Marketing is the red-headed step child of a restaurant. Most
operators pawn off the responsibility on the next ad rep that walks
through their doors. For many, marketing is a reaction, mostly too
late, to a slow down in business. We run from hot idea to hot idea to
no avail or profits.
A well thought out marketing plan, keeps you on track to reaching
your sales goals and focused on getting it done on a regular basis; not
when the urge strikes. To create a 30 Minute Marketing Plan you must
start with where you are. List your different sources of revenue
(lunch, dinner, catering, drive-thru, etc.) in a spreadsheet and the
total dollars for each category. Create a column that shows what
percentage of sales each contributes. This will give you a snapshot of
where you are.
Sit down with your key people and determine where you want each area
to be in the next twelve months. Initially look at market conditions
and your excess capacity. I like to look at the areas I can impact
most. For me, that usually was catering. Each event "pays" you to
market your restaurant. Prioritize your different profit centers.
Now the fun part. Take twelve sheets of paper and label each with a
separate month. List your different profit centers and next to each one
list the marketing you know you must do for each area. I like to look
at what's worked in the past. For me that has been newsletters and
mailings to my existing customers.
Once the "must do's" are filled in, go back and brainstorm what
other ads, promotions and marketing ideas you can incorporate to
increase sales. Invest in restaurant marketing books or training
materials and look at a calendar of holidays and special events for
inspiration.
By having a plan to keep you focused, you'll end up with winning
promotions to use the next year. Best of all, you'll end up 99% ahead
of your competition.
Michael Attias, the country's foremost expert on
high return, low cost direct marketing strategies for restaurants,
speaks from experience in the trenches. He operated a close to
$3,000,000 a year restaurant in Nashville, TN that he used as his
marketing "laboratory". He now helps restaurant owners add or expand a
catering profit center through his company The Results Group. You can get more information about his restaurant building system at www.ezRestaurantMarketing.com/index1.htm
Before customers see your food, they’re looking at your tabletop.
Beyond the necessary utensils, is there anything special about it? If
not, consider the advice of Nick Agostinelli, corporate director of
food and beverage for Expotel Hospitality Services, LLC, who claims
that centerpieces are one of the many distinguishing details that
restaurants should use in branding. “When properly selected,
centerpieces tie to your concept and tell your restaurant’s story,”
Agostinelli comments. He personally
selects the table decorations for all six of the Lafitte restaurants
that he oversees within the Louisiana hotels that New Orleans–based
Expotel owns or manages. “Fresh flowers are attractive,” he admits,
“but they’re too expensive, they don’t last long, and they don’t fit
our concept at Lafitte’s in any way.” When Expotel launched the Lafitte
restaurant concept in 2002, the tables were decorated with wine bottles
filled with colorful Mardi Gras beads and accented with a gold top hat.
“They were fun and everyone loved them,” he recalls.
Susan Moses, executive chef and co-owner of 212 Market Street
Restaurant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, used to create cut-flower
centerpieces, but now, she claims, “the trend is moving away from fresh
flowers. We try to select seasonal things—like gourds, fruits, or
beans—that tie in with our seasonal menu.”
Across the country in Claremont, California, Judy Casanova,
owner of Desert Succulent Creations, offers another table option:
works of art from cactus leaves. Her restaurant rental program provides
arrangements of colorful cactus leaves for a number of
restaurants. She can create a centerpiece of any size and shape. For
one customer, Melvyn’s at the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs,
she uses a 6-inch-high vase and adds four or five different leaves,
which add another 6 inches of height. “The customers notice
the centerpieces because they reflect the surrounding desert. The
waiters love them because I just use some pebbles to weight the vases
so there’s never a mess, even if they get knocked over.” And, she adds
happily, “the arrangements, which cost about $6
each per month, are sustainable. When I switch them out once a month, I
root the leaves to grow new plants.”
At Napa Valley Grille in Westwood, California, Special Events
Director Shannon Montoya believes “customers like centerpieces
to be something living,” but she too avoids expensive cut flowers.
