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Coupon ceiling, limited marketing

I officially contacted the Internet around 2006. At that time, the popular reviews appeared coupon business, which may be the initial food and beverage Internet marketing.

I was working in a chain store and the review clerk found me. I thought it was relatively novel, so I quickly signed the contract and started trying. The first two years did bring us a lot of guests by downloading coupons.

Since 2009, the effect has been decreasing, it seems that the number of views is very large, the actual use of the shop is poor. Popular review coupons are actually an advertising platform, only care about clicks, not responsible for the effect. Finally calculated to bring a guest, the average advertising cost, plus I in order to pull guests to pay the preferential cost, the average person about 200 yuan. Our shop normal meal is per capita fifty or sixty, this pull a new guest to pay 200 yuan cost is obviously not worth it. Moreover, our branch in the field, the effect of reviews is smaller, because reviews in many second- and third-tier areas are hardly operating sub-stations.

At the same time, I also found a problem, customers come here to eat, first asked "waiter, do you have any concessions here?" "Oh, sir, we do. You can go to the popular reviews to download the coupon, and you can reduce the meal by 30." Served, the 30 yuan in hand was so lost. But if the waiter is silent, wait until the customer finds out, will say that the restaurant is not authentic.

This time when the meal reduced by 30, customers get a discount, the next meal if you do not reduce 30, people may not come. That's how customers get used to it!

Tintin offer also talked to me, this manufacturer is more ruthless, let each merchant in the store to place their terminal verification, he said, this can pay by effect. Well, the waiter basically doesn't have the awareness to play with this tool. You put a terminal for me today, tomorrow's reviews to give me another, this front desk has become a manufacturer equipment display. I don't think it's a good idea, I'm not going to go any further.

During that time, coupons are also particularly many, subways, shopping malls can be seen everywhere in the city, a group of young people around the coupons. In fact, I also had a period of cooperation with Veo City, but when the popularity of smartphones, this paper coupon gradually disappeared, then contacted me that Veo City salesman has now changed a new job, he said the business is now almost disbanded.

At that time, a lot of entrepreneurial team felt that the threshold of coupons is low, set up a website, pull a few merchants to gather a little bit, I do not know, simply can not find a profit point.

In fact, coupons in general is not strong, can not be very good to stimulate consumers strong consumer desire. Only to a certain extent to improve the rate of consumer visits, improve restaurant revenue. New ways must be considered if you want to do more marketing.


The normal marketing of catering group purchases is unrealistic

The times of the Internet are changing so fast. Around the end of 2009 and the beginning of October, the new term "group purchase" appeared, and the summer of 10 years began to slowly catch fire. This thing is said to bring a large number of guests to the store, for the short-term increase in revenue performance is still effective. Coupled with peer-to-peer catering enterprises have in the group purchase business, said "can improve the daily flow of water", we also want to try.

At first, we chose one of the largest group buying platform cooperation in China. I took this collaboration very seriously and regarded it as an important marketing campaign for our group, so I arranged for store managers, chefs, and some executives from all over the country to focus on "group buying" business training.

What makes me cry and laugh is that this is called the largest group buying site in the country did not look at us, good or bad we also have dozens of chains in the country! This site sent three small sales staff to train us, industry experience know nothing, has been saying "maybe" "maybe" "maybe" "we are not sure" "we go back to the company to ask the leadership", this temporary attitude and level let me in front of the public face, I was furious, let them leave immediately, and then terminated the contract on the spot, and complained against them, vowed never to cooperate with them again.

But the training has to go down. So I found a slightly inferior group buying network, talked about the idea of cooperation, they immediately sent the general manager of the region to take the team, technology, business, completed the entire training, very professional. That time I understood, don't just look at the size of the company, second-rate companies send first-class people to provide you with services, far better than first-class companies send third-rate people to provide services.

Some group buying networks every day in the so-called "how many billion transactions in the month", these slogans like publicity and brainwashed education I do not think will make much contribution to the entire industrial chain, will not create social value of the company is not a qualified company.

Group purchase began, a large number of people poured in, let us unexpected. At first really a red fire ah, customers have said, this has a group purchase, really cheap ah. This year people more and more refined, looking for restaurants online to find out which group to buy which, or sit in the restaurant to see if there is no group purchase, cheap does not account for white. Prices are getting cheaper, expectations are getting higher and higher, the group of customers are looking forward to, for fear that we have different services for them.

And with the emergence of new stores, group buying is now more and more difficult, the past 50% off the purchase of 2000 copies, now there are hundreds of copies, and most of them have been purchased by groups. Internet economy, is cheaper than hard, customers can't let you fold and play, don't money to eat for free is good.

Group buying lets restaurants in a short period of time into a large number of price-sensitive customers, old customers often do not enjoy group purchase concessions, so that these follow the business behind the old customers are stimulated, or even switch to other restaurants, or, also from a loyal customer to price sensitive, and the value of the brand itself has been questioned.

