Obadiah Ostergard, CEO at Left Bank Brasseries and LB Steak, oversees every aspect of restaurant operations across multiple locations. But with thousands of guests coming in across the group, it became difficult to manage guest engagement consistently and successfully.

Thousands of guest contact info, but no way to manage it

Ostergard says there were multiple key obstacles: “There was no cohesive process and guest information just wasn’t at our fingertips. We lacked a singular place to have a robust conversation about how and when to engage with our guests. As a result, we would miss the opportunity to connect with our guests and keep them coming back.”

Seeing this gap, Ostergard came to OpenTable looking for a solution that would facilitate effective guest engagement across all his locations. Ostergard and his team learned that OpenTable’s segmented marketing capabilities and email marketing integration with Emma could power his restaurant marketing.

Integrated audience building to facilitate targeted communications

With the OpenTable Emma integration for marketing campaigns, Ostergard’s team could sync new OpenTable contacts every day with Emma for continuous audience building. They are also now able to easily create personalized and dynamic segments based on unique guest codes (think wine and steak lovers) for highly specific outreach.

But most importantly, the OpenTable Emma integration helped close the loop on the ROI generated from marketing their efforts, including return guests, the number of covers generated, and the cost.

Successful campaigns that drive revenue

Through holiday promotional outreach in a 3 month period, Left Bank and LB Steak generated over $200k in revenue from their targeted marketing efforts with OpenTable and Emma.

Ostergard says, “The Emma campaigns are easy to create and just look fantastic. I really think that is a huge component of the success of our campaigns. Guests are genuinely excited to see a message from us and the proof is in the results.”

But, this isn’t the only marketing success Ostergard and his team have seen.

Knowing that communication is crucial to the customer experience, Left Bank Brasseries and LB Steak launched a new We Miss You campaign through OpenTable. With this campaign, Ostergard and his team realized an untapped opportunity to invite lapsed guests back in for a meal.

“With the We Miss You campaign, we now have the ability to be front of mind when we haven’t seen somebody in a while, and also control the message that is going to our guests,” Ostergard says. “Instead of signing our messages with ‘The Team at LB Steak’, we actually have the GM of each location personally invite each guest back.”

In that same 3 month period, Left Bank and LB Steak generated over $19k from the We Miss You campaign alone.

“You give us the ability to dive deeper into engagement with our guests and keep them coming through our doors!”