I know, from a marketing standpoint you want to get as many of your customers names and address’ for your marketing & direct mail. My question is, if you have a dine in only restaurant how do you get your customers name and address’? I don’t know how you convince a customer to give personal information? Even an offer of free bread sticks seems like it might be difficult to get people to sign up.
How is this done?
There are tons of ways out there, you just need a bit of creativity. The easiest is always a fish bowl with a give away for people who drop their business cards in. I see these all over the place. I also see many that realistically haven’t been touched in a month (don’t be one of those guys).
Another easy one is to ask for it on a questionnaire. Have them at the tables and offer a free drink/bread sticks or some other item that has a high perceived value relative to its food cost to the customers who fill them out completely.
In the ‘olden days’ of pizza, that data used to be the best data you could get. Today? Much less so. If you are going to try and bring them back for repeat business, you really need to get into sms marketing. Email is good, but a lot of it goes directly to spam and it is easy to tune out. Getting a phone number is very easy, and you don’t even need the name. It is also a lot more painless than giving out your address.
Don’t people get annoyed getting unsolicited text messages? What has been the reaction of your customers when you send them texts?
The questionnaire idea posses a bit of a problem in a high tourist area. Direct mailing someone who lives 4000 miles away won’t work. I think it would be difficult to weed out ahead of time who the tourist was and who wasn’t. If your mix was 50/50 local to tourist ratio I would be giving out a lot of free items for very few solid contacts.
I appreciate the info. I’d like to hear more.
When I get text msg ads, I add that biz to my “Places I will never go to again” List.
+1
Text me and you’ll find out exactly how much I do NOT need to do business with you! Nowadays I may even spend that extra 10 cents to text you back and tell you how much of an a$$hole I think you are for texting me in the first place. To me it’s like flyering cars in a parking lot. Some think it leads to sales, but I think it leads to ruined relationships in the long run.
Come on here guys. We all know that unsolicited sms is spam and is nothing more than clutter. Not what I am talking about at all.
When a customer comes to eat, you know the following:
Take a look through Seth Godin’s Permission marketing. You can pretty much read the whole thing on Amazon. Put a check box to opt in. You can even have them send a confirmation sms to confirm that they actually want to get your texts. So you give away 22 cents worth of dough. That isn’t much compared to the difference between a one time diner and a frequent customer.
Collecting addresses is just as easy. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. So you get a few out of towners. You or someone on your staff is doing the data entry, just nuke them out of your database, or make an out of towner database (who knows, they might travel there frequently). Either way, target the customers who are in your trade area and sign up.
When you have people sign up their name and address’ how do you know if that person has already filled out the form?
Also, I guess you are always giving free breadsticks to everyone that comes in for the first time forever? I can’t see why you would stop, new people come in every day. Seems awkard to be offering the form to everyone everyday without any real way to tell if they had already filled out the form?
Maybe my situation is unique but we definitely get more than a few “out of towners.” Population is 100,000 and we get 2.5 million tourists a year that all live a minimum of 3000 miles away. 
My cool local place utilizes text messages to let people know what band is playing and what is special going on maybe two three times a month. I enjoy getting these messages and signed up for them. I also have unlimited text messages. It’s one form of successful marketing for them.
On the other hand my dad doesn’t have unlimited text messages he doesn’t have an interest in this place and he never signed up to get a text message from them.
Giving people the option to opt in to text messaging isn’t bad in fact it can reach your core group of people that make up the majority of your sales. If one text message causes one customer to come in and spend money versus the customer going down the street that night than the effort to put together a a message easily paid for itself. Even if only a super small percentage say ten percent opt in even if you get only one extra customer a week than your time texting was well worth it.
Well, I guess your solution is to throw out the baby with the bath water and just don’t bother with it. Doing nothing is an easy path.
We have a form where people can sign up for the email list. We also have the option on Facebook and our website. After the info is entered in then we send out a coupon for a free order of wings-no purchase required. So basically they have to submit valid info to receive the free item.
What the heck are you talking about? I was asking you a serious question about giving everyone who comes in free breadsticks to fill out the form? Why would I do nothing? I’m the OP who asked for ideas. Other people slammed your postings, I DID NOT. I was trying to get more information from you. I don’t think I deserved your “doing nothing” comment.
