00:00.00
vigorbranding
Everyone today I’m joined by my friend olga lopetegi she is the head of olo restaurant loyalty specialists and we’re going to dive into email marketing and loyalty and all those things that’s gonna be a great conversation. But first olga say hello and give a little bit of backstory.

00:14.18
Olga
Um, hey hey Joseph nice and nice to see you here. So yeah I’m Olga Uppategi I’ve been in the restaurant world for close to 20 years now and I’ve um, worked with large restaurant chains over the years actually started out as ah and a very different australian lawyer and oil and gas. Um, so then he came we came to food sort of very roundab boat ways. Um, but for the last sweep. Almost four years now I’ve been running the loyalty consulting firm called olo consult and what we do with help restaurant chains that have loyalty and cm problems essentially around those chains around those problems with less effort and less resources than they would have to apply in-house. So learned a lot along the way about the restaurant restaurant business and the boat. What are the best ways to reach out to you guys. Lots of opinions. Lots of experience there. So happy to share it.

01:13.32
vigorbranding
Awesome! So It’s funny because I’m sure a lot of people who are listening already are like email I know how to do that. We do that already I’ve actually heard it firsthand a number of times but there really is a lot of Theory. There’s a lot of information that goes into email marketing. And then there’s a lot of ah conflation of email and loyalty Program. So I think to to start things off, let’s help people figure Out. What is the difference between email marketing and loyalty and crm and all of that and what are the similarities.

01:47.63
Olga
Yeah, and all ah it kind of tends to blunt together right? So at the end of the day all over those marketing communications and ah loyalty is one of the tools that allows you to communicate a little bit better because what loyalty programs allow you to do unlike most. Email marketing programs loyalty programs allow you to gather information on the customer on their individual transactions. So when somebody is in a loyalty program. You know exactly when they showed up how much money are they spent um, you know, um, which kind of products they like um. Ah, frequently. They show up so that all of that allows you to target those customers better. Not to say that that’s the only way to get that information. There are a couple of other methods um to to get to and to use it in your marketing but those tend to be a little bit less cost effective. Although as usual everything depends right? It depends on how you how you set about. So to me sierra’m and loyalty. They’re very very close herera may not have a loyalship. No loyalty component to it but very often does email is definitely part of a sharera Sam was really customer relationship management any outreach to customers. The reason I love email is um. Not because it’s sucksing because it’s popular but because it’s the most cost effective method to reach people. It’s the most familiar. It’s um, nonintrusive but in a good way. So you’re not on their face so that they want to unsubscribe and it allows you to be fairly creative. It’s highly trackable. So.

03:02.55
vigorbranding
Um, is.

03:19.19
Olga
You know, but what’s not Chilavia Not not not super sexy, but but it works. So.

03:23.86
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s still one of the most effective ways despite being around for so long. Um, so how has email marketing evolved and become more challenging over the years I mean because we know emails started gosh probably in the late eighty s early 90 s and it’s only just exponentially grown. Um, I think we went through a phase. Maybe we’re still in it where people will do anything to try to knock through that front door of the inbox and get your attention to the point where we had to have laws created to prevent them from doing so um, so where are we at now how has it evolved and in. Why is it still challenging for people.

04:01.16
Olga
Um, email like any any customer communication is always going to be challenging the moment the brand changes strategy everybody else copies it and um, guests get used to it and they had companies that manage our inboxes adapt. Um, so I think the one of the biggest challenges in the past few years has been the migration of so many you know so many people into the gmail um inbox which has a promotions folder. So a lot of our email does not end up with inbox placement. It ends up in the promotion folder and while there are ways to manage it. Um.

04:23.93
vigorbranding
M.

04:34.55
Olga
There are ways to get into that inbox. It’s pretty challenging and not everybody can do it and even if you do get there. You don’t always always stay there forever. So it’s pretty pretty common to drop back into promotions. So the visibility of your marketing efforts with the existence of the promotions folder has become um, it’s more difficult to get notice.

04:42.20
vigorbranding
Right.

