MARKETING: How to Promote Customer Retention & Loyalty with Restaurant Marketing
The core of any marketing strategy begins with establishing an objective. For restaurants, that’s often customer acquisition & retention. Customer acquisition can be expensive and involves additional efforts by the owners, managers, and marketing team. Customer retention, however, is not only a less expensive strategy but also one that has proven results. In fact, a 5% increase in customer loyalty can lead to a 100% increase in profits! With this in mind, it’s prudent to make guest retention the backbone of your marketing strategy.
DID YOU KNOWS….
Halloween Roulette Pizza
Domino’s in Japan is letting their guests live dangerously with a “Halloween Roulette” pizza. Each pizza has ghost pepper sauce on one random slice. The campaign runs through Nov. 4 and allows any pizza to be customized into a Halloween Roulette pizza. Ghost peppers are one of the hottest strains of peppers out there and have also been used to deter elephants from crashing through fences in some African and Asian countries.
Snapchat’s User Growth Accelerates
After three consecutive quarters of stalling (or negative) user growth in 2018, Snapchat is firmly heading in the right direction in 2019. The most recent figures, reported this week for Q3, show a jump of 7 million DAUs from Q2. Looking year-on-year, Snap can boast an increase to the tune of 13% and a global total of 210 million. The scale of this growth came primarily from the company's “rest of world” activities, where it gained 5 million new users, representing a jump of 28%.
Digital Ads Move to Mobile
Digital advertising in the United States hit an all-time half-year high in 2019, totaling nearly $58 billion, according to IAB and PwC. A major driver of this growth came in the second quarter where total ad spend was around $30 billion, with 69% of that coming from mobile ads. The expansion in Q2 specifically, and within the first part of the year, generally, was bolstered by growth in video advertising, which grew by 36% year-over-year.
WE’VE GOT QUESTIONS
Why it matters to you: What you ask your management candidates is the key to building the right team.
Interviewing is an essential step in the process of staffing your restaurant with great managers. The interview is when you can determine if the candidate will be able to handle the work and fit with your culture. In order to do that, you start with questions that bear out their capabilities. But what are those questions? Do you have a list ready or do you just wing it? Well this handy list of interview questions may be just the resource you need to ensure you’re getting the answers you need to properly select a management candidate. There are 28 questions included, and all of them are smart and relevant. The post even includes some direction about what you should expect from the answers.
For example: “16. Have you ever been involved in confrontation with a guest/employee/supervisor at work? How did you resolve it? (Have specific examples ready that highlight your skills of conflict resolution.)”
This is a powerful question because it helps you understand how a person projects themselves onto difficult management situations. The candidate will answer in their own best light, but it will preview what they believe is important in a confrontational situation. We suggest you print this list and bring it with you to every manager interview you conduct. If for no other reason, you won’t be flailing about, but ask concise and direct questions that will bear out whether this candidate is a fit for your team.
[Source: Running Restaurants]
WHERE DO YOU LIVE? [Song]
Why it matters to you: One operator is using rent subsidies to retain his team.
Employee turnover continues to be among the most expensive and impossible challenges that restaurant management faces. Finding the right people and keeping them on your team is a key path to growth for operators, but in the face of increased competition and rising costs of living, it’s doesn’t seem to be getting any easier.
One restaurant group in Greenville, NC started a rent subsidy program to help keep their employees living in the downtown area where their restaurants do business. Carl Sobocinski, owner of Table 301 Restaurant Group, has seen wage levels rise quickly, but his staff still unable afford to live where his eight restaurants operate. Consequently, he is piloting a program that would offer a $200 monthly rent subsidy for select employees. Sobocinski makes clear that it is available to everyone from a dishwasher to upper management, but the effort is specifically designed to improve his restaurants retention of quality people.
You may remember we recently discussed the operator that was offering staff day care assistance to improve retention. So, what’s up with all these creative programs and why now? The obvious answer is that we need to think more abstractly about the problems our staff faces and use empathy as a method to help solve them. However, no matter your thinking, the motivation is to create an environment where staff can flourish without the fear of falling short financially or twisting themselves into knots just to earn enough money to live. Sobocinski claims to already be ahead of the curve on wages, but has decided having staff living nearer to his restaurants is worth the expense for his business. This approach may not be right for you, but actually caring about what challenges the people you lead certainly seems like a worthwhile use of your energy. Especially if it retains your team and improves your business.
[Source: Restaurant Business Online]
