Never before has the restaurant industry been so challenged. Many locations have closed permanently and those that haven’t are now open at 25% to 50% capacity with additional safety precautions necessary for both employees and customers. If you are a restaurant owner that has recently reopened, there are many challenges you are currently working to overcome. One of the biggest of these challenges is how to get customers to return. One facet of this challenge is how to communicate with your best customers that you are open, that it is safe to return, and that they can expect the great food they know and love when they return.
The best place to start this process is defining your best customers, also known as your VIPs. The data science division here at EMERGING can help with this by processing your POS data pre-COVID into customer segments based on buying behavior: VIP, Core, and Infrequent. Typically, VIP customers spend between 5 to 10 times more per year than an Infrequent customer. Gaining a zip code level understanding of where your best customers live can also be helpful in identifying opportunity areas or potential lookalike customers.
The data gleaned from your POS data on your customer breakdowns can be used in informing the most cost-effective marketing campaigns to get your customers back into your restaurant. By specifically targeting groups of VIP, Core, or lookalike customers your marketing team (or an outside firm) can tailor your message to each group for a better return on investment. You might want to market “I’m open and it’s safe to return” to your VIP customers but find it is more effective to include a promotion “here’s a great offer for you to enjoy if you come back” for your Core customers. By specifically targeting customers with the right messaging, you maximize the impact of your marketing spend which is even more important now!
EMERGING can help you perform this customer breakdown analysis as well as create demographic profiles, site prediction models, and targeted surveys. Our online dashboard lets you see customer counts by customer type and how they are changing on a daily basis. This will help you track your marketing success and well as track the progress of the reopening.
Contact us at info@emerging.com
