The National Restaurant Association says that at any given time 20% to 40% of the guests in the average restaurant are first time customers. This is your opportunity to make a great first impression and create loyal return customers. There are proven procedures to make First-Time Customers into Regular Customers.

First-time guests are very profitable. The restaurants we work with have been generating over a 1000% ROI on first-time guests and, when you make first time guests loyal customers they will become "walking talking billboards for your restaurant" as they share their "extraordinary" dining experience.

You know, a lot of independent restaurant operators run the very best restaurants. They have a choice menu or they really do something wonderful in their operation, but too few people know about it. Neighborhood Marketing is the only affordable way for independent operators to get their message out.

The goal is to make your restaurant habitual for your customers. The keys are email and direct mail. When you enroll your people in a VIP Club, you are capturing their name, their address, their phone number, their email address and all the other information that you want to file. You can market to them with e-mail or direct mail You can send faxes to businesses or voice broadcasts to homes and businesses.

Of course, email marketing costs less than any other types of marketing and since it is permission based, you are going to be very, very effective in using it, so I would suggest using e-mail when you can. But, if the customer doesn't have an email address or doesn't respond to e-mail, send direct mail to them. The key is the communicate.

Some restaurant owners are reluctant, they say, "Well, our customers don't want e-mail." No one wants e-mail unless they know that there is something of value inside, but we can help you learn what kind of value to provide for your customers. When the e-mail is from your favorite restaurant, you love to hear what is going on. Customers love it, it saves them time, they get what they want because if you are tracking what they want and need, you are sending them what they want and need, that's what customer relations is all about.

So if you are going to focus on giving your customers what they want, it's so important to build your database. Look at some of the ways you can market throughout the year to your customers if you have their contact information.