The #1 Most Profitable Group Of People You Can Market Your Restaurant To . . .

Do you know the number one most profitable group of people that you can market to that will consistently deliver the best return on your advertising dollar and that the majority of businesses neglect? It's YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS! For whatever reason the restaurant industry is very slow to take advantage of this well-known marketing fact.

The single easiest way to get more business is to get your existing customers to come back more often. To do that you need to know who they are and have a means of contacting them. The most effective way is by direct mail. Some members are starting to have great results by email as well, but email comes with a whole host of deliverability problems. You need to start capturing the names, addresses and emails of people who frequent your restaurant.

You may feel uncomfortable with this at first, but once you develop some systems, you will find it quite easy and profitable to maintain.

Fishbowl: You've probably used some version of the "fishbowl". Put a fishbowl in your restaurant with a sign attached prompting your customers to enter a drawing.

Have a free drawing at dinner or lunch of business cards or people's names. Get everyone in your restaurant to submit his or her name, address and email. If they don't have a business card have them write it on an entry form with a pen you provide.

Comment Cards: Better yet, use the comment card approach, as you also get feedback from your existing customers.You should also get your customer's birthdays, which has several other benefits, as you will see. Use several methods, if you can, to capture names and addresses. Your goal should be to capture all the names and addresses of all your customers over the next several months.