B2B – TargetNXT

9 Best Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas to Upscale your Food and Beverage Business

Krista Grace — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 12:58:50 +0000

Thanksgiving is one of the most widely observed holidays in the United States, and people are in a festive mood to indulge and dine out. According to the National Restaurant Association, one out of every ten adults intends to dine out on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving and Black Friday have traditionally seen a spike in restaurant sales, as well as an increase in the Average Spend Per Customer, making it a particularly profitable time for restaurants in the United States.

As a result, it’s only natural that you devise a clever Food & Beverage industry marketing strategy for Thanksgiving in order to attract more customers and make the most of this season. Thanksgiving dinner used to be associated with the entire family gathering around the table for the ultimate home-cooked meal. While many Americans still believe this, times are changing, and if your business does not change with them, it may be left behind.

1 out of every 10 Americans plan to dine out for Thanksgiving this year, making it the second-busiest day of the year for diners, trailing only Mother’s Day.

9 Promotional Ideas To Increase Sales for the Food and Beverage Industry this Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, restaurateurs should take advantage of the opportunity to bring in visitors who will like the meal and may become repeat customers.

Here are some restaurant marketing ideas under the F&B industry to help you attract new customers, keep old ones, and upsell your meals to increase sales.

Spice up Your Menu

Thanksgiving is all about great food. Fall flavors, such as cinnamon and pumpkin, are essential to be on your menu for Thanksgiving. These flavors are familiar to diners, and they bring back memories. Come up with a Thanksgiving menu that includes delectable dishes and beverages to make it even more spectacular.

Limit the menu to the most classic Thanksgiving dishes, such as turkeys, mashed potatoes, pies, and pumpkin cheesecake. Having a different and separate menu is necessary since it’s the perfect way to reach out to customers seeking for typical Thanksgiving food.

Ensure to promote this special menu on social media, on your display window, and communities to attract customers. Likewise, train your staff to promote the specialty dishes.

Host Events

This is one of the top Thanksgiving food marketing ideas. Having a traditional Thanksgiving brunch or supper is a terrific way to draw in holiday visitors. You can host charity events and raise funds for families in need as people are in a charitable mindset at this time. Organizing an event will provide your business a lot of exposure, which will lead to more clients in the future.

If you’re organizing a Thanksgiving gathering, make sure your restaurant is well-equipped. Ensure your inventory is fully stocked, as running out of turkey on Thanksgiving will not be great for your restaurant’s repute!

Organize Competitions

Hosting competitions on your social platforms is a good way of keeping your audience excited. Thanksgiving is all about food, and families spend hours cooking the best Thanksgiving dishes. Before the Thanksgiving event, host a recipe competition on your social platforms, encouraging people to post videos and images of their recipes, with the winners receiving a discount coupon or a free meal. This manner, you can engage potential customers who aren’t dining out on Thanksgiving and entice them to come back to your restaurant later.

Create a special hashtag for your restaurant and encourage customers to use it anytime they upload a photo of it on social media. Everyone enjoys receiving gifts, so you may anticipate large involvement! This is a good approach to get your restaurant’s name out there.

Make Advance Reservations

Once you’ve started advertising your holiday events or specials, taking reservations can help you gauge how interested your target demographic is. Even if your restaurant doesn’t regularly take reservations, making one for Thanksgiving weekend is a good idea. It will not only make things operate more smoothly, but it will also make people feel compelled to sign up. When consumers are aware that space is limited, they are more likely to make reservations sooner.

Leveraging Existing Customer Base

It is critical for the event’s success to inform people; you can send emails and SMS to previous clients, as their chances of attending the event are higher than that of a new customer. According to the NRA, 31% of individuals prefer to dine at their regular restaurant on Thanksgiving, while 30% prefer to dine at a specific event restaurant.

As a result, you can use your CRM to interact with your loyal consumers. Refer back to your CRM reports and look over the list of customers who dined at your restaurant on Thanksgiving the previous year. You can then provide a special Thanksgiving discount and market it via personal SMS and emails to ensure that they dine at your restaurant again this year.

