4 clever ways to bring customers back to your restaurant

 

Struggling to get people to return? Try these 4 ways to increase retention, build loyalty and drive bookings.

1. Create a birthday club

The mechanics of this are very simple and it’s a 3 stage process. But first you’ll need a mailing list platform like Mailchimp, Talkbox or Myguestlist.

  • Send an email to your database promoting your birthday club offer and request your customers update their details to include their date of birth.

  • The email links to a form which allows customers to update their details. The form connects to your database.

  • At X amount of time before the customer’s birthday, they receive an email with the offer / incentive mentioned in part 1.

Make this even better by creating an automation so that all new subscribers are sent email #1. Over time, the birthday club will grow and grow. This is flywheel marketing at its best.

2. Incentivised wi-fi

This is one of our favourites but requires the use of Powered Local - a company that provides a ‘socket’ over wi-fi.

  • Put up a poster which details the offer, “sign in to our free wi-fi and we’ll send you a voucher for a free drink / doughnut / coffee within the next 24 hours”.

  • The customer data passes from Powered Local to your mailing list provider via an API.

  • The voucher is emailed the following day to all new subscribers.

  • The voucher expires within 4 weeks.

The voucher is driving the next visit and the process collects the customer’s email address - which is handy to use for other campaigns too, like the birthday club.

3. Create an event

Try creating an event which you believe will truly resonate with your existing customers and create a compelling and enticing offer. Perhaps a set menu, guest chef, degustation or live music.

If you have a strong database, you’ll be able to drive bookings on quieter nights and sell ‘tickets’ in advance.

There are a lot of places you can add foodie event details to as well, such as the City of Sydney website, which is great because the links you earn from those sites can be very valuable from an SEO perspective too.

4. Promote your new specials

Give people a reason to return, and increase the chance they actually will. Adding specials is a classic retention strategy aimed at regular diners who may be craving something new.

Creating specials is also a great way to keep the menu seasonal, whilst giving your marketing team a little more to go on.

 
Clive Morley