If you don’t have an answer for me just say, “i don’t have an answer.” I have a unique situation where 2.5 million visitors come to an island where only 100,000 people live. I am trying to come up with solutions to get as many names as possible from local people when quite possibly 2/3 of my customers may be visitors from 3000 miles away.
I might as well chime in.
My business is mostly tourism based. As such, I focus marketing where they will see me. Ideally, I want them to 'hear/read/see" something (impression) of my business FIVE times before they get to me.
Having said that, I don’t follow the standard pmq playbook for marketing. Which, from what I gather, is spam email, sms, direct mail, and door-hanging. I really don’t care for the 4, but can see where they’re useful in certain areas, just not mine.
My local market is small, but I find Moving Targets (direct mail) useful for impressions on new people relocating. As for the locals, after a year, they will know you. Make sure you’re listed in all the media, print and online, and in your visitor centers. Reach out to the locals, especially those that interact with tourists. Travelers often ask locals for places to visit. Introduce yourself to every nearby business, especially the heads&beds, and create a relationship with them. Cultivate that relationship.Word of mouth is a great thing, and unlike Jersey, you don’t have to ‘deal’ everyone in. You’re all part of the same team and the happier the tourists are, the more likely they’ll refer friends & family to visit your area. We have a significant percentage of return guests monthly, quarterly, and yearly.
Hope this helps.
from a marketing standpoint you want to get as many of your customers names and address’ for your marketing & direct mail.
I almost forgot to answer that. The answer is, I don’t and don’t worry about it. IF they visit us, and enjoy their meal, they’ll return on their next visit.
I am a huge fan of Seth Godin (if you couldn’t have guessed). Here is his blog post from today:
“The answer is simple”
from Seth’s Blog by Seth Godin
…is always more effective a response than, “well, it’s complicated.”
One challenge analysts face is that their answers are often a lot more complicated than the simplistic (and wrong) fables that are peddled by those that would mislead and deceive. Same thing is true for many non-profits doing important work.
We’re not going to have a lot of luck persuading masses of semi-interested people to seek out and embrace complicated answers, but we can take two steps to lead to better information exchange:
Take complicated overall answers and make them simple steps instead. Teach complexity over time, simply.
Teach a few people, the committed, to embrace the idea of complexity. That’s what a great college education does, for example. That’s what makes someone a statesman instead of a demagogue. Embracing complexity is a scarce trait, worth acquiring. But until your customers/voters/employees do, I think the first strategy is essential.
You can’t sell complicated to someone who came to you to buy simple.
It really illustrates the point I was trying to make. Giving free bread sticks out is simple. Getting people to give you their contact information and using it profitably is complicated. That is what I was trying to point out without saying directly.
Less than 40% of your customers are going to ignore your attempts to get their information, usually it is closer to 10%. Now from those if you have a customer who comes in more often to fill out a questionnaire to get free bread sticks, then heck, give them the 22 cents worth of products.
What you do with the data gets complicated. There is work there. You need to determine where they live and the marketing you are going to do.
So, do I have a simple answer? Nope. There isn’t one. Don’t buy simple.
Great Post.
I’m 42 and the father of 2 teenage daughters and a 8y.o. son(no phone for him). The teen kids text all the time and have been since they have had a phone (3-4 years) My younger staff all text and all their peers text. In fact demographics suggest the majority of people under 50 text regularly. Text for businesses is up to the consumer to join. I cannot add my 200 contacts in my phone to my text database and send them an unsolicited message. Its consumer friendly. If you don’t want to receive texts then don’t sign up and you won’t get my discounts. I f you sign up and then want to opt out just reply stop to any message and then you won’t receive them anymore. 15 years ago nobody(indy pizza owners) had a website and didn’t collect emails. Now most have a website and do collect emails. My point is , text is the new email, and you have to be able to reach customers on the go.I 'm redeeming alot of texts every day. The teens will go to college and graduate and have disposable income to spend someday soon too. Replenishing the old guy when he dies and the snowbird when he/she migrates is all about being current. I don’t have time to talk to my buddies so they know to text me to remind me of boys night out or going to the game stuff and the like. Embrace it cos its here to stay for a while. Find you niche and make it happen but I hate fishbowls.