Email marketing is by far the least expensive direct-response marketing you can do. Email can be used to mail out coupons, send an e-mail newsletter, announce upcoming events and specials, and keep in touch with community groups you support. You can also time your messages to boost sales during slow times of day—particularly lunch sales.
Build Your Email List
Email marketing with SpeedLine is easy—but it may take some preparation. If you have already started to collect customer email addresses, you’re ready to go. If not, you have some work to do.
Record customer email addresses in the Terminal Customer screen. Even if your business is strictly dine-in, it won’t take you long to build a database of -mail addresses. There are a number of ways to collect email addresses:
•Ask your customers, “Would you be interested in receiving special offers and coupons occasionally by e-mail?” If they say "yes," record their consent by touching the Opt-In for Email Promotions check box in the Customer screen Options window.
•Create a simple contest entry form that includes a check box for consent to receive e-mail offers, and then record the consent in Terminal.
Email marketing works only when you have the express permission of your customers to send them promotional offers and coupons by email. Unsolicited email is SPAM, and can be illegal. Permission-based email, however, is an alternative form of communication.
Track the Results
Because email marketing can trigger very quick customer response, you will want to prepare to track the results before you send a message.
If your email message includes a special offer, create a new coupon in Menu Designer to track redemptions. (See the Create a Coupon topic in Menu Designer Help.)
Targeted Email
If you want to target mailings to specific groups of customers, of if you wish to include graphics in your messages, you can export customer reports, for example the New Customers or Lazy Customers report, to an Excel or text file format (see Export Reports). The information in this file (which includes opt-in information) can then be used with an email marketing service to send out professional-quality emails to the customer groups in the report.
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Important While it is possible to import exported customer reports into your own email application (Outlook, Eudora, etc.) and send emails from your desktop, SpeedLine does not recommend this, because managing mailing lists and unsubscribes is often complicated and time-consuming. |
Mass Email
The Store Manager Mass Mail tool can be used to send a text message to all the customers with e-mail addresses in your database who have given consent. See Send Email to Customers for instructions on setting up and sending mass mail.
See also:.
•For a description of the Coupon Usage reports, see Report Descriptions.
•To see how to create coupon (to track redemptions) see Create a Coupon
•To see how to use the Mass Email tool, see Send Email to Customers.
