Direct Mail for Restaurants

Direct Mail for Restaurants

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 marketingand customer management can take a bite out of your competition and boost your bottom line.

Direct mail is a critical part of an overall advertising/marketing strategy for restaurateurs and one of the most important rationales for direct mail advertising is the ability it gives you to control every aspect of the process, providing you follow the nine essential steps to a successful direct mail campaign.

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 list 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 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.

ValCards has the resources to help you put your name at the top of the list at meal time.

What’s it going to cost you and what are you going to get for your investment? If you spend more than you make to sell a product or service,  including the cost of marketing, production and mailing, your investment can fail.   That’s why ValCards mission is keeping mailing cost as low as possible while targeting your best prospects.

1. Is there a particular aspect of your restaurant’s business that you wish to market.
   Of course, you want to bring in new customers, but perhaps you’re trying to attract more lunch trade, or carry-out business, or more business on week nights. Other aspects of your business you may wish to use direct mail to improve are catering and use of your private party rooms.
2. Decide what a successful campaign means.
   Usually the desired response is to elicit a decision to purchase, but an interim step could be to make customers aware of a new location.
3.   Target your market.
   Direct mail is a proven advertising medium that allows you to precisely target, but to do so, you must know your market. Your insight into your market’s habits and lifestyles will help you make decisions on lists. Accurate targeting is considered 40% of the equation for successful direct mail and finding the right list is an art.If your business is in a fairly affluent neighborhood, this may just mean saturating the area around your business. If, however, your restaurant is a fine dining establishment, you might need to buy a mailing list selected on the basis of income. If it’s a family restaurant, you might want to target families with children. If you’re interested in business lunch, catering or party trade, you may wish to target only businesses in your area.
4. Research the competition and your own costs, then decide on an offer.
   Constantly research your competition’s offers, but also industries with similar demographics. Ask your family, friends and neighbors, but also check with people who have different backgrounds and values.   You also need data on your own customers. How long, on average, do you retain customers? How much business, on average, will a new customer bring to you? How much does it make sense to invest in your offer to attract a new customer? The offer is another 40% of the equation for successful direct mail. Our experience has confirmed that discount offers can increase your restaurant business by 20 to 30 percent.