network news

Welcome

This month’s newsletter is all about data. Admittedly this is not a subject to make the average restaurateur’s heart beat faster, but perhaps it should be. I heard a great story about data capture last week, through Janie Clarke at Capital Centric, that might bring you round to my way of thinking...

Janie was previously Director of Sales and Events at Paramount Restaurants and is currently working with a large restaurant group, on a project that includes delivering their new website. In mid-June, the group made one very simple change; they added a customer sign-up form to their existing site. Six weeks down the line, they have added 90,000 brand new, clean contacts to the database (for just over 100 restaurants). If each of these diners could be encouraged to book just two extra times a year, it would amount to a hefty 540,000 covers!

If you don’t have an online sign-up form already, Livebookings can even provide you with one that will feed data directly into Console for your email campaigns. Simple!

Just contact us at support@livebookings.co.uk and we’ll send you everything you need.

Olivia FitzGerald
General Manager, UK and Ireland

     
 
 

Hot Topic

How Clean is Your Data?

Have you ever been called Mr when you are a Mrs, or vice versa? It‘s incredibly irritating, isn’t it? First impressions count and this ethos should always be applied when contacting your customers, whether over the phone or through direct marketing.

The cleanliness and accuracy of the data you collect about your customers is vital. Otherwise you risk offending your customers before they have even walked through the door! Clean data is also the first step on the road to success with your email marketing activities.

Here are a few simple steps to help keep your database clean:

• Think about the information you need to personalise your emails and written communications and then focus on collecting this in as much detail and with as much accuracy as possible

• When talking to a customer, re-confirm back to them all contact details including: the spelling of their name, their title (Mr, Mrs etc), email address and telephone number

• Check with customers whether or not they would like to receive emails from you and respect their decision - never email customers who haven’t given their permission

• Make sure you unsubscribe all customers who ask to be removed

• Investigate any bounced back emails and either remove them from your database or update their contact details

• If your customers don’t open three email communications in a row then consider removing them from your database. Alternatively, you could send them an email asking if they still want to be subscribed, and potentially use this as an opportunity to incentivise them to return to your restaurant

Happy cleaning!




 
 

Promotional Idea

Are You Based in Manchester or Birmingham?

lastminute.com is looking for 20 restaurants in Manchester and another 20 in Birmingham to run a fantastic ongoing promotion on their regional restaurants page.

What will lastminute.com do for you? 

  • All featured restaurants will be displayed on a rotating basis on the regional restaurants page
  • Every week, an exclusive email will be sent out to both Manchester and Birmingham regions with the featured restaurants’ exclusive offers

What you need to do to take part:

  • Come up with a great offer for eating out for £15
  • Send us all offers by the 17th August



 
 

Marketing Tip

Attracting Diners from Search Engines

The world of search engine marketing and listing sites such as Google can seem to many like learning a foreign language, but it is a topic that you can ill-afford to ignore. In the US alone, over 200,000 restaurant searches are made online every hour!

Attendees of the last Livebookings Academy were able to learn some top tips on the basics of how to attract diners from search engines, from our Chief Operating Officer David Norris. David has a wealth of experience on this topic from previous roles at lastminute.com and Expedia.

Download David’s presentation here

(If you have trouble downloading the presentation, contact us by email and we’ll send you a copy)

 




 

In this issue...

Hot Topic

How Clean is Your Data?

 

Promotional Idea

Are you based in Manchester or Birmingham?

Marketing Tip
Attracting Diners from Search Engines

 

Top 10

Restaurants achieving highest booking levels in July

In Season

Produce in season this month

Livebookings Academy
School's out for summer

 


Top 10

The restaurants receiving the most bookings in July, in no particular order, were:

 


In Season

In season in this month:

Vegetables:
Beetroot
Courgettes
Peppers
Sweetcorn
Tomatoes

Fruit:
Plums
Cherries
Apricots
Loganberries
Melons

Fish:
Dover Sole
Grey Mullet
Haddock
Herring
Pilchards
Red Mullet

Cheese:
Farmhouse Cheddar

Use this list to help you identify which seasonal produce you could feature on your menu. Why not send your customers an email about your latest menu highlighting this season’s specialities?


Livebookings Academy

School's out for summer!

Following a successful series of three Livebookings Academies this year, we have reached the end of term. The Livebookings Academies will recommence in September so keep an eye out in next month’s newsletter for more information.


www.livebookings.net
Stay Connected Linkedin Twitter

>© 2009 Livebookings Ltd - Registered in England & Wales Registration No. 04494036
Registered Office: Elizabeth House 39 York Road London SE1 7NQ
Click here to UNSUBSCRIBE