The article, "Integrated marketing campaign boosts email subscribers for restaurant chain," focused on how a company used integrated marketing to increase their email subscribers using several marketing tools. The restaurant, Pei Wei Asian Diner, which is owned by P.F. Chang's, increased their email subscribers by 20,000 in two weeks. How did they do this you ask? Two words: integrated marketing.
According to the article written by Brafton, the campaign was designed "around a new entree, Caramel Chicken." The restaurant used several marketing tools, including "in-store promotions, mobile outreach and web marketing..." They issued specific content to those who subscribed, such as coupons. The company's release said that "20 percent of all coupons were redeemed."
This is a great example of a successful integrated marketing campaign. They have embraced the importance of integrating their message, which has led to increased sales in a very short time. The most important thing the campaign did was cater to its audience by using tools that they use frequently. They also offered discounts to those who subscribed, which helped the campaign because it provided an incentive.
Other companies and organizations can use this as an example to increase their subscribers and business. I can definitely envision other restaurants embracing this concept of using several marketing tools to reach their target audience. Integrated marketing is the key to success for businesses as they try to increase consumers and eventually profits.
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It's not the fact that integrated marketing was used...companies do that all the time. The important thing to note is that it was used WELL and they succeeded in increasing they're subscribers.
ReplyDeleteWhat this restaurant did was know it's target audience. They knew what was valued and used that to their advantage. That's why research is so important. A lot of companies simply use demographics/psychographics and send mass amounts of content out there hoping someone will bite the line. But if time is taken to study what customers are doing/using, a more targeted (and effective) approach can be taken that will accomplish the objective.
It is kind of shocking at the amount of of subscribers that Pei Wei was able to gain. 20,000 is a lot and it seems like the did it in a low cost setting as well. If you compare this to what Fort did with their campaign. They went with the larger markets, TV and the Yahoo website. This obviously didn't work as well with the amount of money they spent just trying to get people to visit their Facebook page.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with what Erin said about Pei Wei knowing their target audience. They were able to achieve better results by using a simple theory.
I believe the biggest thing to take from this was how they used little cost to increase there ability to reach out to their customers and almost guarantee repeat customers by getting email subscribers. Obviously the customers wanted deals because that is why they signed up to the emailing list. This is really important because now Pei Wei can dictate when they want to try and increase sales in their restaurants by releasing certain coupons to their email lists at certain times. They do a great job of building a list of people that they can count on to be a customer.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erin, the idea of using a well-researched integrated marketing tactic such as email coupons is a good idea. I used to work at a restaurant that printed on the back of their receipts, "Want a free breakfast? Tell us what you think of your experience here today!" It gave the website where you could go on and comment about their experience, print out a coupon and come back in the next day for a free breakfast if they wanted to. The promotion served a double duty - letting the managers at the restaurant know how their servers/cooks were doing from word-of-mouth and giving customers a chance to be reterning customers, regardless how their experience was the first time.
ReplyDeleteWow, increased 20,000 in two weeks. I think company's need to learn from the approach they took. I like the fact that they not only adapted to the consumer's interest, but also included incentives for those who subscribed. This gave the customer a reason to get involved. Most people will take a coupon if they can get one.
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