Westwood Flower Garden, which maintains the restaurant’s
outdoor landscaping, provides Napa Valley Grill with mini boxwood
trees. “They cost only about $5 a piece, grow in little
terra cotta pots, and are skinny and not more than 8 to 10 inches
tall,” Montoya explains. “They hold up well and the florist replaces
them when necessary.” For the Grille’s eight-table private dining room,
Montoya is considering using wooden boxes filled with herbs as
centerpieces. They’ll serve a dual purpose. “The chef could snip the
herbs and use them in the kitchen,” she says.
Replacing the classic candle, small lighting fixtures on the
tabletop is a strong trend, and one that Lynn Wells caters to. The
owner of Tabledecor International in Smyrna, Georgia, she has been
creating table lighting for the restaurant and hotel industry since
1984. “We literally make hundreds of bases and ten shade shapes,
ranging from traditional to contemporary,” Wells remarks. “Our shades
come in many colors and can be accented with other colors.” When
selecting shades, Wells suggests that the first consideration be
whether the lamp is to add light to the table or to create atmosphere.
“Pale shades allow more light to come through. Darker shades can punch
up an otherwise all-white table,” she explains. “Many customers choose
a lighter color shade with bright-colored stripes or edges.”
Among Tabledecor’s newest products are Euro-lights. These small
fixtures have a metal exterior, which comes in a variety of finishes,
and accompanying glass liners that are available in many colors.
Wells’s products can be fueled by battery, candle, liquid fuel cells,
or in the case of shaded table lamps, even electricity. Commenting on
the range of fuel choices, she echoes the same sentiment that applies
to many tabletop decisions, including centerpieces: “The choice totally
depends on what effect works best for your concept and your room.”
Suzanne Hall is a Tennessee-based freelance writer
and regular contributor to the numerous national magazines. She is also
a wine columnist for the Mirror Newspapers (Chattanooga, Tennessee) and
a beverage columnist for Profile.
This article first appeared in the December 2007 issue of Santé.
Our culture associates the word trendy with a negative fad or something
short-lived that you don’t necessarily want to partake in. But not all
trends are as fleeting as legwarmers and pet rocks. Sure, some are
novel, fun to try, and guaranteed to go out of style faster than you
can say California nouvelle cuisine. Others, however, are the beginning
of a movement that is likely to have more permanence (hello, small
plates). In the restaurant industry, the ability to recognize and
leverage a trend can be a good thing, whether it’s here to stay or gone
tomorrow. But identifying the most appropriate trends for your business
is not as straightforward as you might think.
Standing at Attention
People in our society have the attention span of hummingbirds
and the need to embrace novelty. But with countless TV channels, the
Internet, and other media outlets that provide more options than we
know what to do with, engaging today’s consumers and keeping their
attention is easier said than done. The challenge applies not only to
what people watch or wear but also to where and how they eat. It seems
that for every 50 restaurants that close, another 60 open, giving
diners new options to consider every time they go out for a meal.
Survey This
A recent survey by Yankelovich, the trend company that publishes Data MonitorTK,
suggests that today’s consumers feel less inclined to latch onto
something just because it’s “new” and “better” than they have in the
past. While 65 percent
of people polled in 2002 considered it essential to keep up the latest
and greatest, today that number is down to 52 percent. Five years ago
38 percent wanted other people to view them as able to see through
exaggeration and hype; today that number has risen to 58 percent.
These are important factors to consider. They suggest that
people are excited about fresh concepts but also skeptical, savvy, and
not likely to automatically buy into something just because it’s
new—particularly if it’s merely a different spin on something
they’re already familiar with. These numbers mean that a new winemaker
dinner, promotion, menu item, or other repositioned element of your
establishment may not be enough to engage and invigorate the consumer.
Staying on Trend
Restaurants often implement something new and different just
because everyone else is doing it. But mimicking is not always the best
approach to garnering or boosting business, especially if the latest
trend does not make sense for your restaurant. If Asian-Latin food is
all the rage, that doesn’t mean an Italian restaurant should serve it.
The same goes for a huge Riesling selection or a small-plates menu in a
steak house. When you try to put a square peg in a round hole,
consumers realize the change is more to keep up with the Joneses than a
logical evolution.
When considering how to freshen up your restaurant and woo the
everjaded consumer, don’t stray too far from home. Look at what works
and has been successful and where your core strengths lie. Then figure
out how to strengthen, play off, and evolve those elements. Integrate
trends if and when they apply, and use your own creativity,
imagination, and innovation to make your foundation more compelling.
