One of the most important pieces of running a successful marketing campaign with Restaurant.com is to ensure your clients and customers understand the value of Restaurant.com and how easy it is to redeem. When they have a positive experience with your company from the product or service they purchased and they use the value of the Restaurant.com incentive, it’s a winning combination that will earn your company positive word-of-mouth and repeat purchases.
Whether you are an experienced marketer, a novice, or somewhere in-between, when you focus on your core goals, your campaign will be a success. We suggest you concentrate on these principles:
Of course it will! Whether you are a family-run business or a large corporation, our unique incentive and loyalty solutions are proven to entice customers to act. With our low cost and high value solution, the powerful incentive from Restaurant.com has helped thousands of businesses meet and exceed their goals. From attracting new customers, changing consumer behavior, inspiring buyers to act quickly, and rewarding for loyalty, our partners have achieved great results. [Read More…]
You are a smart, yet humble business leader. Your decision to reward your customers for choosing your product or service was smart. But your plan to incent reveals that gratitude is a two-way street; reciprocally, your customers will thank you for the valuable gift of Restaurant.com savings! [Read More…]
That famous line from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come,” may have been true for a bunch of ghosts and a cornfield-turned-baseball diamond. But where fundraising campaigns are concerned, simply putting one together may not guarantee that people will flock to your organization’s cause.
These days, getting people’s attention takes a bit more effort — sometimes a lot more.
The good news: Whether you’re holding a silent auction for your local YMCA, a raffle for a theater troupe, or launching a capital campaign for your nonprofit, there are plenty of ways to promote your fundraiser.
Here are just a few ideas.
In-Person Appeals
In today’s always-on-the-go society, it’s easy to forget just how much a face-to-face meeting can do.
For a really powerful way to drive your cause home, find ways to get directly in front of people who might be willing to donate or be part of your fundraising effort in some way.
Offer to speak at your local Chamber of Commerce meeting, volunteer to talk to a group of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, attend a local networking happy hour. Essentially: Figure out what groups are most likely to be interested in your cause, then find a way to get in front of them.
Pitch Local Media Outlets
As much as some would love for you to believe that print is dead, the traditional media still hold a lot of sway — especially in smaller localities, where most everyone gets their news and event information from sources like the city newspaper or their local network news affiliate.
Get your local media’s attention with a well-written press release — short and sweet, with all the pertinent information clearly listed. If you have access to their contact information, send it to the reporters who cover the beat or topics most closely related to your organization’s mission or cause; you’ll be more likely to get a response that way.
Someone within your organization should be a point person for interviews, and always have electronic versions of photos or logos at the ready if the media requests them.
Take To Social Media
Despite what we’ve just said about local media, there’s no denying Social media isn’t wildly popular today just because people love to waste time watching cat videos and talking about what they had for lunch.
It’s an amazing way to connect with all kinds of people — across town and all over the world — and, for marketers and organizations with a mission, a pretty effective way of getting things done.
Here are a few ways to use social media to promote your fundraising efforts:
– Post photos from previous fundraising events as a way to build buzz for your next event
– Use an online platform like Kintera to house your donation system
– Create a Facebook or Eventbrite event to invite attendees and sell tickets
– Create a meaningful hashtag on Twitter to track mentions of your cause, event or campaign
– Use Pinterest to build boards with photos of your silent auction or raffle items
– Use your Facebook Page, Twitter account or other social to thank donors and recognize other important people related to your cause
Above All: Know Your Donor Base
No matter how you end up deciding to do it, the key to successfully promoting your organization’s fundraising efforts rests on truly understanding your donor base.
Before you make the decision of how to dedicate your time and energy on promotion, stop to think where your most valued stakeholders spend their time and energy — then try your best to get your message and cause in front of them.
What fundraising efforts are you planning for the rest of the year, and how do you plan on spreading the word about them? Leave a comment here and share your organization’s story.
If you’ve ever spent a Valentine’s Day night in front of the TV, a big bowl of popcorn in your lap, with a bad romantic comedy on the television, you know the big conflict in nearly every one of the movies: One of the characters refuses to commit.
With more than 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce and job turnover rates in many industries at staggering levels, you might say we’re in something of a commitment crisis these days. But it hasn’t always been that way: Remember, back in the day, when couples stayed together forever, and students would graduate from college and start a job with the company they’d eventually retire from, some 50 years later?
There’s a lot of talk out there about how employees can be more committed to their jobs, how to rise above their competition and keep their jobs in a persistently difficult employment climate.
Why isn’t there more talk about employers committing to their employees?
According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), the biggest challenges facing HR professionals in the near future aren’t in dealing with problem employees. Rather, the challenges are in hanging on to the best employees and developing them into leaders. The other big challenge is fostering corporate cultures that attract high-achieving employees to organizations.
It’s encouraging to see challenges like this — they’re all about committing to employees. So with Valentine’s Day in mind…how will you commit to your employees this year?