04:54.16
Olga
Having said that if your communications are relevant. You’re going to float to the top if your communications are um, are relevant to the guest they’re more likely to open your email because as we all know from our own experiences with glance for promotion folder and then they choose to open 1 or 2 or 3 emails and ignore the rest. And so the key is how do you become that communication that the guest that actually wants to open because you can’t make them do anything. You only get them to want to do it and that’s that’s the magic of this heream because and I’ll take an and.

05:18.27
vigorbranding
And.

05:28.94
Olga
Non non for example, Um, so there’s a brand of clothes that’s by tend to buy for my kids and those guys have figured out I got boys even though they they clothes are um, for that particular brand. They don’t really do like gender specific clothes but they figured out I like that boys. Ah, Buy Blue Green Grand Black their boys right? and um’ um’ traditional so they one they when they put subject lines in the emails that come to me I can tell that half the time there is Blue. There is gray. There is green. Um, the colors that I buy are in the subject lines. So I’m much more likely to open the email that talks about blue than the email that talks about purple and it works right? So and I want to open it because they advertise a problem that I’m much more likely to to react and the same was food. When you go when you try to target a customer and get them to want to open that email you want to send them something that you think they are more likely to open and that’s that’s really what the trick is all about increasing visibility. Um, increasing top of mind getting them to want to see what you have to say right.

06:35.69
vigorbranding
Yeah, and a lot of the systems that are out there today. Do this What’s what’s called segmentation sometimes automatically but I think it does take a little bit more of a dive and I’ve seen it go wrong. So for instance I get banana republic emails. Oddly enough I get more emails about ladies dresses. Then I do about the stuff that I’ve actually bought so when you get in with a client How do you start to maybe fix poor segmentation. Um, while also instantiating stronger segmentation.

06:56.82
Olga
So um, so when you get in with a client How the start.

07:07.25
Olga
so yeah ah so ah but I what I tend to do was with the segmentation exercises which by the way we typically do those for the brands that have significant sized databases. Because if your database is like 25000 addresses so given 50000 addresses I would not recommend any significant segmentation exercises because the segments are so small. It’s really not worth it. Um, or at least I haven’t found the cost effective way to get there. Ah, for the brands and that us wonderful that for the email list that are smaller database list that are smaller if you have a relatively large database. So what we typically do is we we go in and look at well first we’ll look at the menu on the product mix with the ground then we looks at what what the brand is known for. Um, what types of customers can the groups of customers we can identify within that ground and then we make some hypothesis as to which segments are ah more likely to find to be substantially large that we can target now and then we’ll also look at.

08:10.20
Olga
Um, we want those segments not only to be large but we also want them to be meaningful in terms of being able to figure out what kind of communication. Do those people want and an example of a bad segment. Large bad segment is let’s say females in the context of the restaurant marketing. Well. It’s great that you know that I’m a woman but how are you going to use that for marketing to me. Are you going to just presume I’m going to eat a salad all the time or what does it mean I’m going to eat pan cakes or was pink or you know what? what is it? How are you going to target me that now that you know that I’m female. So yeah.

08:34.75
vigorbranding
Yes.

08:45.74
vigorbranding
Oh.

08:47.54
Olga
Yeah, it may it may affect your overall brand messaging if you’re mostly targeting females. It may affect your brand strategy in a ways. It made some specific pieces of advertising might change but generally if you’re a restaurant. You really don’t care if I male or female you care what kind of product they and a woman that at Stake all the time. Probably want to target her mistake and the guy that likes pink pancakes but you probably want to continue targeting him with pink pancakes. No Matter. Um, um, no matter if it’s you know, whichever gender it happens to be so I find the demographic information is really really important for brand positioning work.

09:17.44
vigorbranding
Certainly.

09:24.75
Olga
But that’s substantially less relevant for marketing communications most of the time not always, but most of the time so I tried to work predominantly things like product preference day parting spent preference and frequencyncies. So Rfm Recency frequency and monitor is foundt.

09:41.42
vigorbranding
Yeah, it’s funny that you say for for positioning because I think Demographic is actually useless for brand positioning in general and in my book which is right behind me So I’ll do the sales pitch um in my book I talk about behaviors more than anything because you’re right.

09:51.60
Olga
Okay, okay.