Though it is important to be on the pulse of things and aware
of emerging trends, it is just as essential to remain
respectful of your roots and what got you into the game in the first
place. Football’s John Madden was once asked why he kept repeating
running plays up the middle; he said he would continue with a play that
worked until the defense stopped it. If you are well known for your
seafood or lasagna, don’t try to do different things just to be
current.
If you integrate trends appropriately, your newness will be
aligned with your oldness from a conceptual and ideological standpoint,
and your diners are more likely to buy into it—literally and
figuratively.
Evan Goldstein is the vice president of global brand education for Beam Wine Estates.
He served two terms as chairman of the American Chapter of the Court of
Master Sommeliers and was a four-time finalist for the James Beard
Foundation’s “Outstanding Wine and Spirits Professional of the Year”
award. He is author of the highly acclaimed book Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier’s Practical Advice for Partnering Wine with Food and has begun working on a sequel, scheduled for publication by UC Press in 2010.
This article first appeared in the December 2007 issue of Santé.
Inside and out, some of the world's most recognizable restaurants,
lounges and hotels have become showcases for fashionable, functional
and versatile design innovations. Whether you're in New York or Miami,
San Francisco or even Las Vegas, the dining experience includes style,
ambiance and quality food.
Suzanne Stephens, in her Architectural Record article
"Ambience is All," pinpoints the importance of environment for the
patron: "Show us a restaurant where you can see a fluorescent-lit
kitchen through swinging doors, where furnishings are garish and out of
scale with the room, and we say no amount of delicately seared foie
gras will tempt us back." And she's right-nowadays, restaurant-goers
would have to be pretty hard-pressed (and hungry!) to shell out serious
money in a place that skimps on the ambience. Customers are not just
paying for food-they're paying for an experience.
This dining "experience" has only been strengthened by innovations
in atmosphere and décor, and owners and designers have reveled in the
new materials available to help them create the "wow" factor. "Because
it's trendy, designers and architects are brewing up ingenious uses for
textures, but it's also a big problem-solver in restaurants," says
Timothy Schoenheit, vice president of marketing for the premier
wire-mesh fabric company, Cascade Coil Drapery
based in Portland, OR. This versatile fabric is one of the textures
increasingly being integrated into restaurant design, and has allowed
restaurants to eliminate space challenges by creating objects like
dividers and separator curtains, and by putting window treatments on
double duty to block glaring sun while looking fabulous.
And the trendier the food becomes, the greater the demand is for
upping a restaurant's visual impact. Forget the standard design
solutions of the 20th Century. Restaurants gain a competitive edge by
ensuring fashion and function go hand in hand. Wine racks, curtains
threaded with LEDs, and even security applications are just a few of
the ways designers have incorporated wire mesh in high style.
Farina
Focaccia & Cucina Italiana, a trendy new San Francisco restaurant,
needed a security gate that would - among other things - be
aesthetically pleasing. Bay Area architects Monica Viarengo and Brett
Terpeluk wanted to avoid using clunky and intrusive metals, not just to
address the visual requirement, but because a lightweight, flexible
material was needed to fit snugly around the building's distinctively
curved façade. The solution needed to be strong, of course, to protect
against break-ins and graffiti. In addition, the distance between the
building's façade and its property line was limited, and so any
security gate had to "disappear" when open. Throw into the mix the
recessed outdoor patio populated with tables and chairs year round. A
flexible wire-mesh gate proved to be the stylish, functional answer.
Adjacent to GooglePlex in Irvine, California, Kimera Restaurant
Lounge prides itself on its global fusion cuisine and contemporary,
"masculine and modern" décor. But the eatery's most unusual use of
texture is on its terrace and patio where wire-mesh fabric is
strategically wrapped and draped to block the wind for smokers.
Dollops of texture add ambiance in subtle yet suggestive ways that
may not even be readily apparent to customers. Sometimes, wire-mesh
texture is there to just, well, look good. At Oasis in Los Angeles, in
what would be otherwise unused space, sensual canopies dip down over
each booth in the restaurant. Los Angeles Times restaurant critic S.
