The Takeaway: Build a Club, Not a Loyalty Program

0:02Welcome to Full Comp, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restaurateurs, thought leaders, and innovators, served up on the house.

0:16Welcome to The Takeaway. I'm Josh Kopel. The Takeaway is a tool, one idea, one tactic, one strategy you can implement in your restaurant this week. There's no guests, no interview, just actionable information that'll help you make money without costing you a penny, all in less than a time that it would take you to count out a cash drawer. Here is this week's takeaway.

0:39David Scott Peters: Loyalty programs in restaurants are broken. Punch cards, points, buy nine, get the 10th free. All of it just feels so transactional. And transactional loyalty isn't

0:56David Scott Peters: points towards a pizza. They don't want a free appetizer after their 10th visit. What they do want is they want to feel like they belong to something. They want identity. They want access. They want social currency. They want to be able to say, I know the owner. I'll illustrate the point. I worked with a restaurant that had a loyalty program and they had 3000 people in that program, but the redemption rates were garbage and no one cared. And so what we did was we blew it up. We burned it to the ground and we turned it into a club. Not a punch card, a club. Members got access to invite-only events.

1:34David Scott Peters: They got previews of seasonal menu items before anyone else. The LTOs that we launched, they released a week early for their VIP members. They got access to secret menu items that weren't available to the public. And here's the big key. We made them feel seen. The owner knew their names. So did the manager. The staff knew their regular orders. and they got texts from us, not emails. And so what happened? The spend per visit on these loyalty members went up by 30%. Visit frequency doubled and they started bringing in their friends. And why? Because being in this club gave them status. It gave them something to brag about.

2:15David Scott Peters: And so here's the big takeaway for you. People don't want moments. They want identity. They want status. They don't want discounts. They want access, access to the inaccessible. So when you build a club instead of a loyalty program, what you're doing is you're creating zealots, zealots that will defend your brand, that will recruit new guests, and they will spend more money. So here's where I want you to start. Stop rewarding transactions and start rewarding belonging. Invite your best guests to something really exclusive, a wine tasting or a menu preview or a chef's table. make them feel like insiders and just watch what happens.

2:57David Scott Peters: Points create transactions. Clubs create loyalty. That's this week's takeaway. If it was useful, do this one thing before the day gets away from you. Go to restaurantbusinessschool.com to sign up for my free five-day restaurant marketing masterclass. It's a live workshop where in 40 minutes a day, I'll help you build out your AI marketing team to raise check averages, Book more private events and corporate catering and bring your best guests back more often without discounting and freebies. There are no ads. There is no additional expenses and no additional work on your end. It's just my strategies and the robots will do the work for you.

3:38And if that sounds like something your restaurant needs, sign up today at restaurantbusinessschool.com.

3:52Thank you.