3 Data-Backed Marketing Tools for Connecting with Your Customers

In the age of Big Data, having a wealth of information can be both a blessing and a curse. There are many valuable insights to gain, but you need a team with the right skillset to determine what’s important and relevant to apply it to the creation of effective campaigns as well as your overall marketing strategy. Since no single solution is going to work for every brand, diving deep and developing a customized approach is the smoothest path to optimal results. 

Here are three data-backed tools to consider implementing for engaging customers and increasing sales: 

1. Subscriptions 

Falling under the larger umbrella of stored-value payment, subscriptions are a growing trend. Restaurant subscriptions offer guests a discount on regular menu items or access to a wider range of products for a specific monthly fee. This is similar to entertainment subscriptions like Amazon Prime Video, YouTube TV, and Hulu that offer thousands of choices for a recurring fee. 

Both restaurants and customers benefit from the subscription model. Customers benefit because they get products they love at lower prices than if orders were placed individually, as well as a more consistent and convenient ordering experience. 

Restaurants enjoy the advantages of recurring revenue, greater customer loyalty, and detailed data collection. Customers who sign up for their favorite restaurant’s subscription program provide more data than the average guest, including but not limited to their full name, email address, phone number, order preferences, order history, average order value, and likelihood of trying new products. 

Some restaurants choose to let their customers load prepaid meals onto an account, which is not much different than preloading cash to spend. In both cases, when guests store value on a card or in an account that’s linked to a loyalty program, visits and spend typically increase. 

Prepaid meal passes have sometimes resulted in incremental spend being boosted by up to 80%. When stored value is paired with auto-reload features, it can produce additional benefits like a 15% increase in weekly visits. 

2. Artificial Intelligence 

Far more than a hip term now, artificial intelligence (AI) is a tool that helps marketers determine the most impactful ways to reach their guests and create unmatched experiences at scalable costs. Taking individualization beyond bands and segments allows your marketing and sales team to optimize promotions and maximize their ROI. 

One-to-one visit challenges that offer rewards based on individual guest behavior have generated remarkable results. One such challenge saw the number of visits increase 10.5% across all guests and almost 28% among those who were already visiting somewhat regularly. Choosing the right promotion can entice more visits and spending from even your best guests. 

Both AI and machine learning (ML) take data mining, customer hypersegmentation, and campaign analysis to brand new levels. Provided your restaurant or c-store has a large and clean dataset, you can provide it to different AI tools to uncover relevant insights that would take human analysts much longer to uncover.  

But human insight is not obsolete. By combining the key observations and data points AI uncovers with humans’ customer knowledge and experiences, laser-targeted offers and creatives can be developed. You can now achieve profitable campaigns early on at a fraction of the cost from previous years. 

3. Segmentation and Predictive Scoring 

Targeting guests by each customer’s likelihood to take action further refines any marketing strategy you have. Whether guests are inclined to visit once a week or once a year, you can craft promotions that will work for each segment. 

Thoughtfully structured campaigns typically drive a 15-25% increase in visit frequency and prompt behavior changes like visiting at a different time of day, spending more, and trying new products. Predictive models can also be used to identify segments that are likely to visit without receiving an offer, helping you avoid profit cannibalization. 

In the hands of the right strategy and analytics team, these tools will motivate increased visits and spend, which ultimately leads to improved top-line sales. To learn more about building a successful loyalty program, book a demo now and see how Paytronix levels up your guest engagement