Irene Virbila wrote, "The décor by designer Eva Schwarz is a
psychedelic riff on the idea of Morocco. It features cobalt blue walls,
classic Moorish motifs and a mural that enlarges a Moroccan floor-tile
pattern to cover an entire wall. Gold-mesh canopies cocoon each booth
in its own world. How romantic is that?"
In another innovative use for wire mesh, designers for Casa Bacardi in
Tampa fashioned ocean-blue mesh awnings to extend over café seating
outside the glass walls of the airport restaurant, evoking the beach
atmosphere of the Caribbean. For a provocative wine rack at Craft Bar
in New York, designers used Cascade Coil to "cradle" each wine bottle
within the frame of the rack.
Whether for function, fashion or both, wire-mesh fabric, among other
textures, has brought restaurant design to a new level. And, while the
promise of a satisfying meal might get patrons there, it's the combined
effort of the ambience and cuisine that not only keeps people coming
back but and also talking about their dining experience in between
visits.
Article by C.G. Leya
It happened to me and if it hasn't happened to you, it will.
When you start taking online orders from your website, in a few short
days you will find yourself saying "Why did I wait so long?" When your
customers order from your website you soon realize that
* your staff makes less mistakes
* your customers spend more money, and
* your customers have a better experience.
Statistics show that customers who order online spend anywhere
from 8%-12% higher than those who order by phone. It makes total sense.
On the phone a customer is under a time constraint and can often feel
rushed by an order taker. Online they can take their time, see your
whole menu and often add more items to their order. I run across
restaurateurs who tell me that they can't afford the cost of processing
an online order. If the average order is 8% higher and the cost is 3%
to process, you are up 5% ... and this is just the obvious benefit...
think of the (added) hidden value:
1. When customer-A was issuing that bigger order, your employee was not taking that order but making one for customer-B.
2. No Mistakes! The order comes out in black and white. No mistakes in
quantity, items, delivery address AND if you choose to process credit
cards online, it is often already paid!
3. And what about that customer who hung-up and decided to order from
your competition because your phone lines were busy! No such thing in
online ordering.
4. Also, think of that night owl who wants to order for his team's
party tomorrow, but there is no one in your restaurant to take an
advance order!
5. And how many can - in all honesty - say that they do not order the
same thing over and over again. Online platform allows the customer to
quickly reorder from old orders...
Bottom line:
I think that restaurant operators who look at the 3% cost completely
miss the boat! I'd venture to say that their argument to save 3% is
awfully short sighted. Your restaurant makes more money when your
customers order online. After a few weeks of taking online orders,
successful operators realize the best way for a customer to place an
order is online and they start to look for tools to make this happen.
There are many ways to get your customers to order online. Here are some simple must dos!
1. On your menu you must print in LARGE letters, ORDER ONLINE at yourrestaurant.com
2. Train your staff to let customers know that they can order online
(T-Shirts with your restaurant's website address on them, maybe?)
3. Create in house displays that tell your customers that they can order online
4. If you have a phone recording, tell them on the message. Especially
on the closed message. This way they can place an order even when the
restaurant in closed.
5. Create a reason for them to order online. The iMenu360 systems lets
you create a loyalty program and a first time discount.
More sophisticated techniques include:
1. In print or radio campaigns include an online coupon code
that gives customers a discount when they order online. The iMenu360
system allows you to create coupon codes that can be redeemed online
and allow you to track your campaigns effectiveness. 2. Create a google
adwords campaign to enhance the traffic to your website. The more
visitors to your website, the more online orders you will get. This is
also a great way to get new customers. 3. Develop a marketing campaign
with the email's you acquire with each online order(If the ordering
platform you use doesn't give you complete ownership of your customer
emails you have the wrong ordering platform). Keep yourself in
forefront of your customer's mind with subtle, yet systematic email
campaigns to your database of online customers. Remember, you are just
a click away when the customer thinks of ordering online!
If you continue to have a quality product and excellent
customer service your online channel will grow naturally. It is the way
of the world. By implementing some of the techniques from above you can
increase your online traffic exponentially. Given the choice of
ordering online or via phone, most customers find ordering online
easier.
Now that your restaurant is online, let your customers know it!
David Litchman is owner of Pocket's - which has 10+ locations in the Chicago area. David is also the owner of iMenu360, an online ordering website system for restaurants.