09:57.94
vigorbranding
Just because I’m a man doesn’t want I mean I don’t want to have pink pancakes and just because of a man doesn’t mean I don’t want to go to flower child for instance which is I think a more feminine. Yeah yeah, so it’s you know demographics I think are long gone I think the only place that they truly have meaning and use.

10:06.24
Olga
Nip one didn and the flower child.

10:16.94
vigorbranding
Is when you’re trying to find like people like me in other areas as you as you ah grow and scale and we we talked to ah Gregory Nassar from bour who doesn’t location intelligence about that very thing and in a previous episode so you talk about these really large.

10:26.31
Olga
Server in looking intelligence out that.

10:35.56
vigorbranding
Email lists which I think to the 1 to 10 location restaurant your leader. They’re probably like wow that’s ah, that’s huge I’m never going to be there. Um, but I have found that a lot of restaurant leaders. Don’t put a lot of value in building their email list. They tend to focus on the the hot buzzy thing whether it’s Tiktok or be real or the list goes down. Um, but how do you suggest restaurant shares ah from startup to getting into that what I would call small business which would be probably at the ten fifteen units ah, how do you suggest they grow their list and why should they care.

11:11.60
Olga
But well yeah, so why should they care is very simple because this is the most cost effective way to teach people that actually want to hear from you because if they signed up for your email list. It means at least at some point in time they were interested in what you have to say. And it costs you next to nothing to reach them any other way of getting out to them would cost you more money Even if you know where they live direct mail costs you you know, ¢50 to a dollar a pop. Ah if you want to chase them around the internet. You know you know it’s going to be.

11:48.71
Olga
Well it it can get pretty crazy in terms of cost ah cost per transaction for per completed transaction impressions achieve but you know impressions don’t get you very far. Um, so. So nude the the the main reason you want to do is because it’s the most cost effective way the ways to get people into your email um into your email marketing program there a lot of different options. Um I’ am a huge fan as you would guess of loyalty programs and Loyalty programs give the guest. Their reason. To get opted into your marketing and they give you the guess the reason to share their purchasing information with you so you can acquire it easily. So I think the carrot of ah loyalty program whether it’s being just a welcome offer or it’s um, it. It may be just. Ongoing points and offers and so on that is a really really good carrot for the guests and on the program itself. It almost kind of fades into background both for guest and for you the base base program structure. It needs to be such that you are not giving the farm away but it needs to be attractive enough that people. Bother to continue checking in but it doesn’t really need to be particularly expensive but um, jumping off them. My my favorite train of um, our loyalty program as I Carot for um and care for getting people into your email marketing online ordering.

13:03.74
vigorbranding
A.

13:14.15
Olga
Making sure that your flow opts just in extremely important you you want to opt them in at the right point you want to opt them in not up front but towards the end of the transaction days at the time when they make the transaction was’s really critically important that. Um, they finish that transaction and that’s your obviously number one priority but making sure it’s really easy for them to opt in at the end of the transaction is absolutely important and if if they don’t then what you can do you? You still have their their information you have their email addresses. You have their often home addresses. Um, you can still go around and chase them around the internet and entice them was your loaded program or welcome offer even just to sign up of offer for your for your eclub being able to opt into the email marketing list in the restaurants at the point the point at the point of sale as they are processing of. And transaction for diving services on the mobile device when when they’re checking out. There are millions ways of getting their getting their information in. So um, it’s not that hard to build email marketing lists and um, it’s a shame that not so many restaurants do it. So.

14:23.26
vigorbranding
Yeah.

14:25.41
Olga
Having. But once you have built it Up. You have to do something with it. You cannot like if you keep on sending one email per month to the entire database announcing your oto. You’re probably not going to see um a major effect but like with any marketing effort. A lot of it is incremental right? So you do it. You get into the habit. You do it all the time you. And that out very regularly. You start at least minor segmentation and then over time you see the cumulative effect on it. But I don’t think that email marketing for any brand has ever turned them from being failing to being complete success overnight. It’s just not something that you expect. And some mental tactics.

15:04.47
vigorbranding
Certainly so I’ve seen a number of systems that start to maybe encroach on the Crm world. So for instance, Mailchimp started as pure email marketing now they have features like.