Holiday decorations

Get in the spirit of the holiday by decorating your restaurant with fall elements that will add to the holiday spirit. People will be happy to see a restaurant go the extra effort to create a festive setting, so make your venue look in line with the event. People will start talking about your restaurant if it is attractively decorated, which is a great approach to get new customers. One of the most common restaurant marketing techniques is holiday decoration, which is an effective technique to boost sales.

Provide Catering Services

Catering allows you to enhance sales without requiring consumers to dine at your establishment. Moreover, after all the work that goes into prepping Thanksgiving dinner, many are pleased to take some time off from cooking for the weekend all while looking to enjoy delicious meals with their loved ones. Consider putting together special Thanksgiving weekend catering packages for consumers that need a break from their own kitchens.

Spread the Message

It is critical to inform customers whether you are hosting an event or organizing a special Thanksgiving menu. Use your social media platforms to inform people about the special Thanksgiving event you’re hosting, or provide a brochure with each takeaway order that offers a discount for the event.

Festivals are a fantastic opportunity to boost restaurant sales, so having a good restaurant marketing strategy in place is crucial. A festival provides many opportunities for the food and beverage industry to make money; make the most of this period and reap the greatest benefit.

Involve the Community

Collaborate with a charitable organization to get into the holiday spirit. In the weeks preceding up to Thanksgiving, hold a canned food drive and offer your clients a complimentary drink or appetiser in exchange for their donation. Likewise, contribute a portion of the revenues from a specific menu item to a local charity. As during holidays, customers are more charitable, hence will enjoy your involvement in the community. They might even make a special effort to dine at your restaurant in order to support the cause.

This post attempts to provide a comprehensive guide that will assist you in strategizing outstanding restaurant marketing ideas that will help you grow your business even more.

If you start planning your Thanksgiving promotion now, you’ll be sure to get a piece of the pie this holiday season.

B2B Lead Nurturing Tips to Increase your Conversion Rate

Krista Grace — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 11:50:07 +0000

Generating leads to feed your company’s sales funnel is one thing and walking them through the sales funnel all the way down till they convert into paying customers is different. You need an effective lead nurturing campaign to convert leads into paying customers.

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the process of improving and reinforcing the bond with your customers at every step of the sales funnel. In order to build trust, increase brand awareness, and maintain a connection until a prospect is ready to purchase, a lead nurturing campaign focuses its marketing and communication effort on listening to the needs of your prospects.

What is a Qualified Lead?

A qualified lead is a prospect that fits your ideal customer profile, that has a high chance of becoming a paying customer, and has a high chance of being a successful long-term customer.

What are Lead Nurturing Campaigns?

Lead nurturing campaigns are the preliminary elements to strategize the sales funnel content for your prospects to ensure more sales and conversion.

Types of Lead Nurturing campaigns:

Welcome Campaign: The purpose of sending welcome emails is to complete your customer’s onboarding process. Make sure to keep your content personalized, relevant, and clear to understand. Also, welcome emails are the best way to give your prospects a glimpse of the products and services you provide.

Educational Campaign: This campaign aims at only educating your prospects that are not sales-ready yet, the content is designed to keep your prospect in the loop.

Product/Service: This campaign is designed to illustrate specific aspects of the product/service your prospect has shown interest in.

Promotional campaign: A promotional campaign provides the necessary push your prospects require to reach the bottom of a sales funnel. Promotional campaigns often contain coupons, special pricing, discounts, etc.

Re-engagement Campaign: This campaign exists to re-engage your prospects that went dormant for a long time. For re-engaging your prospects Email Marketing is the best strategy.

Event Engagement Campaign: An event engagement campaign focuses on engagement before and after prospect registration. Often these include webinars as well as in-person events.

