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“We understand restaurants and how they operate...We know...that they need to be as effective as possible when it comes to using email tools.”
Restaurateurs have long recognized the value of repeat customers and how important it is to persuade satisfied customers to continue to return to the restaurant. Compared to the cost of marketing needed to acquire a new guest, these regulars are the mainstay of a growing customer base and provide some insulation from seasonal fluctuations.
Given the importance of loyal diners to your financial well-being, what’s the best way to encourage them to come back as often as possible? Email blasts (sending out a promotional email to a large list) that entice regulars back into the restaurant is probably the most cost-effective proposition. Most restaurants now gather email addresses from customers, some obsessively and some more casually. These email addresses, freely given by satisfied diners, are the foundation of an email distribution and marketing list that can provide a really effective way of keeping those regulars up-to-date with your events and promotions.
You can of course, just do-it-yourself and send out a simple email to your customer list from your Hotmail account, but in reality this is not a very effective way to go with this method and you have no idea if anyone out there in cyberspace is reading your promotion for this month’s wine dinner or whatever. Worse, if you are not very careful you can fall foul of the increasingly draconian anti-Spam regulations and wind up on America’s Most Wanted list by accident.
This is where email marketing companies come in. They offer restaurants a range of value added services, including very effective tracking of not only who reads your email, but who opts-out and who replies. In addition many have tools to help you with design and content.
There are many marketing companies who offer a variety of services ranging from basic email list management to full service Internet marketing. This can including reputation management, web site design, web site hosting, email blasts and more. You can choose the company that offers the level of service you need or you can work with a value added partner who has already selected a service provider and then does some or all of the work for you. For example they can design your emails, write copy for promotions and integrate email promotions into other elements of your marketing mix.
I talked to several companies and quickly learned that there are three different approaches: highly tailored services for restaurants, basic email services that would work for any kind of business and full service companies that are capable of handling your on-line marketing from soup-to-nuts (go on I am allowed one small pun, wait until we get to Spam!).
I started my research with Fishbowl Marketing who are based in Alexandria, VA. Laura Gosse, VP Fishbowl Local told me, “We provide services to over twelve thousand restaurant locations.” Fishbowl was founded seven years ago by a restaurateur and is staffed by restaurant veterans. “We understand restaurants and how they operate,” claimed Gosse. “We know that they don’t have much time and that they need to be as effective as possible when it comes to using email tools like ours for marketing.”
Starting with a very slick web site, Fishbowl seems to have identified the pain points for time-strapped restaurateurs trying to get going with email marketing. They provide terrific services for clients, including printed sign-up forms and tips on how to get your guests to sign them, data entry of names and emails, restaurant-centric templates and automatic welcome and birthday emails. They have a department who handles replies to guests who respond to your email blasts.
This high level of service does not command a premium price. For a small set-up charge and reasonable monthly fee you appear to get great value. The downside of their monthly plan is that if you don’t send out promotions or emails regularly you are paying for something you are not using. However this can motivate you to implement a consistent campaign. Email contact with your guests is such a powerful tool it can easily pay for itself and you should be using it month in and month out.
Endorsed by The National Restaurant Association and twenty two other state associations, Fishbowl claims to be the market leader in restaurant email marketing solutions. There are discounts available for NRA members that are definitely worth looking at.
"Emails, freely given by satisfied diners, are the foundation of an
email distribution and marketing list."
The second company I located was Blizzard Internet Marketing. Based in Glenwood Springs, CO, Blizzard is a full service company offering a broad range of capabilities designed to work for restaurants. “We help hotels, resorts and restaurants build successful hospitality marketing plans around email and the Web,” said Trent Blizzard, Blizzard’s CEO. “We specialize in helping with all aspects of on-line marketing including web presence, email marketing and reputation management,” he continued. I had never heard of reputation management, so Trent described how Blizzard helps hospitality companies be aware of - and respond to - information about them that is posted on blogs and on review web sites. We all know how damaging a bad review on one of these sites can be. It is clear from our conversation that Blizzard is at the upper-end of the web marketing spectrum and best suited for larger hotels, resorts and groups of restaurants.
“For restaurants looking for a turn-key solution, Blizzard has a complete range of capabilities, including design and implementation,” said Trent. “Promotion is the key to funneling on-line demand for your website and of course your services,” he continued.
Blizzard has well over two thousand hospitality clients and clearly knows the industry. If you are looking for a one-stop-shop and have a larger restaurant or regional chain then they could definitely be worth serious consideration.
Next on my list was a local company called Constant Contact. Based in Waltham, MA, Constant Contact is a well known and respected provider of email marketing services. They position themselves as an easy-to-use, easy-to-afford service for creating, managing and delivering emails to your contact list.
Not specifically focused on restaurants, they have more than one hundred thousand customers and a growing range of services, including on-line survey tools. These let you conduct surveys of your customers just like the large national chains for as little as fifteen dollars a month.
“We provide an email marketing tool that’s rich in functionality yet easy-to-use and affordable so that restaurateurs can quickly create and send their own professional email marketing communications and see instant results.” said Gail Goodman, Constant Contact's CEO. “We offer restaurant customers dozens of HTML-based email templates designed specifically for restaurants. These templates offer restaurateurs the ability to tailor the template to match their restaurant brand by including logos, colors, and fonts that reflect the personality of their individual businesses.”
Constant Contact also encourages business partners to provided value added services based on their email marketing system. The partners can then add value with custom templates, clever designs and by doing some of the grunt work like entering names and emails to the system. For a busy restaurant owner this makes a great deal of sense.
The last company iContact, based in Durham, NC, is similar in many respects to Constant Contact and offers comparable services. Their website and interface is really clean looking and simple to use. They include a survey capability for free in their packages, which start at a very reasonable $10 per month for up to 500 names. They also offer RSS feeds (news feeds) which are becoming a hot topic as email gets overused and restaurants look for other ways to reach diners.
In addition iContact is building communities where "foodies" and others can share experiences and recommendations.
Each company has their own approach and differing services. They range from basic, easy to use systems like iContact and Constant Contact through the more restaurant focused and service based Fishbowl to the full-service capabilities of Blizzard. As they say, “you pays your money and takes your choice.” Which one is right for you, depends on how much time you have, how technically savvy you are and how developed your marketing plans are in terms of the need to create brand awareness.
About Fishbowl Marketing: Fishbowl is a leader in permission-based email marketing for the restaurant industry, providing services to over 12,000 restaurant locations. For more information, please visit www.fishbowl.com
About Blizzard Internet Marketing Inc.: Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. is a leading provider of hotel Internet marketing services to the hospitality industry. Their services include website design, promotion, web hosting, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), link building and direct e-mail marketing. For more information, please visit www.blizzardinternet.com
About Constant Contact: Constant Contact, Inc. helps small businesses, associations, and non-profit organizations connect with their customers, clients, and members. For more information, please visit www.constantcontact.com
About iContact: iContact allows businesses, non-profit organizations, and associations create, publish, and track email newsletters, surveys, blogs, autoresponders, and RSS feeds. For more information, please visit www.icontact.com
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