15:14.24
Olga
Me.

15:20.68
vigorbranding
Landing page design and true truer crm then we have folks like punch and patronics and I’m not going to mention the other one because I’m not happy with them who also seem to have like this will build you an app.

15:25.64
Olga
New products.

15:32.78
Olga
Happy Um, also.

15:37.22
vigorbranding
Oh and by the way you get all this data and we have an email system so email always seems to be this sort of tack on as opposed to um, maybe more forward now in the same vein. We also see wi-fi gating software companies like. Used to be known as zen reach. It’s now Adentra we had Jason on a couple episodes ago where they are naturally building this email subscription through wi-fi gating but then they also have email marketing on the back end is there a preference. Um, is there one that you prefer that you suggest to clients you say this is the one that I have found to be the most effective and does it have to be an app because I think people are getting fatigued on apps.

16:22.28
Olga
Yeah, so it’s a difficult question so I work with a lot of platforms on the one of the ones you mentioned some of the ones you didn’t and maybe some of the ones that you are not happy about we work. We work with a lot of platforms Ill I’ll be guessing about which one that is but I don’t know for sure. Um, so um.

16:30.97
vigorbranding
Um.

16:37.43
vigorbranding
Ah.

16:39.34
Olga
I ah I work with a lot of them and ah my main lesson from doing this over the years is that in in the vast majority of cases if you’re not getting the result that you are expecting from the tool that you’re using. It’s not about the tool. It’s about how you’re using it. So.

16:55.85
vigorbranding
The.

16:58.86
Olga
All of those tools are complete magic and miracle compared to what they used to be twenty years ago when I was starting in the restaurant world. You could not possibly think that you would get that level of marketing power and segmentation for something that will cost you a hundred bucks per store per month it. It was just unthinkable. So.

17:09.76
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.

17:16.59
Olga
Yes, a lot of those tools are complicated. Yes, a lot of those tools are clunky. Yes, the technology is not anywhere as seamless as none. No none on that might perfect right? It’s software. But it’s it’s a function of software. It’s Bugy right? Um, so ah.

17:31.84
vigorbranding
Um, bonds and.

17:34.38
Olga
Most of the time it’s if the brand is not getting the results that it expects to See. It’s about how they’re using the software. It’s about trying to stretch the tools that they have to do things that those tools are not designed to do more often than not. Um, and then under utilizing the functionality that is fully developed in that too. The um, what complicates All of this is also that just like you said a lot of the a lot of the technology brands in the space are stretching into adjacent functional. So Virtually every brand that I work with it has more than 2 or 3 components and the in the marketing tech stack. Um in the vast majority of cases. There is some level of overlapping functionology. Yeah and partners within the marketing tech stack are fighting for who’s going to do which piece and ah.

18:24.70
vigorbranding
Who who.

18:27.43
Olga
And then the marketer um in the middle is going Well I’m when I use this feature from here and I’m going to use that feature from there but then that piece doesn’t work So will yeah if I use this one I can get my segments right? But if I go there that if I get my segments right? I can’t see the open right? So I can target them by purchasing but they can target them by engagement. And it becomes just ah, it becomes a freaking mess. Um, and you know so with some some clients I helped them sort that mess. Um, in many cases successfully and often it’s about lowering expectations and figuring which each features.

18:47.76
vigorbranding
Oh yeah.

19:03.74
Olga
Truly care about which are the 5 features you really really want to work. Um and then everything else if it works great if it doesn’t who cares right? So you set the exact expectations and you make make sure that the basics are used consistently and appropriately. Um, yeah, so ah, it’s but it’s tricky. Yeah because.

19:06.20
vigorbranding
Yeah.

19:22.83
Olga
You know everybody everybody does most everything now. Yeah email marketing platforms are taking on us a us um a lot platforms used to do apps. So now there’s online ordering Apps separate from the loyalty apps and yeah, it’s it’s It’s a messy stack and I there is not a single.

19:29.87
vigorbranding
Yep.

19:41.47
Olga
I Think if if there was a single provider out there that ah actually did everything start to finish really? well I would love to work for them. But I haven’t seen them yet. So I I joined that company and believe. But yeah.