Authority Perception Campaign: Your prospects need to believe in your product/service purchasing it, an authority perception campaign makes sure your prospects get that final assurance. The emails usually include press releases, high-ranking industry report relevant to your niche, and links to your high-traffic copy to ensure your prospects are taking the right decision.

Important Aspects of B2B Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Before you could dive right into your lead nurturing campaign, consider these important elements of lead nurturing.

Understanding Buyer Persona

What is it that your prospects desire at work? This is a question you want to ask your fictional ideal customer, which contributes to your buyer persona based on your current customer base.

Personalization

Personalization can take your lead nurturing game up a notch, sending informal emails with their name in them, and maintaining a conversational tone in your emails make your prospects feel connected. And also, when you personalize your emails, it makes your prospects feel wanted and valued.

Segmenting your email list based on the following traits will help you create relevant and personalized content:

Job Title
Age
Location
Interests

Educating Your Prospects

Educating your prospects regarding the current state of their buyer journey is the most crucial step of closing the sales cycle. This can be differentiated into three phases:

Awareness phase: Share blog posts related to the interests of your prospects. Keep your prospect informed of the latest trends in their industry.

Consideration phase: Invite your prospects for virtual events or webinars about your product or demo.

Decision phase: Finally, share with your prospects the success stories, reviews, testimonials of your customers.

Retargeting

Retargeting is the process where you make your prospect engage with you again after closing a deal. Now that you know your customer’s buying behavior, you can create lucrative content and appealing CTAs to entice your customers.

Stop Spamming your Prospects

Sending emails on a daily basis will definitely annoy your prospect and portray you as someone who only cares about selling your product/service. One major thing to avoid in lead nurturing is over sending emails to your prospects this will overwhelm them and eventually make them unsubscribe from your email list or even worse – mark your emails as spam. Choose the right frequency to send emails to your prospects, keep experimenting until you figure out what works the best for you.

Start Right Away!

Why wait till your prospect shows buyer intent, start nurturing your prospect as soon as they engage with you in any form, with any part of your business, you can even start nurturing your lead as soon as they engage with your blog post as well.

Address your Prospects’ Pain Points with Content Marketing

Content marketing is about addressing your prospects’ pain points and delivering them solutions through your content. Because a modern-day buyer has become smart enough to discard whatever smells like an ad or promotional piece. Content marketing will help you establish trust with your prospects and make them your loyal customer for longer-terms.

Wrapping up

I have often seen marketers going gaga over email marketing and lead generation, but very less businesses indulge in lead nurturing. Just like any other marketing tactic, lead nurturing is equally important. Nurturing five solid leads that might convert to be a loyal customer is far better than chasing down twenty short-term leads.

Yes, lead nurturing is a slow and time-consuming, and tiring process, but trust me when I say this, it is totally worth it if you intend to close deals on a larger scale. You can always get hang of it after continuous lead nurturing efforts, you can someday achieve great conversions that you desire by tinkering with your content, lead scoring, and qualification.

Everything You Need to Know About Vertical Marketing System

Krista Grace — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 13:50:14 +0000

The business paradigm has evolved beyond a man’s imagination, today we have tools and strategies that can fetch leads from mars as well (just kidding). What I mean to say is that the marketing world today has advanced. Back in the day, business and marketing were quite simple, unlike today. Today businesses from across the globe indulge in basically two types of marketing systems, horizontal marketing systems, and vertical marketing systems. And, in this article, we will be discussing the vertical marketing system.

What is a Vertical Marketing System?

The vertical marketing system is when the product manufacturer/producer, wholesaler, and retailer work in synchronization as one entity. Typically, producers, wholesalers, and retailers all work independently to make personal profits which induces competition and conflict along with decreased profits.

What are the Types of Vertical Marketing System?

The vertical marketing system is basically divided into three types,

Corporate: In a corporate vertical marketing system, all the control and authority are held by the company. It controls the production line as well as a distribution line. The company looks after every aspect from producing the product to delivering it to the customer. Typically, these companies don’t rely on a third party to distribute or sell their products. The company sells its products through its authorized outlets only.

