Restaurants are getting killed right now. The combination of public fear, forced Covid restrictions, and new social distancing practices was a gut punch to the food business.

Congratulations for keeping your restaurant or food truck going through this crisis. That has not been not easy.

Hopefully the worst is behind us. When it is, it will take a long time to rebuild to the pre-pandemic levels.

For your restaurants to survive, you need a solid marketing strategy. You need reliable ways to pull people through the door and build your take out and delivery orders.

In the current situation, getting new customers has become pretty hard to do as so many people are socially distancing safely at home. Brand new customers are not just finding their way in the door like they used to.

Now is the time to lean on your existing customer base, remind them you are still in business and they can still enjoy your food safely.

It has been said that it is ten times easier to get a previous customer to come back, than it is to earn a new customer. In they days of COVID, this is even more true.

What are you doing today to get your best customers to come back more often?

If you are like most restaurant owners, probably not much.

Maybe you tried loyalty cards or building an email list in the past, but did not see the results you wanted? You would not be alone.

To get the best results, you have to use the most effective tool for the job.

And by far the most effective tool to get your customers coming back more often is by building a Mobile VIP Club.

Simply put, a Mobile VIP Club is a hyper-responsive customer database. It uses the most effective communication (SMS text messages by mobile phone) to your most receptive audience – your loyal customers who opted in for your marketing messages.

It is the number one way to increase your repeat business and fastest way to bump your bottom line.

Here is how it works…

Build a List – Your VIP Club

First it starts with building a customer database. You need a recurring process to capture contact information from your patrons.

Get their cell phone number! The number one contact method is using SMS messages to mobile phones.

Email addresses are OK, but not the greatest method for response these days. You should try to collect both their mobile number and their email, the more contact options the better. However, if you only focus on one, it should be the mobile phone number.

Using SMS has higher response than any other method. It beats email hands down and is even better than FB messenger marketing.

We call this SMS customer list your Mobile VIP Club.

To get them on your list, you must give them a great offer. This is the most important factor.

People don’t give out their contact info easily, so be generous and make it worth their while like a free appetizer or 20% off their bill.

Don’t worry, your investment will come back in spades – see how fast the numbers add up below!

The customers join your VIP Club by simply texting a keyword to a special number to opt-in to receiving your special offers.

The second most important factor is to promote your VIP Club – hard.

Put a table tent promoting your VIP club on every table. Train your staff to promote it to every customer. And drop a flyer in every take out and delivery order.

Work the List

Next you need to work your SMS list on a regular basis. Communicate with them often, sending them special offers and conditioning them to respond to your messages.

Several times a month, send your VIP Club members special offers to pull them back in. Secret happy hours, BOGO deals, free deserts work well.

You can strategically plan VIP Club offers to boost your slowest days of the week. You could even occasionally send out a flash deal to start pulling in orders the same day.

Your VIP Club can be powerful, but don’t over do it. Over promotion can become annoying and lead to members opting out.

We have found that 3 to 4 promotions per month is just about the right number.

Just how effective can a Mobile VIP Club be?

Let’s run your numbers…

See how powerful a Mobile VIP Club can be for your restaurant?

The longer you go without one, the more money you are leaving on the table.

Want to give it a try?

We have a live demo of a mobile VIP Club available for you test it out.

Click the button below to get started.