Restaurant Direct Mail Marketing

Getting the word out about your restaurant takes more than simply printing postcards and launching a website. You have to get the right message in front of the right audience at the right time. Here are some tips for restaurant marketing distribution:

Direct mail

Direct mail is the best way to reach your patrons. A calculated direct-mail campaign represents an investment in profit and should be approached with dedication. Consult a list broker or use the mailing list building tools available at ValCards, develop a database of your own customers and define a mailing list comprised of likely patrons.

Repetition is key: Instead of a one-postcard campaign, develop a strategy that incorporates multiple direct mailers during a six-month period. This contributes to your restaurant branding efforts and allows you to develop long-term relationships with your customers. By the time you launch your incredible offer, you’ll have established trust and credibility and will earn a higher response rate.

Here’s a sample direct-mail marketing campaign for your restaurant:

Week One: Send a menu and brochure introducing your potential clientèle to your restaurant. Offer a discount or free appetizer to anyone who visits.

Week Six: Send a flyer that highlights your upcoming entrée specials.

Week 12: Send a postcard advertising an upcoming event and a call to action for your patrons to make VIP reservations fast.

Week 18: Send a calendar loaded with images of your tasty menu selection.

Week 24: Send another menu for good measure.

Week 30: Send a greeting card for the next holiday inviting patrons to a free meal on the house. This will help build customer loyalty and attract new customers to your place of business.

Advertisements

You can deploy advertisements online or in the yellow pages, newspapers and magazines; as well as on the radio, television, billboards and any number of published mediums. You can also take your ads street side by placing flyers and posters on community bulletin boards, and university, office and industrial social hot spots. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertiser for restaurants, so make sure friends, family and colleagues know what you do and are prepared to spread the word for you. You should consider handing out stickers and business cards to everyone you know for distribution (include a mini-menu on the back!).

Following up

Test, track and tweak – these three Ts will help you develop winning restaurant print marketing campaigns. Always test different variations of your marketing materials on small portions of your mailing list before launching the full campaign. Sometimes a single word change can make a big difference in your return on investment.

Track your response rates and record who responds so you can further define what neighborhoods your customers live in, what appetizers and meals they buy, and how much they spend. Tweak your subsequent print marketing materials to cater to this audience. Keep a database of customers and respondents, and evaluate recognizable trends so you can customize your offers. This is just another form of knowing your customers, but from an analytical perspective it allows you to make intelligent business decisions based on honest, proven statistics. 

RESTAURANT Mailer Design Ideas

We’ve Taken the Hassle out of Custom Design.

At ValCards we don’t believe in “cookie cutter”, “one size fits all”  design templates. However, we feel that you should be able to get quality, eye  popping,  attention-getting designs without paying outside designers  hundreds of dollars.  Our full time team  of designers have come up with the design ideas below to give you a starting point and ideas for your own custom designed mailer. You can use as much or as little of them as you like. They can be mixed and matched with colors, photos, headlines, offers and more.

We have made it simple to get the custom design you need .

1. Choose a beginning design idea below that catches your eye and you might want to use.
2. Click on the front or back of the card and use the  link to send us all of your information..
3. A design consultants will call to discuss your layout before submitting to our design department.