Email is so 20th century? Not to restaurants, stores trying to woo you

Email is so 20th century? Not to restaurants, stores trying to woo you
BRL Admin

Author

07 Feb

Email is so 20th century? Not to restaurants, stores trying to woo you

Ricky Ly loves social media. He blogs, Tweets and posts on Facebook.

But Ly, a 25-year-old civil engineer, still mostly relies on old-fashioned e-mail to get deals at his favorite stores and restaurants.

“With e-mail, it’s more strong for a call to action,” he said. “They give you a coupon, and you do something about it.”

It may lack the speed of texting or the trendiness of Twitter, but e-mail remains an important tool for restaurants and stores trying to entice customers with the latest specials or new offerings.

Orlando-based Darden Restaurants holds exclusive parties for members of its Bahama Breeze “Island Insider” e-newsletters, and its LongHorn Steakhouse servers were recently asking customers after dinner to sign up for that chain’s e-club.

Maitland-based Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q launched its “R U Smokin'” e-club a little more than a year ago and hopes to sign up 10,000 new members in 2011. Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill, another Orlando chain, has a much more ambitious goal for its e-mail list: 150,000 new subscribers this year.

To continue reading, visit:   http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-01-30/business/os-email-marketing-20110130_1_e-mail-address-social-media-social-sites