Filed under: Restaurants, Running a better business | Tags: customer feedback, online restaurant marketing, restaurant social media, Restaurants
You have a venue and a menu, waiters and waitresses, customers and critic’s approval, but do you have an online presence? Putting your restaurant on the map is no longer just about good food and ambiance; it is crucial to build a relationship with your customers after they have paid their bills and gone home.
Make it easy for your clients to find you online. Customers want to know if you have reservations available, what your hours are, what is on your current menu, if you deliver, if orders can be placed online, and what tonight’s specials are. Having the right terms on your website may make it easier for this information to be found quickly through a search engine. This can include search-engine optimized (SEO) site content as well as paid ads through products like Google AdWords. Beyond your restaurant name, make sure your menu, promotions, and specialties are easily searchable online as well, to ensure that diners seeking something particular find you first.
Ever find yourself miles from home and craving good pizza? If you’re not in your own neighborhood, you might not know where the nearest or tastiest pizzeria can be found. These days, your first move is probably to whip out your smartphone and start searching for the area’s best pizza shop. But what if the area’s best pizzeria has a website that you can’t open on your mobile device? You are left without store hours, delivery options, or menu access. Instead of taking a risk, you might decide to check out another nearby shop, and the first pizzeria loses a customer.
Why let your own business suffer the same fate? Your next client is very likely to be a mobile device user and may be looking up your restaurant right now on a smartphone. Optimizing your website to satisfy your mobile users may require changes from your regular site, but it can make a world of difference to your business when they can easily search your location, menu, and hours on their smartphone.
What about customers right in your neighborhood? Many mobile searches target a particular geographic location; specifically, a one mile radius. Allowing customers to use their mobile devices as a GPS tool makes it easier for your diners to find you quickly.
Trying to get closer to your customers? You can be right in their phone every day. Social media isn’t new to most restaurant owners, but it is often an underutilized tool in the quest for building a stronger relationship with your customers. You don’t have to force your way into a customer’s home via email to let them know the story behind your brand.
Reviews and Feedback Your reputation lies in the hands of your reviewers online. Why not show your customers that you care by giving them the opportunity to give you feedback? Using mobile surveys, you can easily create a positive experience by allowing customers to comment on their experience and share a good experience with their friends. Giving mobile surveys is also a great way to easily collect email addresses and build your email marketing list of opt-in customers.
Tools like Facebook let you share what’s special about your brand on a daily basis, not just the special you’re offering this weekend. Whether it is the fact that you’ve been family-run for three generations, your world-class macaroni and cheese, or your Friday night jazz ensemble, social media tools share information, not simply ‘news.’ It is also easy for your customers to express their love of your business and share it with friends!
If you’re sharing links and information over email or social media or even if you are relying on search terms to direct customers to your site, you will want to know what works. Trend-spotting is key for developing a successful online marketing strategy.
This doesn’t mean that you need to start crunching numbers at the end of a hard workday; tools like link shrinkers and Google Analytics allow you to measure activity and see how your customers choose to interact with your brand online. Are you appearing in searches but not connecting with customers? Do most of your online orders happen after you send your weekly email? Check the trends to see where your visits increase and decrease and what online activity is associated with those changes.
Filed under: Email Marketing, Running a better business | Tags: email list building, email lists, restaurant email marketing
When customers provide their names and contact information to your business, they do so with certain expectations. While some of these expectations are simply classified as social etiquette, others fall more cleanly under federal laws such as the CAN-SPAM act. As a client-centric business, you would be wise to meet both your customers’ social standards and the legal requirements associated with customer sign-ups.
There are certain key elements to your customer signup marketing policy:
Privacy policy. As you collect customers’ personal information online or in person, you need to have a plan established to let customers know who will see this information. Meet the legal requirements by having and publishing a privacy policy. Guarantee your customers’ peace of mind: ensure that you will keep that information as protected as possible.
Collect only what you need. Remember that it is safer for your business if you collect the least personal information necessary. This is especially true when dealing with children. The Federal Trade Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act sets guidelines for companies marketing products or services to children under thirteen. As a result, your site registration may require parental consent or may be prohibited from collecting information if the user is below thirteen years old.
