Imagine if a restaurant could add the productivity of another worker, without the cost of training, wages or benefits. It may sound too good to be true, but the scenario can become reality through online ordering.
"You can only take so many orders per minute, but the computer is tireless," said Don Schaefer, owner of The Dressing Room, a salad restaurant in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "It's as if we have another person doing business," he said, minus the extra pay and benefits.
One easy — and proven to be effective — method of marketing this service is through e-mail.
Attaching a link to an online-ordering Web page within e-mails has been "hugely successful" for The Dressing Room, which has one location in operation and three more scheduled to open within the next eight months.
The restaurant has experienced a 7-percent increase in online ordering, with that segment now commanding 10 percent of total business, Schaefer said.
Some restaurants may be tempted to take the task of marketing online ordering upon their own shoulders. Schaefer said he began handling e-mail on his own in January 2007, but he noted that it did not look very professional and was difficult to manage, taking him several hours a week just to input names.
He switched to Alexandria, Va.-based Fishbowl Marketing in March, citing a more professional result that is easier to manage.
Fishbowl Marketing connects to consumers directly through e-mail to promote appealing services and benefits as well as increase business, said Kathleen Richardson, Fishbowl's vice president of client services.
"We work with our clients to reach out to their customers through their e-mail addresses and help them engage with customers and get them interested to sign up for online ordering," she said. "It's a one-on-one way to build their consumer base online."
Richardson also hailed the benefits of delegating the marketing duties to an established firm.
"The benefits we offer clients, whether they are a chain or a very small operation, is a real understanding of the industry," she said, combined with an advanced understanding of technology and how to pull it all together.
"We have a real opportunity," Richardson added, "to work one on one with consumers if we engage them in the appropriate way."
That appropriate way may be different for each of Fishbowl's clients, from one- or two-unit restaurants to large chains such as Panera. But for all clients, Fishbowl also considers day-to-day operations — the challenges of being short-staffed and the like — to determine how best to market in the industry.
When Fishbowl was founded seven years ago, e-mail marketing hadn't received a great deal of attention, Richardson said. Founder and CEO Scott Shaw realized it was "the wave of the future" that hadn't been utilized fully and even today hasn't reached its full extent, she said.
Schaefer, who said he also receives e-mails from other restaurants that he frequents, highlighted e-mail's ability to stick with customers.
"It just reminds customers that you're out there; it puts a bug back in their ear," he said.
"If you can get your e-mail saved or your site bookmarked by customers, you've won a huge battle because you've become a part of their life."
