The ways that diners discover restaurants are evolving. Today’s operators are evolving too, creating new strategies to reach their guests, understand their wants and needs, and using that information to get them to come back to their restaurants.
Restaurants now have to stay on top of more data than ever, and guest experience platforms like SevenRooms aim to help. FSR sat down with SevenRooms CMO Josh Todd to learn more.
How can restaurants ensure their multi-channel marketing drives results?
Consumers are discovering restaurants in many different ways today—and operators need to develop omnichannel marketing strategies that ensure they are showing up where their customers are. It is not enough to rely on third-party reservation apps alone to drive covers. Restaurants must take control, which means prioritizing where and how they show up. For example, 33 percent of consumers are discovering restaurants on Google and another 29 percent on social media, so ensuring Reserve buttons are set up is a great first step. Once you’re across these channels, the key is leveraging a platform that makes it easy to capture data, automatically tying it back into proven marketing channels, like email.
At SevenRooms, we help restaurants bring in new diners while also helping them make more money from those dining experiences through more effective marketing and improved upsell opportunities throughout the customer journey. A diversified strategy puts them in control of their business and brand, while helping them understand which levers to pull to generate real ROI.
How can restaurant operators set themselves up for long-term success?
Direct relationships are critical, as they enable operators to collect first-party data, like the number of guest visits, spend or order history, to create targeted campaigns. By leveraging automated email marketing tied into the guest database the restaurant can set up campaigns to send messages that automatically generate revenue while operators focus on providing incredible customer experiences.
Let’s say somebody comes in, and the restaurant learns they love Barolo. Using that information, a restaurant can create audiences of similar diners to set up a relevant marketing campaign promoting a future wine-tasting event. With SevenRooms, restaurants can use email marketing to not only communicate their offerings to guests, but as a proven revenue-driving acquisition channel. So they can know how many of their wine spenders are buying tickets to the tasting event or visiting to purchase a bottle of wine again.
What sets SevenRooms apart from other available tools?
From May to August 2023, our customers generated $1.3M by leveraging our email marketing product. These are dollars they wouldn’t have made or been able to easily tie back to direct ROI in the past.
We also just released a restaurant revenue management solution. It assesses a restaurant’s data to help optimize availability, increase table utilization, and generate more covers and revenue. Operators can make more money from the same seats, use data to validate trends, and save time with ready-to-use actions.
We’re in the business of helping restaurants make money so they can do what they do best—create amazing guest experiences.
For more, visit sevenrooms.com.