With any restaurant, customers are the cornerstones to success. In
order to fill tables frequently enough to make a profit, you have to
attract new customers and retain loyal ones. While restaurant
atmosphere, quality of food, value for the price, and a friendly and
knowledgeable staff are important components for a good running
business, long-term success requires a solid combination of sales,
marketing, promotions and public relations.
A restaurant newsletter is an ideal way to boost your business
and develop a relationship with customers. It can be done in electronic
form and sent to email lists and posted on your restaurant website, in
print form to be mailed and given to customers at the restaurant, or a
combination of both.
The look of your restaurant newsletter should reflect the image of your restaurant.
If you are a formal dining establishment, your newsletter should look
upscale and sophisticated and be written with flair. If you are a
casual, family restaurant, then your bulletin should have a fun and
friendly look and be written in an upbeat, casual tone.
In any type of printed or online materials about your restaurant, relevant information should be provided somewhere,
whether in a box off to the side, as part of the title box, or as an
informational line at the bottom. Pertinent information includes name
of restaurant, street address, phone and fax numbers, hours of
operation, website address and email address.
The content of your restaurant newsletter should be less self-promoting and more customer-focused.
Inform customers about specials of the month, charitable events you are
hosting, the new seasonal menu, and changes in chefs, a story behind a
recipe, new features in the restaurant and industry trends.
Frequency of a restaurant newsletter is important. If
you overdo the communication, customers will view it as advertising
rather than information. A monthly publication is probably best if you
have a lot going on, but if you change menus seasonally and don’t hold
many special events or fund raisers, then consider a quarterly one.
A good restaurant newsletter is one that customers can quickly
read. Write brief articles and use short sentences. Catchy headlines
and dividers to separate articles also help. Be sure to break up text
with white space. Include only one or two small images, whether of
food, staff, or other appropriate photo, so as not to jam a persons
email box.
With any restaurant newsletter, be sure to provide links. If
you're doing a printed publication, include the links so customers can
visit when they have available computer access. And remember to include
instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter list, as well as a
forward to a friend link. You might want to consider offering an
incentive to new subscribers and to current subscribers for referrals.
Encouraging feedback by asking a question or taking a poll is also a
great feature to include in a newsletter.
Jose L. Riesco is the President of Riesco Consulting Inc.
He specializes in Restaurant Marketing and Consulting Services. You can
find more about his marketing & consulting offerings by visiting
his web site: http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com.
In this flaky economy, every dollar counts. When times are tough,
marketing is often the first on the chopping board of restaurant owners
and managers. This is a mistake.
Now, I'm all for cutting costs, but if you want to reduce your marketing expenses, you need to be smart about it.
I am showing you here three easy steps that you can follow to
eliminate wasted restaurant marketing expenses. Not only you will save
money in marketing, but also you can rest knowing that you are
investing your hard-earned money in the best possible way to bring new
clients to your restaurant.
OK, ready? Here we go…
Step One: Track ALL Your Restaurant Marketing Expenses
This is often a painful but essential process. It's painful, not
only because it takes some time and energy to do it, but also because
you will soon realize how much money you are really spending (and
perhaps wasting) for marketing.
So sit down, pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and before
you go over your records and make an inventory of all your monthly
marketing expenses. You may want to create your computer or write down
on a piece of paper a table with the following columns:
- Expense Description: Make sure that you give it a descriptive name so that you can identify the expense by just reading this field.
- Vendor: Who does this marketing for you?
- Vendor's Phone number: To contact them in case that you want to cancel or change a recurrent expense.
- Frequency: One Time Only / Monthly / Quarterly / Yearly
- Monthly Amount: We will be tracking all the marketing expenses on a monthly base.
Now fill it out.
If you have some marketing investments where you pay quarterly (or yearly), allocate the proportional part to the month.
For example, let's say that you send a coupon every quarter and
you pay $3,000 each time that the coupon company mails your coupons.
You are spending $1,000 a month in coupons, so write that down.
Make sure that you cover all the expenses. Include also free
marketing that you may be doing now. Just enter 0 as the Monthly
Amount.
Based on the monthly amount, you will calculate two totals:
- Total Monthly Expenses: You will add all the expenses from each vendor, to come up with the average total monthly expenses.