19:49.47
vigorbranding
Yeah I think we’re I mean suffice to say in the th throws. Yeah, we’re we’re definitely in the throes of convergence I mean it is choppy water out there. You know for all the reasons you just said I think what? what is frustrating at times is how email seems to be the tack on. It seems to be oh well we can do this pretty easily so let me put it on there but rare is the case that I see a really strong email offering from some of these providers like patronics patronics allows you to dump images into a system and then sends it out and that’s an email. Counter to that is Mailchimp which has a robust compliant email marketing builder that is truly optimized for email. But then they don’t have the other benefits as well in in your in your world where you start to have these multiple systems of overlap. How do you start to find that conversion point and how do you zero in on which system is going to be my email. You know, ah fulfillment provider.

20:56.61
Olga
Um, it’s ah it’s always a bit of a compromise because again, historically loyalty programs loyalty platforms are good at loyal inignation. Their email marketing is a little a little weaker the email marketing employee. Platforms are fantastic at email marketing very bad at capturing guest transactions. So then um, there is cdps that are starting to come in with different levels of simplicity. So I think the answer in the in the near term is actually going to be around bringing in the cdp to be able to manage everything. And um, I’m in the middle of a project right now where I’m hoping we’re going to be able to solve it for a small to mid-sized brand to where everything is reasonably optimized, but um, yeah, it’s and it’s a challenge and then different bruns have different preferences right? Some some care moth. They have so much invested into their loyalty program and low to database and that has to be the center of their marketing tech stack and then others there. They may have launched a loyalty program and it’s you know, 5 to 10 percent participation rate. So. It’s not that big of video deal for them yet. So they may care ah more about ah using the most efficient email marketing tool and then the loyal is kind of on the side and it’s ah you’re doing post notifications and maybe in app messages.

22:20.71
Olga
Um, sort of the loyalty program but the majority of your marketing comes comes through email kids you know I see brands where email marketing list is 1000000 people and the loyalty marketing list is 50000 people and then I have brands where the email marketing list is 10% of the loyal to database. So it can go um it it can go either way right? So it really depends on what is at the center and the circumstances that that the brand um that the brand is in. But yeah in my ideal world that would take you know featured like email marketing quality of I know brace and combine it with the. Ah, loyalty power of Pin Cho electronics so lund them together but the dumpling doesn’t exist yet I have really.

23:06.49
vigorbranding
Yeah, not yet right? But if anyone’s listening. There’s a need um to say the least.

23:12.83
Olga
It’s just it’s just complicated. It’s not. It’s not easy. Yeah.

23:16.20
vigorbranding
Yeah, and I wonder if some of these newer tech companies are going to tackle that more effectively because they’re starting with in a world where they can see that need whereas a lot of these places like. Patrons I’m not knocking petrons at all, but they’ve been around they started in gift cards and they still have that gift card basis and they add on Apps they add on this they add on and I sometimes think it’s better to come at it clean where you don’t have these legacy systems and legacy anchors holding you back and so maybe one of these fresh fresh folks are going to come up and in.

23:43.44
Olga
Yeah, it’s perfect.

23:50.20
vigorbranding
Overtake or at least make a good statement much like olo did not to bring up. Ah the you know the the ah other olo Yeah, but you know olo started as online ordering solely and they were easily able to grapple away a lot of market share from the likes of brink and the likes of aloha.

23:53.60
Olga
The other the other ola. Yes, yes.

24:08.81
vigorbranding
Who simply had online ordering as a tack on something that was not effectively I think tackled as a priority from those larger corporations are there any systems that you that you have your eye on right now that are really attractive to you that you think could be up and comers.

24:09.73
Olga
You know.

24:24.46
Olga
Um, you know um’m ah I’m a little hesitant to mention mention the names because I work with so many of them and anybody I forget but they do they’re listening. They’ probably goingnna get a little upset so I feel bad about ah pointing out.

24:30.30
vigorbranding
Sure.

24:38.31
vigorbranding
Um.

