In Monday’s post I mentioned that Marketing with Meaning can apply to any business, not just the large brands with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets. I shared an example of a book publisher that is uniquely connecting with its target readers. Today I wanted to share how even local restaurants can win by directing a targeted campaign using a single insight about its target market – at a very low cost.
To simplify a core part of our Marketing with Meaning model: Companies must begin by establishing a business objective they hope to reach. Once this specific business objective is set, the company then can put more focused thinking around how they can do something meaningful for customers that helps achieve the business objective. With these focused customer insights, they are then able to start crafting strategies and creative ideas around meaningful marketing.
In the restaurant business, a common business objective is to drive loyalty and visits from existing customers. Most of us know that in nearly every business, 80% of profits come from the 20% of loyal customers. My friends in the restaurant business tell me this holds for their industry as well. Their challenge is that there are many, many dining options for people to choose from, and any number of them can provide a similarly pleasing experience. So they must work hard to achieve a high “share of mind” with their customers. People also have a natural desire to “try something new,” so retaining loyal customers is a critical need.
Historically, most local advertising spending tends to consist of a stagnant group of traditional tactics. There are the Yellow Pages, Val-Pak direct mail coupons, and ads in the local city restaurant guides. Everybody in the business does these same things – which is another negative of such marketing. Part of the reason restaurants (and many, many other small local businesses) use these tools is that they don’t know what to do instead, and they worry that traffic will dry up when dollars are shifted. These businesses can’t afford to wait for a year for a new marketing approach to pay out. But, I’ve spotted two great examples in the past few months.
First up is Palomino , a “drop-in downtown restaurant” chain with about 10 locations across the country. At the end of each meal, Palomino provides a feedback card with an offer to join an email list for special events and offers. This is not too unusual. What is special is that Palomino asks a single question on the registration form: “What’s you birthday?”
With this information, Palomino sends an email to its customers once per year, about two weeks before this big day. Palomino knows that this is when people start to make plans to get a babysitter and hit the town. It includes a $20 voucher with the email to sweeten the offer, again, knowing that a birthday will result in extra revenue splurges such as dessert and bottle(s) of wine. For the customer, this email comes at the right time with a compelling discount. We customers feel inclined to repay the business that remembered our special day. The cost of putting together this offer is negligible, and the results can be tracked through email clicks and voucher redemptions.
The second example is from a local pizza chain called Donatos. It’s one of several large citywide chains and competes with the big guys such as Papa John’s and Domino’s. As I detailed on my Challenge Dividend blog a few months ago, I was pleasantly surprised one weekend to get a call from the manager of my neighborhood Donatos store. She saw that I placed an order during the past week, and called to ask for any feedback.
I was pretty blown away that a store manager would bother to make such a phone call. This small, focused, and personal effort makes a big difference in my mind when my wife asks me where we should order from on pizza night. I now know that someone appreciates my business and sees that I am important. Further, results of this effort can be tracked by simply looking at whether I order more often in the months ahead.
I love that both of these examples use specific insights to add value to consumers’ lives, they take very little time or money investment, and they are completely measurable back to the original business objective of driving loyalty. So if these guys can do it, what’s holding you back?
