Direct Mail for Restaurants – Restaurant Direct Mail

Direct mail marketing for restaurants will help you get your share of the $440.1 billion dollars Americans will spend in restaurants in 2012. Creative advertising, specialty restaurant direct mail marketing and customer management can take a bite out of your competition and boost your bottom line.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS?

For restaurants, offering quality food, providing outstanding service and greeting regulars warmly is standard operating procedure. But do you encourage frequent business by compiling customer lists for staying in touch? Satisfied customers are most likely to become your regulars, whether it’s for special occasions or every Tuesday night.

Compiling a list of previous customers is the ideal way to offer specials, announce new dishes, share recipes or invite them to a special wine dinner or other event. Start compiling your customer database by using information from a guest book, reservation lists, drawing sign-ups or comment cards.

Once you’ve started, it’s vital to keep it going. Regularly adding names will build your list; keeping addresses current and eliminating duplications is just as important. At least once a year your list should be compared with The National Change of Address (NCOA) records; this process will save an enormous amount of time and money on your promotions – while keeping your mailing lists current.

RESTAURANT MARKETING – CATER TO A NEW CROWD

There are several approaches to direct mailing to the households most likely to dine with you. The most affordable is mailing to selected neighborhoods with a resident list that saturates your area. Once you select the neighborhoods, ValCards Mailing will compile a mailing list that’s walk-sequenced within carrier routes in specified zip codes. This offers the lowest postage rate; however, the piece will be addressed ‘Resident’ rather than including the recipient’s name. If your restaurant caters to specific demographic groups, there is a list that will serve your purposes, whether it’s income-based, households with families, etc.

Trying to fill tables at lunch time? Develop multi-person offers and mail to businesses within a predetermined geographic area – an office park, for example or businesses within a five-mile radius of your location. If your restaurant is equipped to handle a large crowd, business-to-business advertising is ideal for promoting catering and/or special event gatherings

Restaurant Direct Mail and Web Marketing

As many restaurants are trying to cut theirs costs within the confines of a challenging economy, published reports indicate that businesses often make the common mistake of reducing or eliminating their direct-mail budgets. With new web technologies like internet marketing tools and specialty email marketing available, everyone is trying to be cost effective in their advertising efforts. And yes, it is very important to utilize technology wisely in order to decrease costs; however, direct mail is a necessary expense, whether introducing your web marketing efforts or in promoting your company. Many studies show that direct mail is still the leader when it comes to branding and delivering a quality message (provided that it is done properly).

When it comes to promoting a restaurant, internet marketing is a valuable tool. As such, many restaurants are becoming increasingly active on the Web by utilizing blogs and social tools–yet not quite succeeding in integrating these new technologies with their classic media. A good restaurant strategy is one that embraces Web 2.0 and integrates it with both direct mail and traditional advertising. It is all about reinforcing your brand and communicating your message effectively to your customers. If you are active in social media, advertise your profiles in your direct-mail ad also. If you are mailing postcards about an event, create an event page on your website, then send an e-mail to your customers and share the information via social media. To reach more repeat customers as well as potential ones, provide updates about your menu, events and specials; you should consider using direct mail, print and web tools in tandem, not merely eliminate one or the other.

ValCards constantly works with restaurants to provide marketing solutions that work. ValCards division offers appealing, well-designed restaurant menus. We also have many direct mail “off page” products (postcards, inserts, etc.), as well as web marketing solutions, from social media and search engine optimization to e-mail marketing.

The point: Marketing efforts are about reinforcing your brand! Embracing the new web marketing technologies is wise, but integrating them with direct mail will lead to far more successful results

With this economic roller coaster ride we are experiencing, prices are rising. Gas, flour and cheese prices all had tremendous effects on restaurant owners around the world. Prices were changed, food items dropped and substituted, business structure rearranged and new tactics were implemented in order to combat the unforeseen changing of the economy.

According to the National Restaurant Association, the annual food and labor inflation rate is 7.5%. This rate has a huge effect on not only large restaurants, but small restaurants as well. It is important to take into consideration when adjusting for the high costs of foods & gas to adjust for the inflation as well. A restaurant that does not regularly update its food prices is losing potential profits – the cost of creating and printing new menus is small when compared to the profits lost for not adjusting prices.

ValCards offers a variety of direct mail, menu design and  advertising solutions to help restaurants.