Discount loyalty cards for restaurants

Discount loyalty cards for restaurants

When you plan your marketing for the long term, a points program is the most effective marketing tool to make guests more loyal. A discount makes the first purchase more valuable, and points encourage a casual guest to come back to the venue. The guest gets into a kind of game: it becomes fun to collect points and get rewards for them, and the guest decides on their own what to spend them on and when.

An online form lets you get all the information you need from the guest and use it later in your marketing research and campaigns. Based on the guest's visit history and taste (favorite cuisine, dishes and so on), the system creates personalized special offers and sends them to the guest's smartphone as push notifications. So the restaurateur gets a powerful analytics tool, 24/7 access to the target audience and an easy channel to talk with guests.

Benefits of discount cards

Digital discount cards help you:

• make guests more loyal by giving your food venue a high-tech image;

• keep guests up to date on the latest promotions, special offers and more;

• get more visits to the venue.

The chance to get a discount is the best way to make a casual visitor loyal to a restaurant. "A benefit here and now" - that is what the guest gets on the first visit. But if you give a fixed discount, you risk not making the guest fully loyal to the restaurant. You can get better results with a spend-based rewards program. It motivates visitors: they keep coming back to the food venue to grow their discount.

A spend-based rewards program is designed for each venue separately. For example, the discount percent matches the guest's tier. You set a threshold for the guest's total spend, and when the guest reaches a higher tier, they get a higher discount.

With good terms in a discount and rewards program and staying in regular touch with the guest (through push notifications), it is quite possible to turn a casual visitor into a regular guest.

Using a discount card

To use a digital discount loyalty card, the guest just shows it to the manager. The card's 2D code is scanned, and the guest gets a discount. This becomes a kind of reward and a reason to visit the food venue again.

What discount loyalty cards can do

Digital loyalty cards help bring new guests to a restaurant and improve communication with your audience. With a simple online form (the guest enters all their data: first name, last name, phone, birthday, favorite dishes, favorite cuisine and more), you can identify your guest and do marketing research.

The benefits of collecting guest data are clear. You get real information about your target audience: you learn their taste (favorite cuisine, dish), split visitors into groups and so on. This lets you study what each guest needs and make your offers personal. For example, you can give extra discounts to a guest on their birthday, to men on Defender of the Fatherland Day (Feb 23) and so on. This way you build your own automation that sends notifications about new offers, based on the data you collected before (gender, interests, food preferences and more).

All transaction data syncs with the restaurant's CRM system and records everything you need: table number, card number, discount percent and check amount. After the guest uses the discount card, they automatically get a notification that their balance has changed.

A discount loyalty card is much more than just a way to get a good discount at a restaurant. It gives you access to each guest's data, so it is an effective tool for a food venue to talk with its target audience in real time.