Restaurants in all facets of the foodservice industry are struggling as diners opt to eat in and save their cash. But instead of paying top dollar on advertising campaigns to attract new patrons, restaurant operators from QSRs to casual and even fine-dining establishments are seeking less expensive ways to reward the customers they already have, with the help of e-mail marketing firms.
"Before the economy slowed down, QSRs had a strong foothold in the effectiveness of e-mail marketing," says Boris Bugarski, CEO and president of Santa Ana, Calif.-based e-mail marketing company mUrgent. "Fine dining has been slower to adopt e-mail because they have felt it might hurt their brand. More fine-dining and casual restaurants are calling us now." He says mUrgent is experiencing its highest growth ever this year as a result. Some of its clients include Landry's Restaurants Inc., Koo Koo Roo, Marriott, Rally's Restaurant, Yves Bistro, Chuck's Steak House and Virginia Barbecue.
"Restaurants need loyalty now more than anything," Bugarski says. "Eighty percent of revenue is derived from 20 percent of restaurants' top customers." He adds that e-mail marketing has increased in popularity as restaurant operators seek lower-cost ways to secure revenue from that top 20 percent. Retaining existing customers is cheaper than spending money on advertising to get new customers, he says.
With mUrgent's e-mail marketing programs, restaurant operators can opt to send one or two e-mails per month to customers, which mUrgent will design and write.
The unlimited e-mail marketing plans include birthday and anniversary programs; an online enrollment page for the restaurant's Web site; unlimited e-mail volume, customer list sizes, standard card printing and data entry of cards; a custom, 4-e-mail library; unlimited e-mails from mUrgent's online self-service center; and integrated mobile text marketing, which is optional for the restaurant client. For more information, visit www.murgent.com.At Alexandria, Va.-based e-mail marketing solution provider Fishbowl Inc., clients range from QSR-style Sonic and McDonald's to Buffalo Wild Wings, Au Bon Pain, Don Pablo's Restaurant, Brazilian steakhouse Texas de Brazil and upscale steakhouse Zed 451.
That's because Fishbowl provides an end-to-end integrated e-mail marketing solution that can be tailored to fit different styles of restaurant companies. Fishbowl's e-mail marketing solution includes member list growth strategies, customized targeting and messaging capabilities and premium delivery and results tracking ability.
The member list growth feature is unlimited, and restaurants can track in-store activity. The targeting abilities are flexible with segmentation abilities to group customers. The messaging package provides corporate brand-oriented messaging, recurring loyalty messaging and local store and viral marketing campaigns to increase guest traffic in both mid-size and large restaurant companies. Independent restaurant operators using local store marketing techniques also can access Fishbowl's design and promotional library, which provides multiple restaurant-oriented e-mail templates and prewritten campaigns that can be altered to fit their brand.
Fishbowl's support team guides clients through the setup process, and handles guest replies. For more information, visit www.fishbowl.com.Micros Systems Inc., Columbia, Md., provides a customer relationship management (CRM) solution called iCare that monitors and controls all customer activities from a central database. This helps restaurant operators recognize their core customers based on most frequent visits and/or highest spending. Restaurants also can determine methods to attract and measure the development of new or less frequent customers into the core customer database.
iCare provides easy setup and management of stored value and point-based guest information and loyalty programs, with reporting through www.mymicros.net for card balances, transactions by card and transactions by store every 15 minutes with menu-item detail. The solution allows restaurants to track each customer's favorite menu items and anonymous or identified guests, build their guest database and provide specific customer reporting on which to build reward programs and improve communication with guests.
With iCare gift cards or stored value cards, restaurant operators can: activate cards with preset or fixed values; credit transactions with cards through tenders or discounts; reload, cash out and transfer balances to another card; look up gift card accounts by name, ZIP code or phone number; apply usage fees to inactive cards; and manage and control issuance and redemption of cards. Operators using the stored value system, My iCard, can hyperlink www.myicard.net to the restaurant's Web site, and the iCard homepage can be designed to match the restaurant's site design.
Depending on how a restaurant operator wants to build or recognize customer loyalty, he or she can set up a system of points and rewards through iCare at specific restaurant locations or during certain date ranges or days of the week, for example. Restaurant operators can also offer print coupons for subsequent visits, award amounts to customer accounts that achieve a certain point level and on-the-spot discounts to customer checks.
Some of the restaurants that have implemented iCare programs includeMax Restaurant Group and Silver Diner. For more information, visit www.micros.com.
"Networking is one of the most positive and effective ways to find a job or expand your business. It is the process that leads to building relationships to support your goals. It takes time, planning and follow-up--which means networking is always ongoing. It doesn’t stop at the end of a conference or after a chance meeting. The value of networking is reaped over time and pays off in both imaginable and totally unexpected ways. ..."
--Irena Chalmers, "It's who you know," "The Last Word" column, March 2009, Chef Magazine
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"The prospect of becoming sustainable is enough to make your head spin, especially when it comes to food sourcing. It’s about repairing decades of damage created by overfishing, harmful farming practices, excessive energy and water consumption, ever-growing landfills and pollution.
