E-mail marketing is by far the least expensive direct-response marketing you can do. E-mail 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 E-mail List
E-mail marketing with SpeedLine is easy—but it may take some preparation. If you have already started to collect customer e-mail addresses, you’re ready to go. If not, you have some work to do.
Record customer e-mail 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 e-mail addresses. There are a number of ways to collect e-mail 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 E-Mail 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.
E-mail marketing works only when you have the express permission of your customers to send them promotional offers and coupons by e-mail. Unsolicited e-mail is SPAM, and can be illegal. Permission-based e-mail, however, is an alternative form of communication.
Track the Results
Because e-mail marketing can trigger very quick customer response, you will want to prepare to track the results before you send a message.
If your e-mail 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 E-mail
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 e-mail marketing service to send out professional-quality e-mails to the customer groups in the report.
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Important While it is possible to import exported customer reports into your own e-mail application (Outlook, Eudora, etc.) and send e-mails from your desktop, SpeedLine does not recommend this, because managing mailing lists and unsubscribes is often complicated and time-consuming. |
Mass E-mail
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 E-mail 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 E-mail tool, see Send E-mail to Customers.