Some of the best examples of corporate vertical marketing systems are Apple, Starbucks, and Ikea. These companies choose to control the production, distribution, and sale of their product. For instance, apple designs its iPhone, manufactures them in its production plant, and sells it through its retail shops. This my friend is a classic example of a corporate vertical marketing system.

Contractual: In a contractual vertical marketing system, the production, distribution, and sale are handled by three different entities but are bound together by a contract. Three independent processes working towards the common goal of the company. Large firms sign contracts with distributors to sell their products in the market and stay competitive.

The best possible example for this setup is popular food chains such as pizza hut, burger king, McDonald’s, wherein the franchisor ties up with a third party to distribute their food. Whilst maintaining the company standards and following company practices and guidelines. Franchising a brand is the Best Email List Building Practices example of a contractual vertical marketing system.

Administered:

In an administered vertical marketing system, one entity holds the ultimate authority across all the processes, often due to its large size and market presence. When one entity from the whole chain wields a major authority, it arranges for such a setup informally in the market due to its influence in the market, this means that the authoritative entity gets to make decisions regarding pricing, stock, and branding.

The best example of administered vertical marketing system is Walmart. Walmart is a large retail chain operating across the globe, smaller businesses align with Walmart since these small businesses cannot afford a distribution of that scale.

Comparing Vertical Marketing System and Horizontal Marketing System

Vertical Marketing System	Horizontal Marketing System
Comprises of three different elements i.e., manufacturer, distributor, retailer.	Has only either one of these elements.
Is meant for a smaller target audience.	Is meant for a larger target audience.
Provides unique and specialized products	Provides generic products
Often competes with other businesses	Often collaborates with other businesses
Example: Apple	Example: Google

Advantages of Vertical Marketing System

Effective Branding and Sales Copy

A business can establish itself as an industry expert when it focuses on a specific product. With this marketing system, you have the opportunity to increase your brand awareness by concentrating your marketing efforts on a specific number and type of target audience.

Increased Efficiency

When all the three components from the chain work together towards a common goal (i.e., more profits and market share) the friction between them reduces resulting in fewer conflicts, and more profits for everyone.

Eliminates Communication Gap

Manufacturers, distributors, and retailers all work in a unison to run the business, and the best part about it is that it eliminates the communication gap among all the components in the chain. Enabling the business to keep all its components on the same page and serve its customers better.

Access to More Resources

A business can get access to more resources with all its components working towards a common goal. For instance, it often happens that businesses negotiate with a third-party shipping company to deliver the product. But, under a vertical marketing system, a business has its own resources to ship its product.

Disadvantages of Vertical Marketing system

Now that we have discussed the benefits or advantages of presiding on a vertical marketing system, let us talk about the disadvantages of VMS.

Limited Ideas

When manufacturers, distributors, and retailers are managed by a single body, one perspective and idea are superimposed on to all three components. This restricts the opportunity to try a new angle or implement new ideas. It often happens when teams are working independently, they tend to bring new and fresh ideas to the table running the business.

Decreased Quality Control

When the company has absolute control over all the processes it becomes difficult for the company to manage all the departments and its processes. Which can result in product quality reduction.

Wrapping up

Compared to a horizontal marketing campaign, a vertical marketing campaign is much harder to establish. After all, you are targeting a specific audience that requires more time and focus. Nevertheless, when you dedicate your resources and make sure to maintain consistency in your process and products you can establish yourself as a specialist in your industry.

Everything in this world has its own advantages and disadvantages, just because there exist few drawbacks of a strategy does not mean ignoring all the positive potential it has. As a matter of fact, both VMS and HMS marketing strategies are widely popular across the globe, and both the marketing systems have successful businesses to show. It is up to you to decide which type of marketing strategy suits your business better. Or what system resonates with your future business plans.

6 Best Email List Building Practices That Work in 2021

Krista Grace — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 08:46:40 +0000

Did you know?

