Can a catering/deli business use e-mail marketing locally?

Question

Hello,

We own a deli/catering business. Can we effectively use an e-mail marketing campaign to market our store? Is a food business not appropriate for e-mail marketing campaign? Is e-mail marketing more suited for informational products? Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You can do it (Done it with catering) but don't cross the line and become a spammer  

Answer 2

It is so hard to get a new business going.  Most people are not going to open email from a stranger.  I just hit delete when i don't recognize the sender.  And you'd have to buy a list of addresses.  You couldn't know that those people lived within 50 miles of your deli.  Someone could cheat you easily.  But it can't hurt to try if it doesn't cost too much.  I opened a business in 2001 and i am thinking of all the money i wasted on advertising that got me zero calls.

Can you get the local newspaper to do a story about your deli?  Call a reporter and tell her that you will be a "good" story for the Saturday paper when there isn't much news. /

Answer 3

Definitely not just for informational products. Would suggest that every customer that walks into a store, you can tell them that they can get offers and discounts through email and all they have to do is give their email address. You can include other information, such as what kind of food is popular, nice photos of food, do a report on a customer that organized a party using your catering service,etc. The advantage of having an email marketing campaign is that your customers can send/forward them to other folks they know and this extends your customer base.

You would not want to send campaigns out using your ISP. You want this to be managed professionally. Remember to only send emails to folks who requested them - this is called permission marketing. You can conduct effective email marketing campaigns with Microsoft Office Live Small Business - http://tinyurl.com/officelive . It has all the tools you need to develop a newsletter/email to send to your subscribers. If you do not have a website, it has a free online web design tool that allows you to create web pages without coding. Currently, MS is offering a free domain name (i.e. yourdeli.com) for the first year.

Answer 4

I believe that email marketing can be used for any business for that matter. Of course, I will add my voice to the comments above that you should never go on a spamming binge.

To prepare for your campaign, I suggest you read up on email marketing tips from experts. The following articles are great:

Title: Create Email Marketing Campaigns in a Snap

URL:http://internet-marketing.bestmanagement...

Title: Surefire Email Marketing Strategy

URL: http://internet-marketing.bestmanagement...

Title: Avoid these Email Marketing Mistakes

URL: http://internet-marketing.bestmanagement...

Want more? Check this site out:

http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com/Se...

Answer 5

You can only do it if the receiver requests the information.  If you just send it out because you were able to buy email addresses, that is spaming and your ISP will shut off your account.