Set Up Restaurant Marketing Automation in 4 Easy Steps
There’s an easier way to do marketing for restaurants. It’s through an automated process that consistently and constantly attracts, nurtures, and converts customers. It’s through restaurant marketing automation. Restaurant marketing automation is the process of setting up technology and software to automate marketing tasks across multiple channels. It maximizes efforts and uses data to make more informed marketing decisions that lead to better results. With marketing automation, restaurants don’t have to constantly set up new campaigns. They can automate sales funnels that support customer lifecycle marketing and consistently work for the company 24/7 -- and it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Let’s look at how you can set up a restaurant marketing automation process in just four steps. The key to marketing automation is data. You need to have a system that collects and analyzes data about your customers. The consumer data should include customer's contact information (either a phone number or an email address) and location so you can reach them. It should also include details about customer habits and past purchases such as: To collect this data, set up a customer relationship management (CRM) or marketing automation software that can store customer data and track customer behavior. A system for customer data is only as good as the data inside of it, so you need to have a process for getting customers to sign up. Build out your database by setting up systems that encourage customers to sign up. Give customers something in exchange for signing up or sharing their customer contact information. You can: To find the best method for attracting customer sign-ups, think of something that customers would find valuable and then require that they provide their email address or phone number to receive it. Another way to collect data is to encourage customers to order online. When you drive more online restaurant orders, you drive customers to create an online profile with valuable data tied to their accounts. Related: Why It's Important to Own Your Business Data and How to Start Collecting It Don't rely on customers finding your restaurant all on their own. Invest in paid advertising to increase brand awareness and drive new audiences to your business. There are many types of paid digital advertising. As you build your restaurant marketing automation strategy, focus on the types of strategic ads that will be most likely to fill your sales funnel. Launch a promotion for your restaurant and use ads to drive attention to it. While the goal of marketing automation is to set it and forget it, you can’t completely check out after setting up paid ad campaigns. Continue to check in on the results of your campaigns and make adjustments to ensure that you are getting the most out of every dollar of ad spend. Turn off campaigns that aren’t producing results. Invest more in ad campaigns that are working. Identify the audiences who respond well to ads, and create lookalike audiences to reach more like-minded people. Test different promotions to see which works best. Look at the analytics data and make adjustments that make your ads even more powerful at attracting new audiences and growing your list. Related: 9 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Restaurant's Website Once you have systems for attracting new customers and getting them in your database where you can learn about and communicate with them, you are ready for the next phase of marketing automation. You are ready to market to the consumers in your database. When you have contact information and behavior data, you can launch extremely effective marketing campaigns by giving customers exactly what they want. You can send remarketing campaigns such as: Just as you can’t completely set it and forget it with paid ads, you can’t completely set up these promotions and ignore them. Continue to check-in and monitor the success of them. Use your analytics and data to identify trends that can help you make tweaks to make your campaigns more powerful. Related: Need Help Making Sense of Your Business Data and Analytics? Why work harder when you can work smarter? Setting up a restaurant marketing automation process allows you to get the most out of all of your promotional efforts. You can effectively attract new customers and put them in a lifecycle marketing program that keeps them coming back for more. If you need help with setting up restaurant marketing automation, MyArea Network is here to help. We specialize in setting up data programs that kick-start marketing automation and using data analytics to create the most effective marketing initiatives for your unique business and customers. See how we can help. Schedule your free consultation today.What Is Restaurant Marketing Automation?
Set Up Restaurant Marketing Automation in 4 Steps
#1) Set up a system for managing customer data.
#2) Collect customer data to build your database.
#3) Run strategic paid digital ads to attract new audiences.
#4) Send personalized deals and promotions to existing customers.
Launch Marketing Automation for Your Restaurant
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