Restaurant Marketing: The Hunting Season Is Over

So, your sales are down and you decide to send out a direct mail piece into your zip code, expecting your usual response of 2 to 3%.

I’ll bet you’ve never ever thought about those other 98% in the zip code who never responded to your offer. You see, they just threw it in the trash. Yes, that’s your money they threw in the trash. Why? Because they don’t care about you. They’re not interested in being spammed with your direct-mail.

So, what did you eventually accomplish? A 2% response rate—coupon clippers taking advantage of your coupon offer that cuts into your bottom line—no true loyalty with coupon clippers—plus a whopping 98% in the zip code who blatantly don’t care about you or are peeved at getting an incessant amount of junk mail from you and other restaurants. Do you really feel good about this?

Here’s some breaking news—your guests have changed. It’s time to quit advertising and start connecting.

Joel Cohen regularly blogs about  Restaurant Marketing. Through consulting and speaking, he focuses on specific principles of restaurant marketing, such as planning, differentiation and how to WOW guests to increase sales.

About Joel Cohen

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2 comments

  1. Really money spends for this type of advertisement is not worth as feedback is never encouraging as compared to expenses. Thanks for providing platform to know about restaurant marketing.

  2. I think direct mail can still be effective is used correctly. We have built up our own database of customers that we regularly see 10, 15 and sometimes 20% response rates. Sending mail to our own customers allows us to consistently grow sales as we continue to add customers to this database. However sending it to an unfocused list like you mentioned will definitely not be as effective.

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