Creating emails from scratch can be tiresome and time consuming, if you don’t have the right tools in place. Get through your to do list quicker and enjoy a great user experience by leveraging the new Email Builder. 

Email Builder is a drag-and-drop email design tool that is crafted for ease of use and flexibility. With this new tool, you can start with a blank slate or choose from a variety of email templates.  

Below are three benefits of this new email marketing tool that will get you excited about email building.  

Design: The new user interface makes it easy to drag-and-drop content into the preview pane so you can quickly determine if you like the look of your email. Also, as most guests likely read emails on a mobile device, you can easily preview how your email will look in a mobile view as well as desktop.   

Collaboration: Do you find you waste time searching and uploading creative files each time you build a new email? Not any more, Email Builder is equipped with a shared content library so you and your team can upload all the creative assets (images, logos, etc.) you need to design and build your emails – fast. Once you save an asset, you can access it again in the future. And if you need any additional imagery you can search through thousands of ready-to-use, royalty-free images. Once your email is drafted, and ready for approval you can easily collaborate by saving a draft for your team to review and edit before you send it. 

Brand Management: If you have a specific style guide for your brand, you can create and save email templates to set brand colors, fonts, logos and images. By creating a style template in Email Builder, you will ensure all your emails are on brand, regardless of who creates them.

Don’t wait to make email building a breeze! Access Email Builder by logging into https://pxsweb.com > Under “Marketing Tools” > “Email Tool” > “Create New Email.” You will see the new Email Builder and can get started with your next email marketing campaign right away.

For some people, the news that both Target and Whole Foods are moving into the grab-and-go segment might feel like a threat. But for savvy c-store owners, it’s something else entirely: an opportunity.

When big players like Target and Whole Foods make a move, it behooves everyone in the food-sales industry to take notice. After all, they wouldn’t be doing so unless it’s likely to be highly profitable. And that certainly looks to be the case, as there’s been a 15% increase in prepared meals and snacks since 2010 and 25% of millennials eat in their cars on a daily basis.

Fortunately, convenience stores are perfectly positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Nearly half of their customers are already purchasing food or beverage items.

And because c-store customers tend to make multiple visits per month, grab-and-go food is a prime way to increase their spend each time and encourage even more visits.

Convenience stores also have ample opportunity to promote their grab-and-go food options. Simple signage in the store can motivate customers to add food to their purchases, and signage in the forecourt may entice fuel-only customers to pick up a meal or snack. Video ads at the pump can serve the same purpose.

Although getting customers interested in grab-and-go options seems simple enough, getting them to actually make purchases is another matter. A long checkout line will send 74% of shoppers to a competitor, while 41% of them will change their minds about a purchase if the line is too long.

A grab-and-go program needs to deliver both a high ROI and an increase in visits. For maximum effectiveness, special attention should be paid to the “Four P’s” – product, price, place, and promotion.

Each of these four elements plays a crucial role in the success of a grab-and-go program. To highlight their importance, we’ve created an on-demand video containing details and ideas on how to implement your own program.

This free, streaming webinar, “Grab-and-Go: How to Maximize Your Foodservice Options” will take you through the key recommendations we give our c-store clients, as well as help you create an effective grab-and-go segment plan.

Click here to watch this free, on-demand video and learn how adding or improving your own grab-and-go program can boost your bottom line and help you compete with even the biggest industry players.

More than ever before, customers are driven by convenience; they want what they want when they want it, and where. And, so, to keep up with consumer demand, restaurants and convenience stores need to begin serving up their offerings outside of their own walls.

The term “off-premises” refers to delivery, takeout, and catering experiences. An off-premises interaction is one in which a customer is receiving and consuming food or goods outside of the restaurant or c-store.

The challenge for c-stores, and for restaurants especially, is to maintain the positive brand experience—and collect the essential customer data—when the entire interaction is taking place outside of their walls.

For the most part, the guest engagement drops to just two critical touch points: the point of order (whether online or over the phone) and the time of distribution (either pick-up or delivery). […]

Consider all of the conveniences that are available to modern consumers. They can wake up, make coffee with beans that were delivered in one day through Amazon Prime, shave with a razor from Dollar Shave Club, and get dressed in an outfit that was delivered in this month’s Stitch Fix box. As they ride to work in a prepaid Uber, they can browse articles on their phone courtesy of an online subscription to their favorite newspaper. After returning home, they can make dinner from a Blue Apron kit while listening to commercial-free music via a Spotify premium account, and then take a spin class as part of their ClassPass subscription.

As consumers, we’ve become used to subscription-based services in every aspect of our daily lives. The subscription business model has grown rapidly, increasing sales from $57 million in 2011 to $2.6 billion in 2016. Throughout the restaurant industry, several brands have successfully introduced subscription-based meals, with Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Pass being a prime example. A limited number of guests could spend $100 for an eight-week pass or $300 for a full year, entitling them to unlimited servings of pasta, soup, salad, and breadsticks.

Since customers are accustomed to paying for subscriptions, more restaurants are offering subscription-styled packages. While some emulate Olive Garden in requiring guests to pay a lump sum for unlimited benefits, others, such as HuHot Mongolian Grill, have given guests the option to buy meal passes in quantities of 5, 10, or 20. There has also been an emergence of third parties like MealPal, a service that allows customers in major metropolitan areas to buy 12 or 20 prepaid lunches and redeem them at any of its participating locations. 

Here are the three primary reasons why you should consider a subscription plan for your restaurant:

• Repeat Customers: When guests purchase a package of prepaid meals, it guarantees return visits to your restaurant instead of the competition. Guests who buy their meals in advance are going to make sure their money doesn’t go to waste.
• Sales: When you sell a 10-meal package, the profit is realized immediately rather than over the course of someone’s next several visits. When these guests return, they can often be enticed to buy add-on items because they tend to forget about the initial cost and will be spending very little on that day.
• Loyalty: These multi-meal passes can be integrated with your restaurant loyalty program, letting guests continue to earn points and allowing you to gain valuable insights from changes in behavior.

Introducing a subscription meal plan is just one way to boost return visits and build strong relationships with your guests. For more information on making a subscription part of your restaurant’s strategy, check out our webinar,  “How Restaurants Can Take Advantage of the Subscription Business Model”