how great marketing delivers long term value and is strategic while the others deliver business with no long term value and are tactical.

Groupon can kill your profits

Only do a promotion if you can make a profit on it. Groupon style deals normally require a 50% discount and you pay about 50% of the remainder to Groupon. Only do it if you have a lot of spare capacity and can work within net prices that are 25% of your normal. “Customers” rarely come back. We’re working on a way to address this issue.

Online ordering and booking sites share your customers

Online ordering sites like Just Eat operate a list of restaurants in your area. Your customers are pooled with others. Let me repeat, your customers are shar­ed with your competitors. This could be useful for new restaurants with few customers and a weak brand. A well established restaurant with a good brand and lots of customers, might be sacrificing a queen to gain a pawn.  As a restaurant owner wanting to develop your brand and cust­om­ers, it would be a shame to lose its value like this. By the way, if you have a Just Eat sign in your window, remove it. You are simply telling your customers to eat with your competition.

Dining clubs make it difficult to manage capacity

In principle, Dining Clubs like the Taste Card are a good way to use up your excess capacity. Unfortunately it’s difficult to keep member visits to times when you really have space capacity.

So there you go.  In short, if you are going to use outsourced restaurant marketing, make sure it is a system that is builds your brand – and only your brand – and creates the most value from your customers by developing a direct relationship between them and your restaurant.  If you want me to recommend such as service, please let me know.

Barry

The answer is all of these things. And that’s because marketing never works in isolation. Every thing you do supports everything else. A customer might see some of your Facebook pagebut not intend to straight away. But when the office starts discussing where to go for their meal out, your restaurant goesto the top of the list. If a customer comes once to your restaurant, make sure to capture their details because there’s a high chance they will come back again. There are few instant successes in marketing but doing a bit of a lot of things in a consistent way will pay dividends.  Let’s take a moment to discuss how.

Your brand

I can’t stress enough how important your brand is to your marketing. Your brand is the reason why customers come to you, and not the Golden Wok next door. Your brand is your promise to your customers and potential customers so they know what to expect when they come to your restaurant. If your marketing gives customers a consistent impression of what your restaurant is like, they will hopefully want to come to you some day. Wanting to come is the essential first step towards getting a real customer. All, and I mean all, of your marketing should support your brand.

Several companies offer marketing services of variable usefulness. See that your marketing budget and effort goes into promoting you.  Always mention what’s good and what’s different about your restaurant, so customers have reasons to come to you and not just any old restaurant.

Integrate your marketing

Make sure your promotions are on your Facebook page, your menu points to your website, your website points to your Facebook page and adopts the best customer comments. Your online table booking and takeaway ordering recruits customers to your loyalty database. All the time you are reinforcing your marketing message

This obviously could be difficult to achieve unless you have a complete marketing system that does this kind of integration seamlessly behind the scenes. You just need to ensure that other aspects of your marketing – for example your menu, which is one of your most powerful marketing tools – integrates in the same way.

Good luck and get out there and market your takeaway!

Barry

Start the conversation

So what can Facebook do for your restaurant? The same sort of things as you do with your personal account. It’s a space where you and your customers can talk. Use your Facebook page to tell your customers all about the restaurant, your specials and any events you are holding. They can give you feedback on your food and service and share their thoughts with you and other customers. This creates a buzz that can really benefit your restaurant.

It’s not just the people taking part in the conversation. Others are listening in. Your restaurant is getting discussed and it’s getting better known – thanks to your Facebook page. And because you steer the conversation, you can encourage people to mention all the good things about your restaurant. Facebook boosts your reputation.

Use Facebook to benefit your restaurant

The core of your Facebook page is the Wall. This is where the conversation about your restaurant takes place. You should take an active part in the con­vers­ation, to generate interest and encourage other people to join in. Direct the conversation in the way you want it to go. Update your Wall regularly, whether it’s telling people about events, passing on news about your staff, or changes to your menu. Simply thanking Facebook members for contributing to the conversation or submitting a review is one of the easiest things you can do. It makes people feel welcome and encourages a positive feedback.

The other key aspect of your Facebook page is its fans. You want as many as possible. More fans means more exposure for the Facebook page and your restaurant. It also means more people listening in and hearing about your marketing. This should lead to more customers through your door. Make sure your menu tells customers about your Facebook page.

