For Austin Grill, it's not enough to be green. The goal is to encourage customers to embrace earth-friendly habits as well.
That's why the seven-unit company with locations in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia makes no secret of the fact that, in 2003, it became the first 100-percent wind-powered multi-unit restaurant in the country. Or, that its new kids' menus and table-tent displays were printed on 100-percent post-consumer recycled paper with a wind-powered, carbon-neutral printer.
How better to spread that message than by using a paper-less, waste-free method?
Much of the company's e-mail marketing, created by Alexandria, Va.-based Fishbowl Marketing, includes a "stamp" proclaiming its use of wind-generated power.
"We include the fact that we're 100-percent wind powered in a lot of our e-mail communications," said Mike Holden, director of marketing for Austin Grill. "We want to let people know that we're doing it because it sparks conversation about things that everybody can do to be more environmentally friendly."
E-mail marketing impacts the "greening" of a restaurant in two ways, said Laura Gosse, vice president of marketing at Fishbowl, which has conducted e-mail marketing since 1999. The first is by spreading the word of eco-friendly efforts.
"Going green is part of the mainstream and consumers want to frequent a place that is as green as they are," she said. "If they recycle at home, they want to support restaurants who are doing similar things in small ways to make an effect on our climate. E-mail as a marketing tool is a good way to get out that message."
Secondly, e-mail marketing potentially lessens the amount of paper waste and chemicals associated with print advertising. While the impact has yet to be measured quantitatively, Gosse said the trend is clear.
"As people are going online to do their marketing and doing less in paper, there's less paper used in marketing," Gosse said. "So there has to be an impact, even if it's small now, as restaurants and other retailers adopt e-mail marketing more and more — and that is the trend — that print advertising is slowly becoming a smaller part of businesses' advertising dollars."
Additionally, e-mail promotions are "print on demand," Gosse said. Instead of placing a newspaper advertisement and hoping loyal customers respond, a restaurant can target those very guests, leaving the printing decision up to them and reducing waste.
"If a certain percentage are interested, they will print it off and bring it in," she said. "Therefore, you're saving paper in terms of those people who are not interested in that particular promotion."
Restaurants, particularly those dealing with large volumes, should be conscious of their potential impact — positive or negative — on the environment, Holden said.
"If we're not careful, we crank out a lot of food; large-volume restaurants have a lot of waste," he said. "I think we've become more aware of the fact that we need to be doing these things that are better for the environment."
And many restaurants are shouldering that responsibility, Gosse said, evidenced by the cleaning products they use, the organic or locally produced foods they feature and the amount of paper advertisements they've reduced.
"There's so many things you can do on a small scale that has an impact, and those things all add up to a greater impact," she said.
