Mobile worked for my restaurant 31 January 2011
Owning a restaurant is tough. I’ve done it – always worrying whether your employees will show up on time, making sure the bills are paid, and keeping the dining room looking perfect. There is hardly any time to worry about how you are going to promote your business and stay in touch with your customers once they are done with their meal. After years of running the same newspaper ads, direct mail pieces and even dabbling with email and Facebook, I was on the hunt for a new way to connect with my customers and drive business. I decided to try this new invention called mobile marketing. This was way back in 2007 when iPhones were brand new and mobile had only a handful of success stories.
Finding the right company was the next challenge. I needed to find a company that was affordable, capable, and had the resources to assist me in the process. Thankfully, I found such a company, and together we were able to get started in under an hour. After the initial training and strategy session, I put up a few posters and table tents that said, “Text PICKLE to 99000 for a great coupon instantly!” Once the customer sent the text message, they received a message back in just a few seconds that gave them a free soft drink with any sandwich purchase. The customer was happy because it gave them something they probably would have purchased. I was happy because I now had their phone number for future communication and it only cost me about a buck for the soda.
Once the customer opted-in to my database, I was able to send them messages to drive business during my slow Mondays and Tuesdays. I would send messages out every week with a nearly 30% redemption rate and a predictable bump in business. Each message I sent out had a unique redemption code that was validated through my Point-of-Sale. I didn’t have overuse, fraud or employee theft, all obvious concerns when dealing with an electronic coupon.
Not every message was a coupon, though. Sometimes I would send out a trivia question and only reward the first 10 winners. Other times I would send out a short survey to get my customers’ opinions. The surveys allowed me to reward the customers that passed out high praise, as well as address small problems before they became larger issues. Changing things up and keeping everyone interested was important for me and it kept my numbers high.
After a few months, I had nearly 1,000 subscribers and I started to use a few more keywords to track how my other forms of advertising were doing. I used one keyword for the local newspaper, one for the radio spots and yet another for the direct mail pieces I had in place already. The cost to add this tracking mechanism was minimal and it gave me real insight into what ads were working and where I was getting the most bang for my buck! I continued to add subscribers and compared my return to the other forms of advertising I was using. As you can guess, my mobile community was by far the most effective.
My advice is to start using mobile marketing now! Most of your competition is still oblivious, so it’s a great chance to grab market share and build a one-to-one relationship with your customers–and some of theirs.
Here are a few tricks to the mobile marketing trade that I learned along the way:
1) Have a plan! Developing a 6-month plan with a knowledgeable consultant is the best way to ensure success. When things get busy in the kitchen, the marketing plan will be the first to suffer, so having your messages pre-planned is the way to go.
2) Kickstart your subscriber database. Advertise a mobile sweepstakes or have an instant win to get people to join your mobile community quickly.
3) Keep your employees in the know. Your employees will be your best mobile community advocates, so make sure they are showing customers how easy it is to join and talking about the great deals they will receive. Share which coupons are being sent, their redemption codes and any expiration dates.
4) Spice it up. Nobody wants to receive the same 20% off coupon every week. Try out different offers to see what has the greatest impact. Keep things interesting by sending out trivia questions, scavenger hunts and ringtones.
5) Make them feel special. Send offers that are exclusive to your mobile community and not just the same specials available to everyone else. People talk! If one table receives a free appetizer by showing the server their phone, the table next to them will be very curious why they didn’t get such treatment.