Email Marketing – How to Build a Bigger Customer Database

Customers’ e-mail addresses are as good as gold in today’s digital marketing age, and fondue chain The Melting Pot has hit the jackpot. The Tampa, Fla.-based brand’s “Club Fondue” e-mail database boasts more than 500,000 names; since the program’s inception two years ago, both restaurant guest counts and sales have increased.

The secret to building such a rich marketing resource is in offering customers real value for signing up, says Kendra Sartor, vice president of brand development at The Melting Pot. Club Fondue members earn a free chocolate fondue dessert when they join and another annually on their birthdays. Additionally, they receive advance notice of special events and are allowed to make reservations before non-members for special occasions such as Valentine’s Day, when tables are a hot ticket.

Beyond boosting guest loyalty and repeat visits, having the comprehensive diner database creates an even greater opportunity for The Melting Pot: the chance to get direct feedback from its best customers and use their input to craft a better, more consumer-focused brand. That was the idea last May, when the chain launched what it hopes will become an annual e-mail survey to find out how customers use and perceive the restaurants. The project garnered an impressive 28% response rate–thanks to an offer for a free chocolate fondue–which was enough to drive some key changes in the company’s business strategy.

“It really helped us define what the guest wants. We don’t own this brand; our customers own this brand,” Sartor says. “If my marketing strategy is about what the CEO or the president or I want, we’re doomed. It has to be about responding to the guest.”

See http://www.rimag.com/web-exclusives/articles/melting-pot-database.asp