24:39.75
Olga
Um, pointing out a specific, a specific brand here. So but there’s a lot of there’s a lot of cool technology out there. But what I I am still looking for is somebody who is looking holistically looking at the marketing at the restaurant marketing stack and the needs are associated with it. Because there are a lot of a lot of companies doing pieces of the puzzle with overlapping add ons like you said, but thinking about and um, it’s it’s really interesting because I talk to marketing platforms doing in all kinds of things as I as marketing for restaurants, low different restaurants small small and big. Um, wi-fi marketing here purer code ordering and the drives to there. So there’s like you know one of everything how was I taken 2 d some subscriptions. Um, so all all all of those components but what a lot of the.

25:36.88
Olga
People usually guys in the technology world do not understand is when you when you take the restaurant operator which is a human um and you put him in the middle of the restaurant and then you realize that that person has to deal with 17 different vendors.

25:46.27
vigorbranding
Um.

25:54.94
Olga
On any given day across so many different systems. What you think is a big component of the stack is is really just one tiny little thing that they would just rather wave so it goes away. It doesn’t bother them anymore. Um, and um I was I was listening to. Um.

26:09.35
vigorbranding
Um, right.

26:14.27
Olga
And the presentation on um, a brand folk called full course I don’t know if you know a lot on. Um yeah, oh cool. Yeah so I was um.

26:19.88
vigorbranding
Um, yeah, yeah, she was just on the show.

26:25.76
Olga
I was on on the webinar that she did was Brian Meredi who is a restaurant restaurant coach consultant and so he was talking about his beyond the technology in the restaurants and it brought up things that I haven’t thought about for a long time. He was talking about well what happens when you’re in the restaurant. Um, a busy night and your directivity goes out and as you’re as somebody who is not physically in the restaurant and operating with you know your sharem systems and multiy programs and everything that is a little bit removed from preparation. It kind of dawned on me for the first time in and probably a decade because I haven’t been boom in in restaurants all that much. But yeah, actually if your if your it support on the Tv service goes out. That’s actually a substantially bigger problem than if you see around doesn’t work this week ah it’s and you tempt to forget when you are in this world like oh my god my email had the wrong subject fine. Oh my god my email went to the wrong segment. Oh my god people got the wrong offer the redemption rates like four percent if you’re super like rights. It’s not that big a video.

27:22.51
vigorbranding
That’s right.

27:38.31
Olga
But then if you’re there on a Friday night the tvp service goes down that is a really big problem. It’s much more noticeable problem but none of us in the marketing technology world even think about that range of problems that the that the restaurants encounter in their everyday life and at the end of the day. The guy who deals with the Tv is. Maybe on the larger scales the same guy that Jills was me and my sierra and what so seeing the big picture of their life was really really important.

27:58.27
vigorbranding
Oh.

28:06.65
vigorbranding
I love that? Um, so this has been really informative I have a lot more questions but we are coming up on time. So I’m going to drop the hardest question of all if you had 1 final meal where would you eat? What would you eat and why.

28:23.69
Olga
And oh there is a tough one ah 1 final meal. Um, so that would have to be split between 3 countries. Um, so not yeah so I’d have to go between.

28:34.26
vigorbranding
It’s your last meal you can do whatever you want.

28:40.14
Olga
Some um peruvian cviches and ah, there’s going to be seafood pretty much in all of them and some suhi in Japan and then probably like trought handraws in and Vietnam so something that combines those things will probably be.

28:52.91
vigorbranding
Oh.

28:59.56
Olga
I don’t have I get one of those. But yeah, so um I’m I’m um I’m a big fan of a sort of Asian food and um and Latin American influenced by by Asian too. So that’s where my preferences are.

29:14.31
vigorbranding
I love that so much Olga this has been so informative and really helpful I appreciate you taking the time out of your day and sharing all that you know how can people get in touch with you where can they find you.

29:26.64
Olga
Ah, sure so my my name is olga oppate give and that nobody can pronounce the last name so I’m used to that. So it’s all law as an OLLOConsultDotCom he’ll look me up on Linkedin shoot me note. So.

29:35.20
vigorbranding
Um.

29:43.87
vigorbranding
Brilliant. Thank you so much olgo. We’ll talk to you real soon.

29:43.99
Olga
But you easy to find. Thank you.