Protect your brand. Keep your intellectual property safe by developing and requiring acceptance of terms of use before using your site. This can assure your business arbitration in disputes with customers.
Don’t abuse your users. You treat your clients with utmost respect, why not treat your online audience the same? Don’t hassle them by asking for all their information upfront: layer registration requirements to collect more information as they go deeper into your website. While the FTC regulates email marketing, it doesn’t ban unsolicited emails. Meet the requirements of disclosure and unsubscribe, but remember not to harass your users via email.
Take no for an answer. Legally, you must! To comply with federal regulations, you must maintain a suppression list, tracking every request to no longer receive emails or texts. If you outsource your email or textmarketing, make sure your vendor knows not to violate a user’s unsubscribe request.
Text Safely. Text marketing must include a ‘standard text rates’ apply disclosure as well as opt-in and unsubscribe tools. The legal intricacies of text marketing are constantly evolving.
Consistency counts. Keep your emails, websites, and coupons consistent, especially expiration dates and other stipulations.
Full disclosure. With social media growing bigger every day, it’s only natural to want to tap into that market by encouraging brand ambassadors to promote your product on their site. Remember that laws require disclosure if your business pays anyone to endorse or discuss the product on a blog, Facebook, or Twitter.
While you do not necessarily need to obtain legal counsel before developing your marketing plan, it may be a good idea to further research best practices and any laws which affect how you capture email signups.
Filed under: Email Marketing, Restaurants, Running a better business | Tags: customer service surveys, email list building, Email Marketing, mobile surveys
What’s more valuable than being able to reach your customers at any hour of the day? Sharing the right information in the most effective manner. Your business has ample opportunity to contact customers thanks to the prevalence of email marketing, but misuse of this tool can be fatal for your customers’ interest in your product.
Before you send out your next marketing email, be sure to read these tips on optimizing your email marketing to boost your business’ sales.
Give your clients what they want. While you might think new restaurant flatware or a recently replaced carpet is interesting stuff, your customers want to know about what’s in it for them. Customers want to hear about events, discounts, promotions and specials.
Be personal and relevant. When you collect email addresses, ask for other information as well. You will delight your customers with birthday greetings and rewards. The email promotions you send should be available at the locations most convenient to the client. Don’t pester your customers with promotions they likely won’t be able to use! Similarly, keep your promotions timely. Send seasonal specials as the season kicks off, when your customers have the time of year in mind.
Make an impression. Email boxes fill up quickly with company promotions. Make your email marketing stand out! Use a stimulating headline to ensure your message doesn’t go straight to the recycle bin. Highlight the purpose of the email, be it a sale, a promotion, or a new product, right in the headline. Of course, getting a customer to open the email isn’t the end of the battle. A well-written paragraph or two may adequately share your message, but only if the client bothers to read it. Consider adding design elements like photography and art to share your message efficiently and effectively. Of course, keep it short! Customers care about what’s in it for them.
Don’t be a pest. No one wants to hear from you daily. The more emails you send, the more your customers will find themselves deleting your messages as ‘spam.’ Determine what works best for your business, but set a regular interval. Maybe you have a weekly special that is worthy of highlighting; in that case, a weekly email may be perfect. Setting a seasonal menu? Bi-monthly emails will let your customers know what to expect as the menu changes. Try to be consistent with your frequency so customers know when to expect to hear from you. There aren’t any consistent published guidelines regarding email frequency, however one good rule of thumb is to base it on how frequently your customer makes a buying decision in your type of industry. It is important to keep an eye on your unsubscribe list. If your rate of unsubscribes goes up, you may be emailing too frequently.
Diversify and integrate. Email is effective, but many clients are proficient in and active on social media channels. Encourage customers to sign up for your Facebook page or to be a Twitter follower. This allows customers to become more connected to your brand and your business. Speak mobile fluently. With mobile device and smartphone use growing by the day, it becomes more necessary that your emails translate fully to mobile screens. This includes your text, images, and links.
Let them forward. Never forget to include an ‘share’ link in every email. This allows your customers to share their love of your product with friends. Word of mouth in the digital age extends to email forwarding!
Segmented Lists segmenting addresses based on interests or demographics can help your emails be more relevant, especially when promoting events or specials.
