|
Email Marketing Is the Way to Go |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by Christine St. Pierre
|
|
Friday, 03 August 2007 16:07 |
In a follow-up to three articles about email marketing in last month's issue, we contacted restaurants that are currently using emails to advertise, offer incentives and highlight upcoming events. While they want customers to pick their restaurant over another, it's important to send out just enough information to subscribers without overloading their inboxes and frustrating them. For these restaurants, it seems to be a cost effective means to grow their businesses.
With 14 restaurants to promote, and another one opening later this year, Stephen Silverstein, the founder and president of Not Your Average Joe's, began using email marketing two and a half years ago. The chain sends emails 10 times per year to more than 100,000 subscribers, and boasts an open rate of 60%. The company's marketing department develops the email and works with Fishbowl Marketing to send it out and manage their list. "A good program, like Fishbowl's, will come up with templates and make it pretty easy to get it done," explained Silverstein. While two of the 10 emails offer new menus, others will include recipe contests, a welcome gift to new subscribers (20% off your bill) or a birthday gift (free entrée and dessert). While Silverstein doesn't feel there's a downside to using this type of marketing, he does offer some advice: "You have to be careful, like any other frequency or rewards program, that you don't create something you can't unwind, and find out that it's too expensive for you." Most restaurants have no way of talking with a guest, but an email club offers that communication, and allows the restaurant to get feedback and conduct surveys. "Having an email list is probably an important and necessary tool at this point in time," he added. "You need to find a balance between making the email meaningful to the customer - so that they don't unsubscribe - and making the promotion so valuable you can't afford it."
At UpStairs on the Square, owner Mary-Catherine Deibel has been using email for her restaurant's news since it opened in 2002. Sending them out herself through her email address book became too cumbersome, and now the restaurant uses Beansprout's services, though she does spend a few hours writing the content for each email. About 8,000 customers receive the emails "a couple of times a month," and the topics range from holiday menus to wine tastings to suggestions to catch the Red Sox game there. Depending on the time of year, Deibel explained that they have open rates up to 40%, and they see an immediate response with email replies or phone calls. At the end of the meal, customers are handed comment cards. "We really drum it into our servers and managers that once we are incredibly lucky to have these people walk in the door, we want to capture their info [email address] and make them part of our family," Deibel explained. "It's a matter of constantly reminding and coaching the servers on how to, in a very friendly way, get an email address and remind them that we don't give away customers' information."
Even a TV show about restaurants finds email marketing a necessity. According to on-air personality Jenny Johnson, associate producer of NECN's TV Diner, "I really don't think there are any downsides. I think it's important for us to take advantage of this technology and learn to count on it." The show sends out a weekly newsletter to about 100,000 viewers with an average open rate ranging from 50% to 70%. While Johnson spends time researching and choosing pieces for the show, she spends a few hours writing the newsletter herself each week, and works with The Castle Group for the blasts. In each newsletter, Johnson provides a run-down of the upcoming show and tries not to make it too wordy. She writes about that week's reviews and guest features, and provides access to recipes and reviews from the previous week, as well as links to the restaurant's websites. Getting comments from viewers even before the show airs lets Johnson know that viewers are indeed reading the newsletter. She's also keeping an eye on her own inbox. "I pay attention to the other emails and newsletters I get now; maybe they can help me out with my show," she noted.
Also working with Beansprout, Mary Prince, co-owner of Tomasso Trattoria & Entoeca and Panzano Provviste e Vino, spends up to four hours each week producing two email newsletters, which includes writing the copy and taking the photos. "For us, the email campaign has established and helped to reinforce the synergy between what we do at the restaurant and what we do at the store," she muses. The first, "tomasso's table" was created when the restaurant opened in 2004 and started out as a monthly newsletter, and has evolved to an email announcement for special events, like wine dinners and tastings and scotch tastings. It goes out when the need arises for store events and is news oriented so people know what's happening. For instance, when famous wine producer Giovanni Manetti of Fontodi Winery from the Chianti region in Italy made his New England debut to personally show his wine at a wine dinner, an email announcement was sent out. A weekly wine newsletter called "Panzano Vino Express" was created when the store opened in early 2006, and is sent out every Tuesday to more than 1,000 subscribers. Customers at the store or visitors to the website continually add to the list of subscribers. The open rate for their newsletters is at least 40%, with very few people unsubscribing. She noted, "I would caution anyone who is doing an email marketing campaign to be careful of sending out too much stuff which could frustrate their subscribers." Prince added, "You have to be really careful that what you're sending them is fun to read, important, and has something of interest. That's always a challenge."
For many restaurants, email marketing may prove to be the way to go. With the help of marketing companies doing the back-end work, it's cost effective, relatively easy and gives the restaurants an audience. And an audience that can eventually translate into a full restaurant.
|
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 31 March 2008 16:12 )
|
|
General Business