Tasty! - Effective use of direct marketing

Our latest campaign has just landed on the doorsteps of 10,000 homes in East Sussex. DineAsia is a Thai and Indian fusion restaurant in our local village of Nutley. We don't normally target restaurants, but we made an exception on this occasion, not only because it's our local eatery, but because we can tell that DineAsia is going places. As the first restaurant becomes established, more are being planned and opened in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire: we predict that Dine Asia will soon be a valuable chain.

The campaign is the first in a series and announces that the restaurant is open. Despite being open for nearly a year, there is still a lack of wide-scale awareness that this is the case. To tempt people to try the restaurant, we have distributed the take-away menu and included an offer of a free bottle of wine on orders over £25. A coupon is incorporated, which allows data to be collected for future marketing.

We recommended a door-drop as the most effective means of communication as we knew it would allow us to put the name and the menu physically through every door in the catchment area. By going for a 'solus' distribution, we have been able to ensure that our material is uncluttered by any other flyers or leaflets. This is a more expensive, but more effective method of distribution than a bundled delivery or inserts into newspapers.

With items coming through the door often being quickly discarded as junk, quality is the key to cut through and retention; it is also particularly important with this client to position the venue correctly and not have it bracketed as 'just another Indian restaurant'. We, therefore, devised an innovative and contemporary looking wallet into which the menu and the offer flyer is inserted. We also arranged for the pack to be poly-wrapped. All in all, it is a high-quality communication that we hope people will read and keep.

Ahmed told us last night that the first coupons are already coming back and we'll report on the full results in later posts.

What next? Now our thoughts are turning to building the momentum. A Christmas campaign in press and on radio is planned and we will also be starting email marketing.

Naturally, we've kept a few of the wine offer flyers in the office - purely for portfolio purposes of course.