The Ledger

A weekly note on what actually keeps restaurants full.

Numbers you can act on. One stat, one idea, one thing to try, sent every week, written by an agency that grew up in restaurants.

Preview, First Issue Coming Soon

Issue 01. The Cheapest Customer You'll Ever Get

Most marketing chases strangers. But Bain research found that keeping just 5 percent more of your existing customers lifts profit by 25 percent or more. The people who already know you are the cheapest revenue you will ever find.

This week: one low-cost way to turn tonight's first-timers into next month's regulars, before you spend a dollar chasing anyone new.

The Ledger, from Regulars

Research

The research behind Regulars

Every stat we build the business on, in one place. Borrow them for your own specials board if you want.

  • 25%+

    more profit from keeping just 5 percent more of your existing customers, with published figures up to 95 percent in some industries.

    Source: Bain & Company (2001), range cited by Harvard Business Review (2014)

  • 5-9%

    more revenue per additional Yelp star, for independent restaurants specifically. Chains showed no effect.

    Source: Michael Luca, Harvard Business School, Working Paper 12-016

  • 76%

    of people who search for something nearby on their phone visit a business within a day.

    Source: Google, Think with Google (2016)

  • 28%

    of those nearby searches end in a purchase.

    Source: Google, Think with Google (2016)

  • $36

    returned for every $1 spent on email marketing, on average, more than any other channel.

    Source: Litmus survey of ~2,000 marketers

  • ~10%

    average click rate on behavior-triggered text messages, roughly double one-off campaign blasts.

    Source: Klaviyo platform data across 183,000+ businesses

  • 42 hrs

    the average time a business takes to respond to a new inquiry. 23 percent never respond at all.

    Source: Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 companies (2011)

  • 7x

    more likely to reach the decision maker when you respond within an hour instead of waiting one more.

    Source: Harvard Business Review (2011)

Sources

The citations behind the homepage numbers

  1. 25%+ profit from keeping 5% more customers.

    Frederick Reichheld, Bain & Company, "Prescription for Cutting Costs" (2001); the 25 to 95 percent range cited by Harvard Business Review (2014)

  2. 5 to 9% revenue per extra Yelp star, independent restaurants.

    Michael Luca, Harvard Business School, Working Paper 12-016 (2011, rev. 2016)

  3. 76% of nearby mobile searches lead to a visit within a day.

    Google, "How Mobile Search Connects Consumers to Stores," Think with Google (2016)