For the holidays, the Fifth Ring Houston team went out for dinner. Since we are communications professionals, we notice things that sometimes go unnoticed by the public-at-large.

Once dinner was finished, the waiter brought the check and an envelope with a special offer.  In an effort to have customers return, the restaurant provided diners with an envelope guaranteeing a prize. Service-type businesses such as restaurants typically give away coupons, but this was no ordinary BOGO (buy one, get one) offer. Instead, you had to bring the envelope back after the New Year and open it in front of your server. Then, and only then, could you receive your prize of some sort. Open the envelope before you were seated in front of the server and the certificate was null and void.

Even though we understood the premise of the offer, we instantly wanted to know what the prize was. A free meal? Two free meals? Even better, free dessert? The possibilities were driving the table crazy.

We even tried to peek, however the message we saw when we lifted a corner of the envelope was “No Peeking!” They knew we would be tempted and were one step ahead.

Hmm, this was tough. It made us all want to come back. The food was good, ambience casual and the service was attentive. It was then we began to appreciate the value in their incentive. They had the same thoughts we did and decided to act upon it to help retain their business.

Brilliant.

Too often companies fail to show the proof points or the “how” in their marketing communications. How is your product or service different from your competitors? How do you increase the number of hits on your website? Or how do you entice a reader to keep reading? For this restaurant it was how do you get all these people to come back again?

The answer on this night? The perceived value in the envelope.

What keeps your (potential) clients coming back for more? It doesn’t always have to be a prize, but it has to be something they value.

Learning your stakeholder’s value is no easy task, but the payoff can be just as sweet. It takes time, research, understanding and skill. Often, it requires the expertise of professionals like our Brand Positioning team. However, mere mortals—and PR professionals—can do this too, but it does take a little know how.

Now, in any regular blog, this is where you would get three to five tips on how to do this yourself, but clearly that wouldn’t be in keeping with the tone of this post. No, if you want to know how to hone in on what your audience desires, you’ll have to just come back next month, or give us a cal.

However, if you want to know what was in the envelope, it was a certificate for a free dessert!