Offer Mentorships
Offer your commitment to your employees by pledging yourself to making them better at their jobs. Whether you’re offering your time to individuals directly or putting a program in place to create a structure of leaders educating future leaders, investing in mentorship and staff development shows employees you really care about their success.
Celebrate Your Employees Internally
Make an example of your employees — but not when they do wrong. Celebrate your employees’ achievements instead of only punishing their failures, and make sure other employees know when one of their colleagues has succeeded!
Doing so can create even more of a team environment and even foster a little healthy competition among your employees as they jockey for the next opportunity for your recognition.
Recognize Your Employees Publicly
The comment card and suggestion box may have gone the way of the dodo, but “employee of the month” could still be alive and well. Only now you can tell everyone: Use social media to recognize your employees’ achievements publicly!
Post a photo of a smiling employee who’s done a fantastic job for you, and talk about how important they are to your success — your customers and clients will see your commitment to your employees, and it will lift everyone within your company up in their eyes.
Reward Employees
You don’t have to regularly give out huge raises to your employees to show your commitment to them. Sometimes, a surprise — like a Restaurant.com Gift Card or a small bonus — can go a long way, and it costs a lot less than systematic pay increases.
Offering tokens of your appreciation at random means a lot to employees and may help them strive to be better every day.
Bottom Line: It Pays To Commit
What will it cost you to show your commitment to your employees? That depends, but it probably won’t cost as much as it would to find new ones after losing those you weren’t committed to: The average cost of replacing an employee is up to 20 percent of their annual salary!
I read a quote recently: “The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them.”
You can say you’re committed to your employees and their success, but if you aren’t showing them, they’ll never know. The best way to ensure your employees’ commitment to you is to offer them the same.
How are you committing to your employees?
Did you hear? There was a big football game in early February. Held outdoors in a cold-weather climate for the first time in years, the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos faced off at MetLife Stadium for the 2014 Super Bowl.
It could be argued that only one of the teams actually showed up to the stadium that night, given the final score of 43 to 8.
But it could also be argued that this year’s Super Bowl, like many before it, was more marketing’s big game than football’s: advertising laying down play after play, with a bit of football in between.
So, who took the equivalent of the Vince Lombardi trophy in the ad match-up? Here are Restaurant.com’s three big winners, in no particular order.
Winner #1: Radio Shack
How long have people been saying it? “The ’80s called. It wants its store back.”
Radio Shack took the long-offered opportunity to make fun of itself in this fantastically hilarious ad. Bursting in the doors to strip the store were everyone’s favorite characters from the 1980s: the California Raisins, Hulk Hogan, Chucky, Alf and more.
Radio Shack was able to launch a re-brand and distance itself from its old image with a single Super Bowl commercial. Rebranding often takes companies years — and sometime isn’t even successful, as some never escape their old image.
Radio Shack is reinventing itself from the inside out, but not without firing a few parting shots of its own to the brand image they’re hoping to kiss goodbye.
Winner #2: Goldieblox/Intuit QuickBooks
In a sea of big-ticket advertising for mega brands, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it commercial for a kids’ toy really stood out.
From its humble Kickstarter beginnings, Goldieblox has skyrocketed into a coveted toy brand for little girls sick of the industry’s pinkwashing. The commercial showed little girls tearing through the neighborhood to throw their old pink toys onto a rocketship and send it into orbit.
This wonderful advertising spot was sponsored by Intuit’s QuickBooks, which inextricably tied their brand to the success of small businesses by holding an online competition among thousands of entrepreneurial companies. Voting among the QuickBooks staff and the public helped to choose which ad would air on Super Bowl Sunday.
The progressive ad showed girl power at its finest, and Intuit, by shedding light on a small business, lifted themselves up among the ad behemoths.
Winner #3: Esurance
This all-online car insurance company recently acquired by Allstate Insurance — and even more recently gone public — made a big splash when you’d least expect it: directly after the Super Bowl, when ad slots cost 30 percent less than they did within those four quarters.
The gimmick/gist: By purchasing the 30-second spot immediately after the game wrapped up, the company saved $1.5 million — which they were happy to pass on to their customers.
It’s a memorable tie to the Esurance brand’s value proposition: The company passes on the savings from doing business online to its customers.
Esurance used “the simplest, most modern means available” to help promote their contest and brand after the fact: the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag on Twitter. Every tweet counted as an entry to the contest (and, of course, every tweet also went out to each entrant’s entire followers list).
Esurance worked with spokesman John Krasinski and the Jimmy Kimmel Show to reveal the winner on live television. In the end, there were more than 3 million unique entries. That means a lot of eyeballs were on Esurance’s marketing message, and even more saw them as the contest progressed.
What Did You Learn?
There’s a lot Super Bowl ads can teach us about how we market our own businesses. What did you learn from this year’s spots? What commercials were your winners and losers? Leave a comment and let us know.