- Total Yearly Expenses: Just multiply the average total monthly expenses and you'll get your restaurant marketing yearly expenses.
I would recommend you to use Excel or any other spreadsheet
application to track all these restaurant marketing expenses. This will
make much easier to play with the numbers later on. You can also easily
change the size of the tables and modify the fields. If, however, you
don't like computers too much, you can still do this exercise by hand.
Step Two: Test Your Restaurant Marketing Results
Now armed with your freshly updated marketing list, start from
the top, and review each of your restaurant marketing investments.
For each investment, you must ask yourself the following question:
Can you track the results of this restaurant marketing investment?
If the answer is YES, then you can proceed to Step Three.
If the answer is NO, then there are only two things that you can do:
1. Make it trackable if you can.
2. Cancel it if you can't.
That's it. It's that simple.
So how can you make a restaurant marketing investment trackable?
You can make it measurable by adding a component that your prospects need to bring to your restaurant to get a reward.
For example, let's assume that you spend $1000 a month in magazine ads.
However, you really don't know how many people come to your restaurant because of these ads in the magazine. What can you do?
You can change your ads and include a coupon with a discount or
a freebie (a free dessert, a free glass of the house wine, etc.). Then
tell your servers to track and keep all the coupons that come in this
way. After this, you can proceed to Step Three.
Never place an ad that you can't track. It is just a waste of
money. For the same reason, if you are investing in a marketing
campaign that you can't track in any way, just cancel it. It is not
worth it.
Now, we can proceed to the final step.
Step Three: Analyze the Results and Eliminate the Restaurant Marketing That Doesn't Work
So now that all your marketing efforts are trackable, what can you do?
You must look at the investment and answer the following question:
Is this investment profitable?
Do you make more money from this restaurant marketing investment than you spend on it?
This is easy to calculate. You know how much money you are
spending a month in this campaign. You also know how many people the
campaign brings you a month, because you are tracking the results. Now
you just need to do some easy math:
PROFIT = TOTAL SALES – TOTAL COST
Let's assume you paid $1000 dollars for a monthly ad in a local
newspaper. For this ad, you've collected 20 coupons in one month. You
have to take into consideration that 20 coupons would probably bring
you more than 20 people.
Let's assume that the average party size per coupon was 2 people so these 20 coupons brought you 40 customers.
Also let's assume that your average sale per person is $30
(including food and beverages), and that you are giving a 10% discount
of the total bill in your coupon. The cost of your food and beverage is
one third of your total, so for this sale of $30 is $10.
So here you have the formula again:
PROFIT = TOTAL SALES – TOTAL COST
Calculating the Total Sales can be very easy or more thorough.
If your servers staple the coupons with your customer's tickets
(and by the way, you should ask them to do this if you are not doing it
now), you can just add the totals.
If you just want a rough number, you can simply multiply the
number of people that came because of your marketing campaign by the
average sale per person.
In our example, the Total Sales would be: 40 customers x $30 = $1,200
Now let's calculate the Total Cost.
TOTAL COST = MARKETING COST + DISCOUNTS + COST OF GOODS
In our example, the MARKETING COST = $1,000 (that we paid to the newspaper).
If you track your results, you could go to the detail level and
see exactly how much discount you gave to each party who brought a
coupon. However, you don't need to be so specific. You can just
simplify this operation by averaging.
In our example, we are discounting 10% from an average sale of
$30; this means you are discounting $3 per person. Since we brought 40
customers, we discounted a total of $120.
So, our DISCOUNTS = $120
Don't forget that you still need to add the cost of your food
and beverages. You can also get an average for this number. In our
example, the average cost of goods per client was $10.
Our COST OF GOODS = 40 x $10 = $400
Our TOTAL COST would be now: $1000 + $120 +$400 = $1,520
As you can see, the cost of this campaign is quite expensive. The question is: Are you making any money?
We are ready to calculate if you made a profit. Remember the formula?
PROFIT = TOTAL SALES – TOTAL COST
In our example, PROFIT = $1200 - $1520 which is the negative number -$320
As you can see, we would be losing money in this example, but you need to run your own numbers to obtain your own PROFIT.
1. If this number is positive, congratulations, you are making a
profit from your restaurant marketing investment. Keep on doing this
marketing investment.