9 out of 10 marketers use email marketing for distributing content originally.

Email marketing has gained popularity due to its effectiveness. It is the easiest as well as a cost-effective marketing strategy.

For a business in the growth stage, email marketing acts like a magic potion that helps you build stronger and long-lasting relationships with your customer.

But there is a catch. And the catch is, for an email marketing campaign to be successful, it needs to be backed up by a solid email list of authentic customers and prospects.

Why do you need an email list?

– Emails have a personalized effect on your customers making them feel connected with you.

– Users prefer to use emails rather than any other channels for business purposes.

– Emails are mostly sent to a target audience which increases its effectiveness.

– Emails have higher conversion rates

– Unlike many other marketing techniques such as social media, blogging, advertising, which have faded with time. Emails have always been effective and continue to do so.

Now that we have understood the importance and benefits of email marketing and email list, let us look into the best practices to build an authentic email list.

How to Build an email list?

Building an email list is no rocket science and not very simple either. Nevertheless, we have listed 6 simple yet effective steps to be taken to build an Dentist Mailing List.

Create Opt-In Form

Opt-in forms are the best way to collect your customer or site visitors’ contact details. Ask your visitors to submit their contact details as soon as they land on your site. Opt-in forms can be designed in myriad ways. Choose the one that suits your brand persona well.

Opt-in designs play an important role in collecting the data, a good opt-in design that promises to offer something of value in return will immediately leave a good impression on your customer. And a poorly designed opt-in form is a big turn-off for your visitors. Therefore, pay close attention while designing your email list.

Offer lucrative Incentives, Freebies, or Coupons

It is a well-known fact that no person is going to provide you their email address unless they get something in return (apart from promotional messages). While designing your pop-up or opt-in page, make sure to mention the benefits of subscribing to your newsletter.

Businesses often provide free e-books, access to members-only sales, and content upgrade.

What is a content upgrade? Well, a content upgrade is a gated piece of content that is exclusively provided to people who subscribe to their email newsletter. A content upgrade usually contains free guides, DIY blogs, product catalogs, et al.

Integrate CTA on your Home Page and Social Media Bio

For the people who are not aware of what call to action (CTA) buttons are, these are clickable links you place in your emails or landing pages asking your user to perform certain tasks.

For example, you might have come across these abnormally big but attractive buttons usually saying, “Buy now”, “Add to cart”, “submit”. Similarly, integrate “Subscribe to our Newsletter” CTA on the home page of your website and social media bio.

Of course, you can come up with better options than ‘Subscribe to our Newsletter’, this was meant to be an example. Put your creative senses to use and see what works for you. The best way to determine what type of design is turning out to be beneficial to you is by testing your CTAs. Update your designs and copy regularly to identify the CTA that suits you the best.

Along with home pages, you can integrate CTAs in your social media account bio. The people who have visited your social media handle might as well be enticed to subscribe to your email newsletter.

Invite to Sign Up for Updates

Another great way of collecting your customer’s email address is by offering to notify them about any recent updates, upcoming sales, back-in-stock products, new collection products, etc. People are usually excited to know and get exclusive access to the sales and like to be notified about certain things.

Utilize the Power of Blogs

You can generate a great amount of traffic with the help of content marketing. You can attract your customers by writing interesting and SEO-friendly blogs. What you can do to collect the email addresses of your blog visitors is embed a timed pop-up. One way of doing this is by showing the visitor a pop-up after they have spent 30 seconds on your blog post.

If your blog article is interesting and succeeds in creating a buzz among your readers, your readers are most likely to subscribe to your email newsletter to know more about your brand.

Start Building your Email List

These are the best tried and tested methods of building your email list. By strategically using your CTA, creating opt-in forms, offering discounts and incentives to those who subscribe, sending invites to get notified, and by unleashing the potential of blogs to acquire email addresses, you can build yourself an authentic Email List that will assist you to run dynamic email marketing campaigns.