When it comes to marketing strategies for restaurants, many owners don’t have a consistent, reliable plan set up to attract new customers. That’s why we developed the following two programs to help restaurants welcome new diners at some of the most important moments in their lives: When they move, and on their birthdays.
Targeting New Movers: Our New Movers Program
Moving can be an exciting experience. What often isn’t exciting is trying to replace all of the local services we have come to rely on at our old home — things like reliable internet, an honest auto shop, a caring dentist, a gym that suits our needs, a grocery store that carries our preferred groceries, and — of course — a favorite restaurant!
Now, targeting new movers isn’t a unique marketing strategy by itself — if you have ever moved and remember what your mailbox was like right after moving in, it was probably full of mail promoting local services: Banks and credit unions, lawn care services, insurance agents, and more. The reason your mailbox is flooded those first few months is because for many services, it’s important to be first. People are busy getting familiar with the area, so they don’t want to spend too much time comparison-shopping every little thing — if you show up first and show that you can meet their needs, you might have a new customer for life.
What is unique about this strategy for restaurants is just how few of them do it, and even if they do, very few do it well. Here’s what I mean.
Imagine you just moved to a new neighborhood. You check your new mailbox one day and see this:
This postcard doesn’t feel cheap like the rest of your mail — instead, it’s laminated and has some weight to it. The gift card pops out and fits easily into your purse or wallet, so you don’t have to worry about scissors like traditional coupons. Instead of throwing it in the trash like the rest of your junk mail, you either slide it into your wallet right away or grab a magnet and put it on the fridge to try out later (but not too much later, because it expires fairly soon).
This strategy works for a couple key reasons:
First, the postcard and promotion are high quality. Everything about the mailer feels legitimate, from the artwork to the material and message.
Second, we get to new movers early enough that they’re still getting settled in their new home, but give them enough time to use the promo without feeling rushed (but before they have too much time to find a different favorite restaurant).
Finally, this strategy works exceptionally well for franchises because we’re able to get a bigger list of new movers to your restaurant’s service area. Small, single-location restaurants might only see enough new people move to their area to warrant doing this every few months. For franchises that are big enough, we can do it every month, creating a constant stream of new customers.
Targeting Birthdays: Our Birthday Gift Card Program
It’s no secret that birthdays are one of the best opportunities to get customers to eat at your restaurant. Nearly all restaurants have some sort of birthday program, but most of them only focus on existing customers. That’s a big mistake for a couple of reasons:
Digital communication is a wonderful thing, but traditional mail has a special place in our hearts around birthdays. Nowadays, more effort is required to send someone a card than an email or text message, so we appreciate those who make the extra effort even more.
With that in mind, imagine receiving the following postcard in the mail on your birthday.
Remember, this is coming from a restaurant where you’re not even a loyalty member. It’s even better than what you got from the restaurants where you are a member (if they sent anything at all)!
It’s important to note that any promotion you use for a birthday postcard needs to have a free giveaway so it can be a gift card — either a free menu item or monetary value. The reason for this is that, unlike new movers, when you ask someone to come to your restaurant for their birthday, you’re also asking them to break a habit for whatever it is they usually do. This sounds scary at first because you might be worried about losing money, but the great thing about birthdays is people rarely eat alone. You can serve large groups and more than make up for what you gave away.
Our birthday card program sees redemption rates between 15% and 20% — in other words, for every 100 postcards we send out, you see 15 to 20 paying customers. In comparison with other advertising strategies, it’s hard to beat. Additionally, compared to the new movers program, we’re also able to send out more postcards (and get you more customers) simply because everybody has a birthday every year, but not everybody moves. From a financial perspective, the monthly nature of this program makes budgeting easier to plan because it’s consistent and predictable.
If you want a marketing strategy where you can be confident that you’re hitting 100% of the people in your market at least once per year (and when they are the most likely to celebrate and enjoy a meal with family and friends), this is the program for you.