2. If the number is almost zero or with a very small loss, you
may still consider to keep this restaurant marketing investment since
these customers could become regular (we'll call them clients) and
bring you more profit in the future.
3. If this number is negative (as in our example), cut down
your losses. Stop wasting your money in this marketing campaign
immediately.
Do this exercise with each of your current restaurant marketing
expenses. Very soon, you will end up with ONLY restaurant marketing
investments that bring you a profit. Even if you just break even, this
is good because it means that you are bringing to your restaurant new
customers that you can convert into clients.
Happy marketing!
Jose L. Riesco is the President of Riesco Consulting Inc.
He specializes in Restaurant Marketing and Consulting Services. You can
find more about his marketing & consulting offerings by visiting
his web site: http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com.
Here are just a few ways that restaurants, bars and nightclubs can participate in social media.
Go ‘behind the scenes’
- Use your Facebook Fan Pages to offer a few recipes from your
kitchen. You don’t have to give away all your trade secrets, but your
Fans would appreciate knowing that you’re passing along a recipe for
your popular Sour Cream Apple Pie just to them. This is a great way to
create Fan loyalty. And it’s a super way to start accumulating lots of
Fans. (See 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook.)
- Ditto with mixed drinks. If your bartenders notice that
customers are wild about your ice tea-based cocktails, for example,
offer a recipe.
- You can also use your Facebook Fan pages to offer customers special coupons.
- Share trends. Let people know what trends you’re seeing in your business. This article in New York magazine is a good example of cocktail trends that customers might want to know about.
- Share with your customers and others what your chefs eat at
home. Do they plop in front of the TV with a big bag of Doritos after a
long shift? Or do they have a special healthy snack they can whip up in
five minutes? If so, provide the recipe!
- Interview customers about what they like about your food and drinks, and upload those videos to your Facebook Fan Pages.
- Upload photos of people having a good time (with their
permission, of course) to photo-sharing sites like Flickr and
PhotoBucket.
Make it easy for customers to find you
- Let customers know where they can follow you on Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networking sites where they
congregate. Print this information on your menu, in your paid ads, on
flyers they can take with them, on direct-mail advertising, on coasters
at your bar, and on signs in your window.
- Offer this information online, too—at your website, at your blog, in your email signature, and in videos.
Connect with journalists and bloggers
- Many journalists are now on the social networking sites,
particularly Twitter and Facebook. If you’re dying to get in front of a
particular journalist, Google their name and see if you can find them
on a social media site. I Googled ”Allison Perlik” and found her on
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Check out Harry Hoover’s wiki of media people using Twitter and media outlets using Twitter.
Ask your customers for suggestions
Your customers might have some great ideas for ways you can
interact with them on the social media sites. But you’ll never know
unless you ask them.
For more ideas on how to generate publicity in traditional media, see Publicity Tips for Restaurants, Chefs & Foodies.
Stretch a buck. Do more with less. Frugality is in and simple is the
new extravagant. What does this mean for restaurateurs? People are
still dining out; they're just doing it less often. The key to getting
diners into your establishment when they are ready to spend their
declining discretionary income is to stay fresh in their minds at the
point of decision, and that calls for savvy marketing. Email
newsletters are an especially effective, affordable and easy marketing
option that can help keep your establishment in the forefront of
diners' minds when they make plans for a valued night out.
Step One: Plan ahead and use the right communication for the right time
Plan a six-month period to establish or modify your
communications with diners. Set goals for what you want to accomplish
and allow for regular analysis of your program. You'll always have the
flexibility to make adjustments in response to your customers' needs
and the changing market, but a plan puts you in charge.
Are you trying to motivate repeat business? Do you want to highlight
special events? Do you want to highlight your wine list, regional
cuisine or award-winning chef? Think about the points you want to make,
and determine when and how to highlight the competitive advantages of
your restaurant.
Also consider the people on your email subscriber list. What
are their needs, desires and interests? What holidays and other
calendar events tend to drive foot traffic? By knowing what keeps
patrons coming through your door, you can engage customers in
communications that are meaningful and build stronger relationships.
