MARKETING: 5 Tactics for Your Restaurant’s Email Marketing Campaigns
With hundreds of restaurants in every major town, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep and attract new customers to your locations. You obviously can’t just sit and wait for the nearby residents to visit you if you have any hopes of growing. You need to be proactive. So, what can you do to improve brand awareness and the overall profitability of your business? The answer lies in email marketing. Here are five ways of winning business with email marketing.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Drake’s Restaurant Closes
Music artist Drake’s Toronto restaurant, Pick 6ix Sports, is closing after almost two years of operation. The establishment was open just six months before it got flooded in a severe rainstorm in the summer of 2018. It didn’t reopen until March of this year as basically a brand-new restaurant with new manager, concept, and menu. It then said it would be closed “indefinitely” due to another flood. However, it seems Drake owes almost $70,000 in overdue rent, and the property manager is terminating the restaurant’s lease. Oof.
Socialism Grows in Popularity with Young Adults
A new Gallup poll has found that young adults' opinions of capitalism have deteriorated since 2010 in the United States. Currently, both capitalism and socialism are tied in popularity among Millennials/Gen Zers (aged 18 to 39). The gap is far more pronounced among Gen Xers in the 40-54 age bracket where 61% support capitalism and 39% favor socialism.
The World Loves Palm Oil… Unfortunately
Highly criticized for its harmful impact on the environment, particularly by causing deforestation in the tropics and reducing biodiversity, palm oil remains the most consumed vegetable oil in the world and global appetite for it continues to grow. Nearly 30 million hectares were devoted to palm oil production worldwide in 2019, about ten times the size of Belgium. According to the latest data from the United States Department of Agriculture, global annual palm oil consumption exceeded 70 million metric tons in the fiscal year of 2018/19.
LOCKED DOORS
Why it matters to you: A proposed law would require 90 days of notice before closing a restaurant that employs over 50 people.
It’s a horrible feeling to learn that you have lost your job by showing up and the doors are locked. This is exactly what happened to employees at 23 Friendly’s restaurants in April of 2019. While the company agreed to place employees at new locations and offered severance, it still caused a controversy about whether operators should provide notice to employees if they are closing their doors. This led to new legislation, called the Fair Warning Act, being introduced in both houses of Congress. The proposed bill calls for a 90-calendar day notice prior to closing a business that has more than 50 people on staff. This would presumably give the employees of that business sufficient time to find a new job and smooth out the transition for these vulnerable employees. So, let’s do a little analysis.
In our industry, most independent operators don’t have 50+ employees on staff, so it won’t apply to smaller players. However, for chain operators having 50 employees in a location is fairly normal and this will be a real concern if you are struggling to stay in operation. Let’s face it though: this law isn’t for small operators. If you close, it’s as much a tragedy for you as it is for your staff. I say this with the exact experience closing one of my own restaurants. We couldn’t muster a 90-day notice, but we did give your team two weeks. The irony, by protecting them as little as we did, they were incredibly loyal and stuck around until the end. Either way, this law would make the experience of showing up to locked doors a little different and far less devastating to staff and field managers that work for larger operators. Fair or not, it might just become the law.
[Source: Boston Globe]
THAT BOY’S A P.I.G. PIG [Video]
Why it matters to you: Once again a staff member’s decision costs an operator dearly.
You likely already heard the story of the Starbuck’s barista that put the word “PIG” on five cups of coffee ordered by a local police officer on Thanksgiving Day. This officer, by everyone’s account, was respectful when he ordered and while in the store. In fact, he was getting the coffees for the emergency dispatchers as a thank you for working on Thanksgiving. This story has more twists than a Dunkin Donuts’ cruller, but as operators there is only one thing we should focus on: WTF was this employee thinking?
What could have prompted this unforced error on the part of another employee at Starbuck’s, especially in light of some of their other incidents? None of us can pretend to know, but the employee claimed it was a joke gone bad and that they meant no disrespect. When made aware of the “joke,” the manager apologized and the barista called to apologize. However, Starbuck’s fired the barista and no it didn’t make things better.
With the 2020 election season upon us, there will be more stories of staffers expressing their opinions and potentially exposing the operators to embarrassment. That’s why it’s up to you to be proactive. Start by having a staff meeting and discussing your expectations. If there are customers that are causing issues with their own politics, create an atmosphere where your team can come to you for relief and not act out of their frustration. But most of all, make it clear that they have a right to free speech, but if that speech causes damage to your business you have the right to end your relationship.
[Source: Grub Street]
