If I owned a restaurant that had those business card drawings for free lunch or whatever, I would just call everyone up that entered each month and tell them that they won. If some marketer had come by and told you that for $10 a head they could make your target consumer feel like they were #1 out of a few hundred people, wouldn’t you jump on it in a second? This is that, but real. Of course, the status-quo may better–where you pretend like you do a drawing each month and really just throw all the cards away. That’s the way to treat your consumer.
Another Idea: Treating People Like Winners
Don’t be silly, you sell the cards to a direct marketing program. That’s valuable personal data you have their.
(This is what a lot of restaurants do. The “Free Lunch” is funded by someone like a local gym who then markets to all the customers in the area from the business cards.)
Sounds like a good idea initially- but your customers are going to be really fishy if they runinto someone who won the exact same prize that they did. The underlying concept is sound though; win customer loyality by making the customer feel special.
I was 26 years old. It was monday at 5:30 and the restaraunt had 0 customers. I needed 60 bucks. I was waiting tables because I had fucked up and needed money.
Without asking, I grabbed the stack of comment cards of our guests, and called them offering a free appetizer if they came in, and asked for Chris. We were an upscale italian joint.
I made 20 calls, got about 8 people to show up for dinner. All of the checks were over 70 bucks, we gave away the aps. 550 in sales. Total restaraunt sales that night: 1100 bucks. Average sales on a monday night: 7500 bucks.
The manager on duty thought it was a good idea. Not a great one. He was cool though…thought he was doing ME a favor. Word got up to his supervisor. His take: “If I ever contact their customers, I’d find a shoneys to telemarket at.”
Fucking A. We were thanking people for leaving feedback. givng away a $3.00 bit of food.