Here are the top ten things you need in any direct mail marketing piece…we’ll be using a restaurant in this example:

1. Size

An image only helps if it is compelling and helps tell the story. NOT an image of an empty restaurant or dining room or your logo. If you have a photo of food or people, make sure it shows that they are having fun.

2. Holder

This is often the biggest restaurant marketing flaw I see. All of your marketing should have a strong offer-based headline that answers the question on guests’ minds “What’s in it for me?”

One option is to include the offer in the title and on the delivery address side. The more scandalous or daring, the better.

3. Personalization

Tests show this will increase response by 30%. When you speak directly to your audience you will get better results. When you can put someone’s name in the title you will get better results.

It also means that you need to segment your lists and match the message to each list.

Existing invitees should receive a different email than those coming from a purchased list. It’s easier to get existing guests to return to celebrate your birthday and, as a result, requires less sales effort. Often a well-designed postcard is good enough.

However, with a new guest who hasn’t visited your restaurant before, more sales effort is required. That’s hard to do effectively with a postcard. That’s why I advocate a first-class, full blown sales letter with the personalized approach.

4. Call to action

You need to give them a specific address. Tell them exactly what to do and how to do it.

Sometimes this is combined with the deadline below. “Bring the attached certificate by XXX to receive your FREE Dinner.”

If you’re emailing a cold list of people who haven’t been to a restaurant before, you need to give them instructions. That’s why you should include a map of your restaurant on the back of the certificate so people end up somewhere else when they intended to go to your restaurant.

5. History

When you justify your offer, your response will usually increase. Engage the reader. Use your own voice, as if you were talking to a familiar friend. Talk about how your restaurant is different/better than all the other options available to them, what makes it stand out, unique.

The reason is that once they try your restaurant, you know they will come back. It saves you from hiring some fancy New York advertising agency. It doesn’t have to be a complicated reason why you only need one.

6. Deadlines

Everything has deadlines to need a valid offer. I recommend that you include an expiration date in large, underlined print, designed to stand out in the center of the postcard. On a birthday anytime during your birthday month is usually very effective.

7. Offer

Experiment until you find a couple of offers that make people want to respond. Consider the long-term value of a customer. If it costs you an offer of $10 ($3.50 if you consider you’re only paying for food) to get a new customer, it’s still worth it.

Once you have them in your database, you can add them to your newsletter list and keep them coming back again and again. Once they are in your database and are regular guests, it shouldn’t be that big of an offer to get them in.

8. Testimonials

What others say about you is at least 10 times more believable than what you say about yourself. Use testimonials in all of your restaurant marketing. Why keep the positive opinion your happy guests have of you a secret?

9. Ability to track response

Be sure to keep itemized numbers for all of your promotions. Not having accurate statistics can mean that you are making marketing decisions on emotion rather than facts. That’s a problem if you make decisions based on a few people rather than their overall results.

Keep track of each of your restaurant’s marketing pieces using the same formula every time. Track the changes you make to each subsequent piece, making just one change at a time so you know what works and what doesn’t.

Once you find something that works, keep using it until you notice a change in response.

10. Warranty

Create a big, bold, solid collateral as a marketing selling point. If a customer isn’t happy, it’s in your best interest to make the customer happy anyway. By promoting a warranty, you only get extra mileage from something you would have done anyway.

As long as you provide a good quality product, the number of people who will take advantage of you is very small compared to the benefits of using it in your restaurant marketing material.