Email Marketing Ideas For Local Restaurants

There are two steps to do Email marketing for any type of local business: the first one is list building and the second is to run email campaigns.

For local restaurant businesses, there are many ways of building your email list. Here are just some examples:

1. Include an email sign up on the comment card and bring them with the check to the clients in person when they finish the meal.

2. Insert a card promoting your email campaigns with your take-out and delivery orders. Simply put your site URL in it and tell people to go there to sign up for a special deal or something.

3. Sign people up for your email newsletter when they make the reservation. If you can have a reservation form on your site, it’ll be even better because people already become your email subscribers before they become your clients.

Now comes the email campaigns. What you should include in your email newsletters. Here are some ideas:

1. Menu. It could be your seasonal menu, menu change, or ingredients in your dishes;

2. Coupons. A small discount, exclusive to your email subscribers, will keep customers coming back;

3. Directions. Provide a link to driving routes, tips on parking, and public transportation information;

4. Gift cards. If you have them, speak it out. People are always looking for great gift ideas;

5. Pictures. Colorful pictures of food are the best enticement;

6. And don’t forget to mention your reservation phone number and best of all online reservation form.

For additional information on online marketing for local restaurant, please contact your local online marketing expert.

How Local Business Can Turn an Exchange or Return Into A Big Upsell

The Adidas manager made a big mistake because although I got item exchanged, I feel very bad about their store and about “Adidas” the brand. They won’t be happy either because they took that damage item anyway. Plus I would no longer shop with them and I will tell everyone about it. Especially with the internet, things get worse more quickly.

Their poorly trained store associates and sales manager make Adidas lose way more sales which they’ll never see or realized. They fail to realize that customers who ask for exchange or return are still buying customers. They are the customers walking in, offer the store another chance to upsell. They are the buying traffics, just like free internet traffics driven by a buying keyword (it could be a negative keyword in this case, but it is still a buying keyword). While many other customers who walk by but never walk in, are like free internet traffic with no conversion which means no sale.

Actually things can be totally different. If I were the manager, I could turn such case into a big profit for the store. Instead of saying: “sorry we can’t accept that exchange or return, for (whatever reason)”, the smarter way is to explain that “we really want to help, but for case like this, we really can’t do the exchange. BUT!”

Good things always start with the magic “BUT”. “But we would like to give you a special deal today to make it up, just for you!” “How about I giving you a special $10 discount when you buy $100 today?” That way, I guarantee store not only save that customer but make way more sales. The store won’t have to take that $10 lost, and the customer will feel happy too because he gets a good deal! That’s what I called win-win solution for the business and the customer.

Or even though customers don’t want to take that special deal, just refund or exchange the item. That way you save those customers. Who says they wouldn’t buy hundreds from you in the near future!

Local retail business owners shall learn the lesson from this. It shows how you could turn an exchange or return into a big upsell to make big profit. Best of all, to get a happy customer, who will shop at your store ever and ever again.

How A $10 Exchange Ruin Customer Relationship Totally!

A true story happened to me yesterday afternoon. It was about how a little $10 exchange turns a royal customer into a raged customer.

It was on September 4, 2009. I walked into the Adidas Langley Store (20202 66 Avenue Langley, BC) with a receipt and a T-shirt. Because I found a small but an obvious hole on that T-shirt after I washed it the first time the night before. I like the color and design of that T-shirt so I decided to ask for exchange. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal but I was wrong.

 

When I talked to an associate about the problem and asked for exchange, she ran to the manager to confirm. After 5 minutes she came back and told me that they couldn’t do that. Then the manager came up and said:”we couldn’t take it back because it is not the manufacture defect. It must be something in your washing machine which made that damage. Something sharp or a zipper…” But the truth is there is no pin, no hard sharp object, no button, no nothing in the washer except several T-shirts just like that one. How could a damage happened to that T-shirt alone?

As I insisted, that manager finally agreed to exchange it if I promised not to exchange or return ever again if same thing happens. So she means I make the damage by purpose?! I was raged. I got my exchange item and rushed out of the store.

To be honest, I was planning to buy several T-shirts and shoes for my husband and my kids after that exchange on that day. Seriously, it’s just a $10 case, but because of its “nice” professional customer service, Adidas lost over $200 sales. Maybe the manager was right that it was not the manufacture defect. But nothing worse than losing a customer even though she was right.

However they don’t know things can be totally different if they handle it the other way around smartly…

Does Your Business Have Multichannel Marketing?

In the early days of online shopping, the big retail chains were slow to invest in an e-commerce channel because they thought it would cannibalize their store sales. Eventually they realized the Internet was not a threat, but an opportunity. Now retail chains account for a sizable share of total online sales.

Multichannel retailers (with retail chains or catalog/call centers) accounted for 56% of the Web sales generated by the Internet Retailer Top 500 Websites, and the magazine estimated that the sales of the 500 largest Websites represented 74% of total sales by online retailers in 2008.

Retailers covet multichannel shoppers because they spend more than single-channel shoppers.

Today, many retailers conduct business in multiple channels—brick-and-mortar stores, Websites, catalogs and call centers—but few are adept at coordinating these channels.

The Multichannel Retailing enables retailers to offer a superior shopping experience and gain more loyal customers—and more profit.

Coupon Lovers Surge, Coupon Fraud Rise

North American (US and Canada) Internet users have responded to the economic downturn by using the Web to save money. Coupons have played a large role.

According to the “State of the US Online Retail Economy in Q1 2009” study, from comScore, online coupon services have enjoyed a huge surge in popularity during the recession. Since March 2008 year-over-year growth has been steady, and often substantial—reaching 46% in December 2008.

comScore also reported that searches for the word “coupons” were up 90% during the same period. And one-quarter of Internet users surveyed said coupon sites had been very important to them in the past three months.

Unfortunately, along with the rise in coupon usage has come a rise in coupon fraud. However the cost of coupon fraud in the tens of millions of dollars for US businesses alone.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Bud Miller of the CIC (Coupon Information Corp.).

Of course, consumers still do most of their coupon-clipping in the physical world rather than online. Nearly one-half of respondents in the comScore study got coupons from Sunday fliers. In-store coupons and coupons printed on receipts or packaging were also popular.

About three in 10 consumers reported getting coupons either from an online service or a brand’s Website.

There is a downside to online coupons, however. The Web makes it difficult to control how coupons are printed and transferred, causing problems for some consumer manufacturers.

Nevertheless, coupons are a proven way to get consumers out to the store and into your product.

37% of people get coupon in the mail; 31% using online coupon service; 29% get coupon from merchant’s brand site.

Thinking of making digital coupons for your local business and publish them online? Email me for free consultation.