I usually also often read the media reports, once a thousand regiments of war, now there are very few left. The collapse of the collapse, the merger of the merger. Group purchase this thing is too hurt profit, originally now do food and beverage profit is thin, one by one group purchase website also in order to pull traffic as far as possible to let you give a lower discount, said "no low discount can not pull customers" - have the ability you can pull so many customers you really cow!

To tell you the truth, group buying for food and beverage, is to lose money to earn a drink, not to make money at all. It is a short-term promotion, as the normal marketing campaign is simply not realistic, can not afford to hurt. There are more customers, but the more customers there are, the more money you lose. We did what we could to find and couldn't carry it, so we stopped.



Rational choice of "member marketing"

I understand that the concept of "membership" starts with a stored value card. When I visited the store, I found that there would always be some familiar faces in each store, and some customers seemed to be in a group with the store manager, who seemed to come often. Since these people often come to spend, it means to recognize us. I am smart, it is better to let them like to deposit money for the bank card to the restaurant pre-deposit, but also to help enterprises precipitate some funds, for the catering enterprises to accumulate some funds can do a lot of things.

I first used the cash register software in the store value system, the beginning of the effect is very good, and later found that can only fill a single store, can not be universal between chain stores, cross-store use needs repeated telephone communication, extremely cumbersome. And it manages the card, only recognize the card do not recognize people. For a restaurant, it's more about who comes to eat, so the system obviously doesn't meet our needs. It has been looking for it since, but it has not been found for several years.

My request is very simple: first, to have bank-level security performance, once the cash register system problems, the consequences of data leakage will be unimaginable;

It turned out that there was a company that could provide the stored value cards I needed, and they also had a good financial background, providing not only stored-value tools, but also post-marketing support. Through the industry to learn that its partners have a million, and good evaluation. Soon we established a value-stored card business cooperation.

Later, I gradually found that the stored value card also has drawbacks. For example, lost, damaged, demagation, it can not enjoy the rights and interests, which makes it easy for customers to cause misunderstanding. Although we can make up the card by paying the fee, it still gives the customer a bad impression on us. Times in the update, we will of course keep pace with the times, to provide customers with more satisfactory and more convenient services. In fact, the card is only a form, customers are more concerned about the benefits obtained. With the popularity of the mobile Internet, electronic membership cards gradually become popular.

I choose the electronic membership card has its own ideas: must be a third-party platform, that is, non-direct cooperation platform. For example, we did group purchase in the nest group, want to comment on our various stores members group sent a text message notice, told these members "we bought in the nest group, welcome to buy enthusiastically", comments will support the group hair? Of course not.

Third-party platform does not exist this obstacle, through the platform we can come in different channels of customer data for effective management, and timely inform the store's activity marketing. And I very much care whether this product can be achieved and the cash register background of the full docking, because not docking, the emergence of "cheating" is a breeze.

The update is so fast that a few years is a new era. Blogs and flying letters, which had been on fire in previous years, have disappeared; However, Weibo is now more and more rely on the public media, WeChat out of 5.0 will also significantly weaken the nature of the marketing platform, the nature of the service will be greatly enhanced. Some time ago to promote the hot "Sunrise Grand Hyatt City" WeChat marketing, now also fade out of sight, customers only in the shop will sweep QR code, and people are already in the store, still need to sweep?

The important thing is, Weibo is also good, WeChat is also good, are only to provide a channel to join the membership. Frankly speaking, we can not "hang" in an independent Internet platform, one is that this platform will put us firmly in control let us into a passive, and the other is in case this platform falls or falls, our service will continue? I am in favor of multi-channel membership, in the background for data analysis, marketing campaign planning and so on. Now our membership system is able to text messages, micro-blogs, WeChat and other channels to join, and physical value-saving card to obtain the same membership rights. In the future, if there are other channels to collect members, the same open for us to serve.

In fact, for the understanding of members, I think the most important thing is: membership data marketing, is the business itself, we can control it. Recently micro-life membership card and public review membership card has been talking to me, they told me that most customers like to eat checkout to show discount card, tell me, with their cooperation will bring how many customers.

I said directly to them, you enter the shop 10% off, all the people into the shop are 10% off, then the member becomes the ordinary person, the discount becomes the positive price, you still hang the false cover to do? Simply discount the price of all the dishes by 10% directly. And these join members do not have any threshold, do not give discounts these members will also come to eat, you a discount to the profits live out, has lost the money in hand.

Low threshold to join, customers not only do not appreciate, but also very happy to say, wow, micro-life card, review card, very good, can give me discounts in various stores. We gave up discounts, paid for reviews and micro-life, the end result is to add a large number of users to these two platforms, we can not find anything, simply to others to do wedding dress. But the business's own members that effect is very different, customers feel that I am a member, merchants from time to time there are food gifts, vouchers, accumulated points, stored value also send gifts, this business is awesome, I want to come often.