Everyone makes resolutions at the start of a new year. Whether it’s to lose weight, eat healthier, finally get the garage cleaned and organized, or save up for that big vacation, goals are a huge part of the ritual people go through as they prepare for the 12 months to come.
What’s your resolution for 2014? And perhaps more fittingly, what’s your business‘s resolution for 2014?
O Stay All Ye Faithful: Retention Strategies to Keep Those Holiday Customer Acquisitions
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They don’t call it Black Friday for nothin': The holidays have traditionally been viewed as the time when businesses could make up for slow periods during the year, going gangbusters through the holiday season and winding up in the black by the new year.
But if you know Black Friday, you also know what comes after the New Year. A serious slowdown hits many retailers in January, and it’s easy to feel stymied and without options when your door just isn’t opening — especially after a busy holiday season.
So what’s a business owner to do?
Did you know that product fundraising — think Girl Scout cookies, Boy Scout trash bags, magazine subscriptions, wrapping paper and the like — is a $3.4 billion (yes, that’s seven zeroes) industry?
With that much cash in play, not to mention the importance of fundraising in itself, it’s clear that product fundraising has really grown up! And just like any other industry, it’s crucial to stay connected and up-to-date on all the latest developments in the business — so you can stay at the top of your game.
If you’re looking for new ideas on how to connect with your customers and provide them with the best possible products and services to meet their fundraising goals, then join us at the American Association of Fund-Raising Distributors & Suppliers 2014 Convention and Trade Show. It’s happening Jan. 10 to Jan. 13, 2014, at Rosen Centre Hotel and Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.
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Client Spotlight
As one of the most redeemed dining rewards, our members appreciate the value and variety of choices offered by the Restaurant.com Gift Card. Scott Murphy Business Development Manager MyPoints.com, Inc.
Client Spotlight
"Restaurant.com Gift Cards were a big hit with our supporters because it seems like everyone likes to dine out and Restaurant.com made the process easy for our organization to manage." --Todd Robinson Avondale Middle School, Rochester Hills, MIClient Spotlight
Using Restaurant.com Gift Cards has worked phenomenally for our fitness center! We love to provide our members with a $50 Restaurant.com Gift Card for any time they refer a friend to our facility. The Gift Card has also been a nice incentive to provide to new members when they first join during several of our last membership promotions. Best of all, since we have started incorporating the Restaurant.com Gift Cards into promotions and incentives we have seen a drastic increase in new memberships! -- John Wierzbicki, Assistant Facility Coordinator
Client Spotlight
"As a company, Upromise is very pleased with the results we've seen from our partnership with Restaurant.com. We've used these certificates for multiple programs and have seen very positive results each time. I expect we will continue to use certificates in the future and encourage others to give them a try as well." -- Evan Weisenfeld, EVP, Partner Development
Client Spotlight
"Restaurant.com provided CenterPoint Energy with a highly valued and appealing incentive to encourage participation in our promotion. And in terms of "easy to do business with", you would be hard pressed to find a company more focused on the satisfaction of their clients and their client's customers." -- Steve Landrum, Manager, Marketing Communications
Client Spotlight
"I can't say enough about our corporate relationship with Restaurant.com. The amount of restaurants that participate nationally appeals to the masses and our customers love it! The customer service is always responsive and professional and available to answer any questions we have. Restaurant.com has aided in our company's growth and we look forward to our mutually beneficial relationship." --Internet Travel AgencyClient Spotlight
"Restaurant.com Gift Cards were a big hit with our supporters because it seems like everyone likes to dine out and Restaurant.com made the process easy for our organization to manage." --Todd Robinson Avondale Middle School, Rochester Hills, MIClient Spotlight
"We've had other incentive programs, but this partnership with Restaurant.com has been a big win-win for both parties. RDC offers great value, service, and delivers our orders on time - which was vital to the success of this effort. Plus, the friendly staff was refreshingly easy to work with!" -- Dave Drap , Director of Strategic Business Development
Client Spotlight
"I work with insurance agents to help them increase quote opportunities and referrals. Using Restaurant.com is an easy, cost-effective way for agency owners to deliver an incentive that has a high value, yet the cost to the agency is minimal and delivery of the incentive is easy to manage." --Stephanie Cunningham, Agent Contact Marketing
Client Spotlight
"We have been ordering Co-Branded Restaurant.com Gift Cards for nearly a year and it has been so easy to use. The service and attention we receive is un-matched and the gift cards with our logo have been a great way to show our customers appreciation, even after our work is done. We place the restaurant.com card into a "thank you note" to all of our customers that we touch.We hope this will help the customer remember what company gave them quality service to their new home, and call us in the future. I want to harvest "cradle to grave customers". -- Linda Oakley, VP of Sales, Atlas Transfer and Storage, Agent for Allied Van Lines
Client Spotlight
"We can't imagine an incentive that works as well as Restaurant.com Gift Certificates. From ordering and delivery to redemption, the process is seamless from start to finish. We have been so pleased with the experience and the results are over the top!" -- Ted Rubin, Chief Marketing Officer