The solution is a journey where success is measured by progress--not perfection. ..."
--Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, dean of Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago, "Industry Voices" column, March 2009, Chef Magazine
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In conjunction with the 90th annual National Restaurant Association (NRA) Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago May 16 to 19, the NRA launched its second annual NRA Show Hot Chef Grilling Challenge on YouTube.Through April 24, professional chefs and cooks can submit short videos of themselves preparing their favorite grilling recipes using trendy food and beverage ingredients. Videos should be no longer than two minutes and recipes must include at least one item from the NRA's "What's Hot in 2009" chef survey, available here in a PDF.
The winner will receive a showcase cooking demonstration during the Culinary Scene interactive demonstration on the final day of the NRA Show. For more information on the challenge, visit the 2009 NRA show Web site.
(photo credit: Cindy Yamanaka/Orange County Register)
The U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, sponsored by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, is the largest and longest-running cheese competition in the United States. This year top cheese makers submitted cheeses to be judged by a group of 24 tasting experts from 12 states.
Ralph Perrazzo prepares Aloe Noodle Salad dessertThe event featured a chefs dinner, poker tournament, concert, silent auction and movie premiere. More than 350 guests attended the 11-course chefs dinner, which was prepared by Perrazzo and several top Las Vegas chefs including Rick Moonen of RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino, Joe Elevado of Social House at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, Geno Bernardo of Nove at the Palms, Barry Dankaka of N9ne Steak House at the Palms and Kerry Simon of Simon Restaurant & Lounge at the Palms.
(l to r) chef Rick Moonen and chef Geno BernardoThis article is a continuation of "Catering to your every need" (page 28) in the March 2009 issue of Chef Magazine.
Catering a special event al fresco, be it for a business lunch or a church group's picnic, requires portable equipment, and in some cases, special tools.
North Aurora, Ill.-based Grillco offers several models of barbecue grills that can be towed behind your catering van to the site of the picnic, be it a forest preserve or merely a school parking lot. Available models cook with LP gas, charcoal or mesquite. Many can be used for barbecuing any variety of meat--accessories include flat and spit baskets for cooking half chickens or even a whole pig luau-style--with one model just for roasting corn and potatoes.
The E-Z Way Roaster Oven (pictured, right) from Big John Grills & Rotisseries, Pleasant Gap, Pa., is a towable smoker/roaster for cooking all types of meats and potatoes on site. Features of the LP gas-fired unit include a piezo electric igniter, a smoker tray and a 44-inch rib and chicken rack.A new line of portable gas grills was introduced in January by Crown Verity, Brantford, Ontario, Canada. For high durability, virtually all of the parts in this line of grills--including the body, burners, radiants, top grid, water pan and fasteners--are made of heavy-gauge stainless steel. Offering a grill surface 15-percent larger than other portable grills, these models have folding leg tables and are stackable for easy transport.
When catering a barbecue, aren't cool beverages just as important to the success of the event? Absolutely, and you'll need plenty of ice to drop into water glasses, sodas and cocktails. But not any ice transport container will do. It's a waste of time and resources to have a staffer scoop ice from the ice machine into buckets, only to have to tote those buckets back by the handles or by some cart. And that doesn't ever cover the worry that the staffer might use the wrong buckets.
Such worries are eliminated when you use the Safe Ice Handling System, which was introduced last March by Rubbermaid Commercial Products, Winchester, Va. The system includes the 5 1/2-gallon Ice Safety Tote (pictured, left) with an angled top surface and a pouring spout, which provides better pouring control with fewer spills. Able to hold 25 pounds of ice when full, the tote has an ergonomic hand grip near the base for easy lifting and carrying. With an attachable adapter, the tote can be attached to any standard ice machine bin, as well.The tote comes with two ice scoops. A 74-ounce scoop has an angled handle with hand guard that improves leverage and control, so the potential of wrist strain is reduced for the person assigned to ice duty. The scoop fits into an open-style holder that allows it to air dry (as recommended by FDA) between uses. Also provided is the "scovel," a two-handled scoop/shovel with a 120-ounce capacity for faster loading times. The dual handles also are designed to reduce wrist strain, while the device's high side walls minimize spills. Besides keeping the ice free of cross contamination by keeping human hands away from it, the tote system is dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning between uses.
These tools for barbecue and cold drinks are nice, but ask any bride what she wants at her catered wedding reception, and she'll likely tell you this: a chocolate fountain. To meet that demand, Buffet Enhancements International, Point Clear, Ala., offers the American Chocolate Fountain line, which includes models up to 40 inches tall (pictured, right) that can keep up to 20 pounds of chocolate flowing like a slow-motion waterfall all evening.Designed to take only minutes to set up, these fountains maintain chocolate at 105° to 110°F for lava-like consistency that enables steady movement and easy coating of food items, like strawberries, placed in the flow path. A stainless steel auger recirculates the fallen chocolate back to the top of the fountain for yet another descent. The 1-horsepower motor and Quiet Crown topper maintain silent operation. After each event, the fountain's upper tier and auger disassemble for easy cleaning in a dishwasher.