Starting with a relatively small list of customer e-mail addresses collected in various ways, Buckhead Life Restaurant Group sent an e-mail offering a $25 Ultimate Card as incentive for joining the company’s new e-mail program. Signing up for the program and receiving the incentive required guests to input information about themselves into an online database. It also encouraged viral growth by allowing recipients to forward the invitation to friends and families. Within a week, more than 20,000 people had signed up for the e-mail program – an astounding response by any measure. “The key to the long-term success of the program was to use the customer information respectfully, with relevance,” says Hanna. The program launched in 2001 and still remains a powerful marketing resource for the restaurant group.
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