Making Restaurant Reservations

My dream as a chef was to open up my own Italian restaurant. After many years of working under some of the top Italian chefs in the country, I was finally able to open up me own little piece of Italy in a busy downtown location. I could have not asked for a better location and an even better price on the building that was purchased.

After many months of renovations to the building and hiring a great staff, my Italian restaurant was ready for opening night. The first night we were open was extremely busy and we were surprised at the turnout. Everyone loved the food that we were serving and our staff was elated on the many wonderful compliments about the cuisine.

Since being open for the past three months, it seems that the newness of the restaurant has wore off and the struggling economy was having a negative effect on the business of my restaurant. We went from being booked for weeks in advanced and then business seemed to slow down a bit. My wife suggested that we look into subscribing to some small business tools to get the momentum back in our business.

We both did our research on the Internet and came across an interesting website. My wife found the website Pelican Txt.com. This amazing service provides text messaging to many of our regular customers and we can even send scheduled text messages to our talented staff.

My wife explained to me that this text messaging service provides our customers with the opportunity to receive up to date food promotions via cell phone or computer for our Italian restaurant. I even learned that the text messaging service would allow customers to make reservation at the touch of a button instead of waiting on the phone. This made perfect sense to use this service as a convenience to our loyal customers and to help promote our restaurant.

Since we have been using the scheduled text messages for our staff and customers, it has made our Italian restaurant one of the busiest eateries in the downtown area again. My staff is now constantly up to date on meetings and restaurant reservations. The service has saved my talented employees time on how many people to expect for dinner service every night. This has also helped me in knowing how much food to order from my distributors and helps keep our food cost down, and the savings are passed on to the customers.

How to Use Demographics in Your Text Message Scheduling

If you aren't already using demographic profiles in your text message scheduling and marketing, then you are wasting up to 90% of your budget! Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that their product or service would be good for everyone … even if that is true, your marketing budget can waste away quite quickly by not targeting your message properly.

Imagine if you were selling facial treatments, and were offering free eyebrow waxing with every treatment this month. Sure, there are some men who like getting facial treatments and eyebrow waxing, especially corporate type guys. But would you take out an ad for your services in a business updates magazine? Probably not! On a smaller scale, not paying attention to demographics in your text message scheduling is just as wasteful. So how do you collect and use demographics in your cellphone marketing efforts?

What are demographics?

There are several main ways to split your customers up into groups. Each of these must be useful in considering what they are likely to need or want. Arbitrary divisions are not useful. You'll want to maintain a database showing each customer's:

• Age, or age bracket (for example, 18-25, 25-35, 35-50, 50+)
• Sex, male or female
• Income level or bracket
• Education level
• Race and/or ethnicity
• Geographic location

How to collect demographics

Some lucky businesses collect these demographics as a part of their service. For example, if you sell products via the internet, you will already have your customer's geographic location. In some cases, businesses might take a date of birth to help verify customer identities (for example, internet providers and electricity providers), giving them accurate age data for creating demographic divisions. In other cases, businesses may be able to assume data based on their interactions with the customers -- but be aware that this is risky business!

A better way to collect demographic data is to offer a reward in exchange for it. Loyalty card providers don’t really need to know people's income or education level in order to give them a free coffee once they've bought ten. However, many stores require this sort of sign-up. There are many ways you can do this is your own businesses. You an also use:

• Suggestion boxes
• Post-purchase surveys
• Focus groups

Shaking what your research gave you

So, how do you apply all this newfound knowledge in your text message scheduling campaign? Many businesses will have only one demographic for their customers -- you might sell a product that only high-income, older females want. However, other businesses have a wide range of customer demographics.

When you design a promotion or special, keep a single customer demographic in mind. For example:

• Mechanics could offer promotions on tasks that men usually do themselves, but women often need help with
• Hairdressers could offer a promotion on a trim and shampoo aimed at their male customers
• Beauty therapists could offer an anti-wrinkle product sample free with a facial, aimed at older customers.

And then use your text message scheduling program to ONLY send this out to customers within your chosen demographic! Easy - and effective.

Top 4 Writing Tips for Scheduled Text Message Marketing

Almost the only form of marketing that is guaranteed to be read nowadays is scheduled text message marketing. People will delete emails without even seeing the first line, they're wise to pop-under ads and right click to close them, and even the most annoying blinking banners barely get a look in. Scheduled text message marketing is still fairly underused and a powerful tool for the right offer and audience. If you've got a powerful promotion, here are our top four tips for framing it in text message words!

1. Set the scene

Frame your offer either in terms of the problem it solves for your customer, or in terms of its benefits … using SENSORY language. This is language that evokes a feeling in your reader. "Save" and "discount" always arouse interest, but to be memorable you might uses words like:

• Warm and cozy
• Sizzle
• Dripping
• Laugh
• Fresh

You can see how these apply to many different contexts, and as you read them you can picture a feeling, a sound, a sight or a quality. This is what will make your scheduled text messages stick in customers' minds.

2. Calls to action

They are an essential part of marketing everything from hearing aids to handbags. Don’t just provide a website or phone number, TELL your customer to look it up or call it. If you have a physical store, say "Come and see us at…". You can also bring your sensory words into a call to action. For example, if you were advertising a steakhouse restaurant, you could say "Experience the sizzling flavors and juicy drip of our finest by stopping by 123 High Street, Downtown."

3. No txt spk!

Society is well and truly divided on the issue of text-speak. The bottom line is that it isn’t suitable for corporate communications. Even if you have a young audience or an informal brand, full words are safest.

4. Write about one thing only

You need to identify a single offer for your text message. Customers will only get annoyed if the first message is truncated, and then their silence is again interrupted by beeping, only to find more advertising. You need a single offer per scheduled text message for both memorability, and to avoid being an annoyance.