In an increasingly competitive market, how do you get your customers attention? How do you increase your mailing lists?  Are you able to make your marketing budget go further by creating a viral marketing campaign?

This month, Pure spoke with Ryan Badger, Online Marketing Manager at Paramount Restaurants Ltd.

Ryan Badger explained how Paramount Restaurants have built a both simple and incredibly successful online marketing strategy combining viral marketing and online vouchers.

Six brands, one objective: driving sales.

Paramount Restaurants is a privately-owned company that operates a stable of restaurant brands nationwide. The company owns six brands, Chez Gérard, Brasserie Gérard a Parisian-style brasserie, the Italian Bertorelli chain which includes Bertorelli and iL Bertorelli, Caffe Uno and Livebait.

Paramount's six brands are split into two categories, the fine dining "Paramount London' and high-street all day dining 'Paramount High Street.". The restaurant portfolio caters to a diverse range of clientele; therefore, marketing has two very unique markets to target.

Ryan explains: "the difference in strategy between our High Street and London brands is necessary, due to the varied customer experience you can expect from each. However bottom line, the underlying objective is the same - driving sales."

Paramount therefore tailor their promotional offerings, Ryan says: "Tailored gourmet club cards and VIP member's events have been targeted at our fine dining brands, whilst Paramount High Street promotion is more discount voucher orientated."

To achieve their goals, Paramount are using a mix of offline and online marketing. "Offline is still our biggest budget, but our plans are to grow online advertising significantly this year," comment Ryan.

Vouchers + email marketing: a winning combination

Paramount had been primarily using Pure's email system PureResponse to promote their voucher offers, such as '£15 off', 'two for one' offers or 'free bottle of wine with each meal'.

But in the last year, discount vouchers have seen a notable increase in distribution and use, MyVoucherCodes.co.uk; the biggest website to collect the codes, recorded the number of retailers offering discount vouchers increasing from 90 a year ago to 368. This makes getting their vouchers to customers first vital.

Paramount restaurants are getting great returns from their email marketing: In December 2008 one particular campaign was sent to a mailing list of 79,000 customers. "We achieved a 30% open rate, with a further 45% click through rate" rejoices Ryan "and this resulted in approximately 10,000 vouchers being downloaded."

For Ryan, email marketing is key. "We have been looking to exploit the current demand for offers and promotions to build a clean, in depth database which will ensure a future online audience that is sustainable without the demand for further paid advertising," Ryan says.

Get viral to grow a database at no extra-cost

Over recent years Paramount Restaurants have gathered an extensive customer database, which they were able to further grow by nearly 70%, between January and March of this year, through running online voucher campaigns!

The viral function available in PureResponse has definitely helped boost Paramount's mailing list. 'Send to a friend' allows their mailing list to forward the promotional email to a friend or colleague. And in order for the friend/colleague to receive their voucher they must sign up with their email address online. A classic example of a successful viral email campaign.

And maximize returns through tailored communications

"To maximize the return of this growing clients' base, we decided at the beginning of this year to launch our own newsletters", says Ryan. So now email has become a platform for relationship building in conjunction with the discount offers.

With their six very different brands, does Paramount cater their newsletters to each individual brand? Ryan explains: "Previously, we have sent eshots which are unique each time, usually per brand, sometimes grouped for the Paramount London version. However we have now produced newsletter templates in PureResponse, (N.B Click image below to see an example) which allows one per brand and sent monthly."

Paramount recognises the importance of email in their online marketing strategy. December results showed there was an increase in traffic to their websites of 125% across brands (against previous month), online bookings saw an increase of 150% (against previous 6 month trend). They believe these results have been heavily influenced by their email campaigns.

Conclusion?

"Pure have given us the freedom to take control of our customer relations. The cost effective service has enabled us to shorten turn around times for email campaigns and manage the way that we capture data via the sign up form function", comments Ryan.

The dedicated account manager service is also recognized by Ryan as a factor of success in the process: "our account manager has always been at the other end of the phone, consistently going out of his way to ensure we are happy and satisfied with the service."

Finally, a question that is on everyone's mind: has all this provided return on investment?

Ryan says "to this day I am certain that working with Pure was the most financially beneficial option available to us. The total cost of the service for a year (including credits), was covered with the delivery of our first email campaign!".

More information on PureResponse can be found at www.pure360.com