Congratulations, you landed your first 14-top birthday dinner party!  Nice, now its time to start your in house marketing list.  Did you get all of their info? What did you do for retention?

This is exactly what my wife, Bessie, asked a prospective client last night as we sat around over a drink (and watched the Celtics take the Bulls).  His response was typical, “I knew I forgot something, I was so caught up in taking care of them I didnt have time to think about our next strategic retention move…”.  He did take care of them, gave the entire 16 people (two more came) a shot as soon as they came in, cut their birthday cake and had everyone laughing.  They definitely had fun and said they would do it again. 

Now for the marketing stuff.  What I would have done is given them the opportunity to give us their information to “win stuff” , hear about the restaurant promo’s, but more importantly become loyal customers.  Getting them into the restaurant is the hardest part, but easy for us, as we already have a system for that (http://newcustomersforyou.com).  Once they are in your restaurant its time to think about equity in your business, not only one time cashflow.  Now for the paradigm shift: Return on investment becomes Return on relationship (see my previous post on return on relationship).  

You want to capture as much info as you can, but at least the following: their birthday (even though we already know it), their wedding anniversary, their kids birthdays, email, and mobile phone (for text message marketing http://www.connectivemobile.com/).  There are many companies out there that can help with this type of retention based info capture.  Its the way to go if you want to invest in your clients and secure your return business.  Make it personal, not just another TGI Fridays.

Get them loyal and they keep coming back.