20,000+ emails in the first year, more than the six years before it combined. Collection now runs about 2,000 emails a month.
The challenge
Ruggles Green had collected contacts for years, but too slowly to grow the business.
The first gap was manual collection was slow and costly. Staff scanned comment cards and fishbowl business cards, then typed them in by hand.
A second challenge was welcome emails arrived too late. The lag between a first visit and the first email cut the odds of a repeat visit.
The remaining issue was every guest got the same message. Without profiles, the team could not target by location or demographic.
The solution
Create the data foundation: WiFi at all five locations. Ruggles Green turned on Adentro (formerly Zenreach) Guest WiFi. Guests joined the database the moment they connected.
Deliver the campaign: a message before the memory fades. Email Marketing sent a welcome as soon as a guest walked out. Birthday automations offered a free dessert, built from the birthday in each Customer Data profile.
Convert: loyalty invitations in every repeat message. Audience Segmentation flagged repeat and loyal guests by visit history. Every message to those groups invited them to join the loyalty program.
Target: a quiet launch to the right neighbors. For weekend breakfast at its newest location, Ruggles Green skipped the full 15,000-person list. It emailed only the local demographic it wanted for a soft opening.
Why the combination mattered
Guest WiFi replaced manual entry; Customer Data retained contact, visit and birthday information; Email Marketing sent immediate welcomes and offers; and Audience Segmentation selected local or returning guests for appropriate outreach. The loyalty program remained the destination for invitations, not the source of contact collection.
The results
- 20,000+ emails collected in the first year
- 15,000 emails took the prior 6 years
- 2,000 emails collected per month
- Loyalty program enrollment surged after invites were added to repeat and loyal messages
Customer perspective
“It took us 6 years to grow our email database to 15,000 emails. Now, we collect 2,000 emails a month. At this rate, it will take less than 8 months to do what we did in 6 years!”