More important is to comment on membership cards, micro-life membership cards are difficult to achieve the stored value, let alone and cash register through. Being a member is not about going with the flow, but about your company's earnings. Let us be a member, we must consider clearly "who we want to give preferential treatment", depending on the consumption behavior of different customers, amount, number of times and so on. If you're a member, you're not a member. I think now more and more merchants are no longer "swipe bank card 50%", in fact, think carefully, a truth.

In recent years has been a lot of companies to see us this catering enterprise has a certain influence, reviews and micro-life is not tired of chasing me every day, to provide us with free services. I refused. Free things, my interests will not be any protection, in case one day first board the ship and then buy tickets, this kind of killing more, we can not afford to play.

In particular, discount cards, low threshold, finger can join, in case of a throes to me to collect a lot of members, and then according to the number of development members of each member data how much money, this kidnapping is terrible. According to my temper will never hand in, but many users, users belong to the platform side of others, they are angry, to our member users to send competitors' food information and preferential information, I have no reason to say. I heard that there are individual businesses in these two platforms have developed hundreds of thousands of "members", if they really pay for this, it is really Lei Feng reseed.

These are the words of my lungs, most of which I have learned from the bloody lessons. In fact, after so much, I think with the Internet manufacturers, you just need to see if the services provided by the manufacturer can bring you sustained revenue and corporate brand exposure, while measuring what I have to pay, funding? Preferential? Meals? Gift? Estimate and choose the partnership with the highest return on investment.

Finally, it's important to remember to choose a team that will provide you with ongoing service. The Internet industry is no longer just a tool to let you play, but needs to include consulting, planning, service system engineering, only a complete combination to achieve a win-win situation. We do Internet marketing at the same time, do not forget that the food and beverage enterprises' dishes and services are internal work, is fundamental, to first put the foundation to play marketing.

Finally, I hope that managers who are struggling in the catering industry, like me, will be able to get out of this huge circle of "Internet marketing". Low threshold to join, customers not only do not appreciate, but also very happy to say, wow, micro-life card, review card, very good, can give me discounts in various stores. We gave up discounts, paid for reviews and micro-life, the end result is to add a large number of users to these two platforms, we can not find anything, simply to others to do wedding dress. But the business's own members that effect is very different, customers feel that I am a member, merchants from time to time there are food gifts, vouchers, accumulated points, stored value also send gifts, this business is awesome, I want to come often.

More important is to comment on membership cards, micro-life membership cards are difficult to achieve the stored value, let alone and cash register through. Being a member is not about going with the flow, but about your company's earnings. Let us be a member, we must consider clearly "who we want to give preferential treatment", depending on the consumption behavior of different customers, amount, number of times and so on. If you're a member, you're not a member. I think now more and more merchants are no longer "swipe bank card 50%", in fact, think carefully, a truth.

In recent years has been a lot of companies to see us this catering enterprise has a certain influence, reviews and micro-life is not tired of chasing me every day, to provide us with free services. I refused. Free things, my interests will not be any protection, in case one day first board the ship and then buy tickets, this kind of killing more, we can not afford to play.

In particular, discount cards, low threshold, finger can join, in case of a throes to me to collect a lot of members, and then according to the number of development members of each member data how much money, this kidnapping is terrible. According to my temper will never hand in, but many users, users belong to the platform side of others, they are angry, to our member users to send competitors' food information and preferential information, I have no reason to say. I heard that there are individual businesses in these two platforms have developed hundreds of thousands of "members", if they really pay for this, it is really Lei Feng reseed.

These are the words of my lungs, most of which I have learned from the bloody lessons. In fact, after so much, I think with the Internet manufacturers, you just need to see if the services provided by the manufacturer can bring you sustained revenue and corporate brand exposure, while measuring what I have to pay, funding? Preferential? Meals? Gift? Estimate and choose the partnership with the highest return on investment.

Finally, it's important to remember to choose a team that will provide you with ongoing service. The Internet industry is no longer just a tool to let you play, but needs to include consulting, planning, service system engineering, only a complete combination to achieve a win-win situation. We do Internet marketing at the same time, do not forget that the food and beverage enterprises' dishes and services are internal work, is fundamental, to first put the foundation to play marketing.

Finally, I hope that managers who are struggling in the catering industry, like me, will be able to get out of this huge circle of "Internet marketing".

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I am convinced that our persistence, there will always be people to appreciate.
▲Meal manager chat food and beverage marketing learning platform pushed articles, partly compiled in the major media the highest reading of articles and author contributions, some article authors are unknown so not noted,If copyright issues are involved, please contact us and we will deal with them in the first time! Source: China Business Daily,Meal planner finishing, reprint please indicate the source.
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