289 times Dean and his staff did this.

As I tuned in Friday to watch Episode 4 of Heroes of Hospitality, I decided to open Dean’s dashboard to see how his program is doing and whether he’s continued the momentum he had in ONE VERY SPECIFIC AREA: his in-store marketing opt-ins.

For any marketing program to succeed, it must start inside your four walls. In May, when we traveled to film with Dean, I saw how it can be done at a high level. This part of the marketing equation really sticks out to me because it’s what I’ve seen most of our clients fail to do every day.  

As you know, the success or failure of your restaurant’s marketing starts and ends with your customer database.  And there are 4 main ways you can grow your database

– 1st – In-Store

– 2nd – Point Of Sale

– 3rd – Website & Online Ordering

– 4th – Social Media

75% of your best customers will come from #1, the customers YOU make an effort to gain from your in-store marketing.  To take that a step further, this is where you’re team SELLS your marketing program “I’m going to guess you’d love a free dessert your next visit, right?”

When we visited Dean, it was apparent he and I were on the same page. He not only had graphics everywhere, but they were high-quality. And on top of that, he wasn’t relying on luck for customers to engage with them; his employees were ALL OVER THIS!  

Now, here is an even more important part: Dean’s had been a client of ours for four years leading up to this point, so one might think that every customer would be burnt out from hearing about a VIP or Loyalty / Rewards program for his restaurant, but they weren’t.  Even up to March when Dean was on our old program, his employees continued to gain new opt-ins at record paces compared to every client in our marketing programs.  When he launched his Repeat Returns program in late April his staff had something new to switch to, and it made sense that he’d have a lot of in-store signups.  But, it’s usually the 45-60 day mark when the “New” wears off.  

When I watched Dean’s episode of Heroes of Hospitality on Friday, August 16th, we were around 120 days into his program, so I figured the honeymoon was over with his staff. I figured his in-store efforts had fallen off.

When I logged into his dashboard, I was blown away! It had not fallen off; in fact, it had grown!  

One thing that’s HUGE in our business is seeing thousands of marketing campaigns at once.  The expertise we gain by seeing all of these restaurants in our software is why we can build successful marketing programs for restaurants daily.  We have the data, we have the insights.  It’s no different than you making 1,000 steaks per month and me grilling four; you’ll always be light years ahead of me with your knowledge and expertise.  It’s your craft, just like restaurant marketing is ours.  

So when I logged into his dashboard, I figured I’d be greeted with the disappointment I am most days as it relates to restaurants growing their database inside of their Repeat Returns marketing program (now DRYVER).  I figured I’d see new customers only from their POS integration or online ordering through their website.  But Deans was different; 289 of the past 500 customers who opted into his restaurant’s customer marketing program came from IN-STORE!!!!  Here we are four months later, and his staff is still KICKING ASS!! 

Somehow, Dean can get his employees to do what 99% of the restaurants in America can’t; TALK TO CUSTOMERS!

That’s all I’ve got for you today, but there’s much more to come.  

I highly encourage you to click below and watch what Dean has to say, and if you’ve not watched episodes 1-3, do that too. 

To watch Episode 4 of the Heroes Of Hospitality and the other three episodes, CLICK HERE!