Your Facebook page is an ideal way to promote your events. Events are a good way of drumming up business in your slack periods. Events can be one offs like a Karaoke Night or the Oscars or weekly Two for One Tuesdays. They can also be special offers on your sit-in or takeaway menus. All of your fans will automatically receive invitations – another reason for having as many fans as possible..

Facebook is part of your total marketing system

Your Facebook page is just one aspect of your restaurant marketing system. Use it to promote your restaurant, your website and your specials.

The statistics

I recently conducted a survey and asked diners when they decided to order and why. The results showed that only 24% are real regulars. The rest are on their first visit or come oc­casion­ally. It doesn’t matter too much how many of the remaining 76% are new or occasional customers. The important thing is to get as many as possible to become regulars.

I next asked “When did you decide to order?” An astonishing 63% ordered on the spur of the moment, which absolutely highlights that almost no-one has to order a takeaway.  It also shows why the  convenience of ordering or through a Facebook page are so important. People can act on an impulse.

Just 13% of customers use one take­away regularly This is a fact of the business un­fort­unately, even for your regular cust­omers. But it would sure be nice if they came to your rest­aurant more often.

Getting customers to choose you

It might seem a bit gloomy. Customers don’t have to order from a restaurant in the first place. If they do go to a restaurant, most of the time they don’t order from you.

But the great news is that you can do something about it! Get customers to choose you and you will see a big boost in your business. Even better your efforts will be sticky. Get a customer to return once and they will likely come back again and again.

Get marketing!

This a plea to get marketing. I have dedicates this entire blog to giving you practical tips on how to do just that. Tell customers about your restaurant. Tell them what’s good and what different about your restaurant. And most important, why they will experience something special when they dine with you.  Give them reasons to come to you. The more, the better.

To help you do that, you need to implement a marketing system.  This system should include three things: a way to find new customers, a loyalty programme to keep them coming back again and again and means of increasing the sales to each customer. I have talked about all of these topics in other posts and the WebTV show, so hopefully you know there’s a whole raft of things you can do. A little but often is a good strategy.

So remember, to get out there and Market Your Takeaway!

Business is not what it should be. We need new customers. Even more important, we need our existing customers to come more often. How do we encourage them to come? Tasty food at a decent price is all very well but it’s not enough to get more customers through your door. So you give them something: a discount, a free bottle of wine, a plastic toy for the kids …You give to get. You give your customers an incentive and you get more business from them. Great! We’re getting the hang of this marketing thing! Now let’s take a moment to consider an idea that could be just a bit smarter again.

They should give too

You have given them an incentive to come to your restaurant and you have got some business out of it. But you might be missing a trick. Why not get your customers to give you something in exchange for your incentive? Three reasons:
(1) You get a useful benefit;
(2)  Customers value the deal not the discount;
(3) You keep your profit margins up.

Useful benefit

To qualify for your offer, your customers should do something for you. How about Early Bird, or Two for One Tuesdays? All restaurants have peak time. To get the offer customers come off peak so you can keep your peak times free for full paying customers. Invite a friend offers are a good way of getting new customers to your restaurant.

Most important, make sure customers agree to further marketing from you from you before you give them an offer. You can’t market to them unless you know who they are. So, if a customer wants an offer he has to give you his contact details in exchange. A well run loyalty programme makes this easy for you.  If you don’t have one, get one.

Value the deal, not the discount

Deals are better than discounts. It’s a good thing if customers think about what they need to do to get your offer. It means they don’t expect to get a discount every time and for no reason. This is your consolation if you hate discounts because they devalue your product. Give to get keeps the value where it was.

Protect your profit margins

Discounts can kill your margins. If you have margins of 20% then a 10% discount removes most of your profit. But you can get your profit back again by setting a minimum amount to spend. Set the minimum above your average value – customers will target that amount and spend a bit more than is necessary to go over the threshold. They are happy to get a deal and you’re happy to get a bigger purchase.  A well run online ordering system will help you set the appropriate amount and ensure it is met every time.

Make sure you have a give to get marketing system

Ensuring you get full value out of all your offers and campaigns is a major task. If you need advice on how to do this, please send me a note via “Ask Barry”.