Overview

Mele Group is a family-run restaurant group that currently operates 3 Italian restaurants and one pub in the London area. Their venues aim to create an authentic feel from the traditional Northern Italian Trattorias and are popular amongst both locals and visitors.

Mele Group uses Stampede to grow their mailing list and build a loyal customer base through targeted marketing.

The Challenge

Most hospitality venues offer free Wi-Fi access. Whilst this benefits the customers, businesses are often missing out on a massive data capture opportunity that comes with it.

As Chris Hughes, Co-Owner of the Mele Group describes, before Stampede: “There wasn’t a real strategy for capturing people’s email addresses. But I was seeing data capture done through Wi-Fi more and more in other venues.”

Mele Group used to get their customer details mainly through competition entries and via their website, which left them with a rather slow-growing database.

“Stampede will ultimately help me get more in touch with my customers, which is crucial. It will help me market the restaurants in a more sophisticated way. Especially as we grow, Stampede is invaluable for our restaurants.”

Chris Hughes – Co-Owner, Mele Group

The Solution

Since implementing Stampede Guest Wi-Fi, Mele Group has grown a database of over 17,500 records within 5 months. As Chris says: “It’s a completely new datastream that I’ve never had access to before.” The increased amount of data helps them better connect with their customers and increase repeat visits.

On top of that, they were able to boost their Instagram following. Customers that have logged in to their Wi-Fi are automatically redirected to their Instagram accounts, making it as straightforward as possible for customers to follow them.

Mele Group also switched over from Mailchimp to Stampede to manage their email marketing. As Chris acknowledges: “I’m very happy with Stampede, it seems more sophisticated than Mailchimp. Writing newsletters and doing segments is pretty straightforward, I prefer it to Mailchimp which took longer to get used to.”

Mele Group saw a +£15,800 return visit ROI from 9 email campaigns promoting their regular events, such as their popular Supper Clubs.

When it comes to customer feedback, manually asking for reviews is time-consuming, so in addition to regular campaigns, Chris is also using automated emails to get them more reviews. For this, customers automatically receive a review request post-visit. Having this part of their business run on autopilot is another time-saving gem.

Coming Up

Mele Group have recently sent their first SMS birthday offer campaign to customers using Stampede. “Customers are now happy to receive text messages and they’re responding to them. I’m keen to see the impact”. 

Looking ahead, Chris is certain that “the more I use Stampede, the more it makes my life easier.”