Restaurant Associations Add Gift Marketing Program to Suite of Member Benefit Solutions
The National Restaurant Association, Council of State Restaurant Associations and state restaurant associations endorse Heartland Payment Systems’® Gift Marketing program
PRINCETON, NJ — April 28, 2010 — Gift cards can be a substantial source of revenue for restaurants, and now, National Restaurant Association members and state restaurant association members have a new option for maximizing their bottom-line impact with innovative gift marketing strategies. The National Restaurant Association, Council of State Restaurant Associations and the vast majority of state restaurant associations have added Heartland Gift MarketingSM to their growing lists of exclusively endorsed business solutions offered by Heartland Payment Systems, one of the nation’s largest payments processors.
In January, the National Restaurant Association, state restaurant associations and Heartland entered into a strategic alliance to enhance the business operations of restaurateurs by delivering the industry’s first-ever unified payments processing platform. The Council of State Restaurant Associations joined the partnership in February, and currently 41 state restaurant associations are on board, demonstrating the strength of the alliance and its importance to the industry.
The partnership’s “Full Course Business SolutionsSM” initially launched with exclusively endorsed card processing, payroll services, tip management and check management solutions. Adding gift marketing to Full Course empowers restaurateurs to leverage traditional gift cards to promote their businesses, grow their customer base and their revenue. Operators can take advantage of customized programs built around their current marketing efforts, customer demographics and budget. Low start-up costs and a cost-effective pricing structure make Heartland’s gift marketing solution affordable for restaurants of all sizes.
“Our gift marketing solution has the power to significantly increase a restaurant’s bottom line. Unlike traditional gift card programs, Heartland Gift Marketing utilizes a multi-faceted, consultative marketing approach that effectively drives top-line revenue,” said Bob Carr, Heartland’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Seamless integration with the first-ever unified payments processing platform makes our program easy-to-implement and enables restaurateurs to rely on a single provider for even more business solutions.”
“The National Restaurant Association is about creating opportunity and improving profitability for this industry,” said Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. “Our goal is to help our members reach even higher levels of success. Heartland Payment Systems’ excellent programs will enable restaurants to create efficiencies to directly benefit their bottom line.”
Full Course is supported by Heartland’s national sales and servicing organization of 1,800 professionals located in communities across America and its 1,600 service, information technology and administrative employees.
Heartland and the associations will continue to expand Full Course’s products and services as they develop solutions to address critical industry issues and advocate for restaurateurs. To learn more, visit GoFullCourse.com.
Heartland offers a variety of other integrated products and services including online payments, point-of-sale systems, data management solutions and more. Its end-to-end encryption solution ― E3™ ― is designed to protect cardholder data throughout the entire lifecycle of a payments transaction from the moment of card swipe to the card brands ― helping business owners improve data security and reduce the cost of PCI compliance.
About Heartland Payment Systems
Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE: HPY), the 5th largest payments processor in the United States, delivers credit/debit/prepaid card processing, payroll, check management and payments solutions to more than 250,000 business locations nationwide. Heartland is the founding supporter of The Merchant Bill of Rights, a public advocacy initiative that educates merchants about fair credit and debit card processing practices. For more information, please visit HeartlandPaymentSystems.com, MerchantBillOfRights.org, CostOfABurger.com and E3secure.com.
About The National Restaurant Organization
Founded in 1919, the National Restaurant Association is the leading business association for the restaurant industry, which comprises 945,000 restaurant and foodservice outlets and a workforce of nearly 13 million employees. Together with the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, the Association works to lead America’s restaurant industry into a new era of prosperity, prominence, and participation, enhancing the quality of life for all we serve. For more information, visit our website at Restaurant.org.
About The Council of State Restaurant Associations
The Council of State Restaurant Associations comprises state restaurant trade associations of any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and any territory of the United States. CSRA's Mission is to foster goodwill and promote the success of state restaurant associations and their members. For more information, visit our website StateRestaurantAssociations.org.
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