Think about what kinds of campaigns you may use. You have many
options including newsletters, holiday or seasonal promotions,
preferred customer events, new menu items and more. You may want to
have different templates in place for different kinds of communications
so your readers know immediately what to expect when they open the
email. By striking the most welcome balance between steady
communication and one-off emails for special offers or events, you'll
raise the likelihood that diners will think of you for a typical night
out and/or a special occasion.
Step Two: It's all in the timing
How often can you realistically do a newsletter? A promotional
offer? A special event? Most businesses should communicate at least
twice monthly -- more often if your event calendar dictates it. If
you're just starting out or managing campaigns by yourself, communicate
quarterly at a minimum. Email permission is perishable, so it's
important that you commit and stick to a schedule you can manage, and
follow up with subscribers who opt-in to your list promptly by sending
a quick acknowledgement even before they receive their first
newsletter.
One time-saver for the combination chef/manager/marketer is to
write some of the copy on evergreen topics during the slower parts of
the year. Then you can add current content, such as what's fresh from
your seasonal garden, and complete the newsletter faster than if you
had to write every article.
When is your audience most likely to open and read your
message? While audiences vary, we have found that mid-day delivery is
better than mornings or evenings. Choosing the right day of the week is
also important. Some have found Tuesday and Wednesday achieve better
results than the beginning or the end of the week. Your audience may be
different, so do some testing to determine the delivery timing that is
right for you.
Step Three: Analyze and revise
There is no replacement for analyzing your email tracking
reports. Then you can adjust your campaigns based on what you learn
about your customers and what works best for you.
Your tracking and reporting data is a treasure trove of
information about your customers' responses to your communications.
Your tracking data is posted for 90 days, so take a look back and find
out who's opening, who's clicking through, and which subject lines
worked best. The data will tell you which calls to action were most
effective and you can tailor promotions to subscribers based on what
you learned. It may also be useful to subscribe to newsletters and
special offer notices from your competitors to get a better sense of
what's working for them.
The lion's share of the work is not in creating the
communications, but in analyzing the results and nurturing better
responses. Build regular analysis into your campaigns -- at least
quarterly. Make it a priority.
Step Four: Let the diners decide
Not all diners seek the same things from you. Everywhere you
reach your customers - at the host stand, tableside, or on your website
- you can invite diners to join your mailing list and offer them the
opportunity to decide what kind of messages they receive. By segmenting
your list, you will give customers what they most want to know, whether
it's daily specials, holiday events, or a newsletter filled with
valuable information.
You can offer everyone who receives an email from you the chance to set
their frequency options to receive the newsletter more or less
frequently. For instance, offer diners the opportunity to receive
weekly, bi-weekly or monthly communications from your restaurant. Not
only does this increase goodwill but it will increase the percentage of
people opening your emails.
For more information on how to create a successful email communications strategy and stay top of mind, please visit http://www.constantcontact.com.
Lisa Sparks is Constant Contact's
Regional Development Director for South Florida. With 15 years of
experience in marketing, copywriting, and small business consulting,
Lisa understands the challenges small businesses face and which tools
they need to succeed. An accomplished public speaker and trainer, Lisa
offers free seminars, interactive workshops, and industry-specific
programs on email marketing in the South Florida area.
NO SHIRT. NO SHOES. NO SERVICE. You have undoubtedly seen these
signs on restaurant doors. You may have this same sticker on the
display windows in your business. But have you seen a "NO YELPERS" sign?
The owner of a small café in the San Francisco Bay area recently
posted a warning sign that "YELPERS" were not welcome in his coffee
shop and restaurant. This was not a ban on the little hand-held barking
dogs toted by vapid socialites. Nor was this a prohibition against
crying babies or petulant toddlers. Rather, this restaurateur refused
to serve the new brand of coffee-swilling communication commandos:
consumers that post anonymous, often critical reviews of restaurants
and hotels on "yelp.com."
Yelp.com is just one of the new media outlets or "social networking"
websites that features real-time reviews and commentaries about
restaurants and businesses. In contrast to traditional methods of
professional reviews and analysis by established and recognized
authorities or critics, sites like yelp.com allow the normal, average,
everyday person in the corner booth to assume the mantel of a
Zagat-level restaurant critic. And their un-polished and un-edited
reviews are distributed immediately to anyone that cares to listen.
So, new startups like YELP.COM and the established hospitality market-makers like TRIPADVISOR.COM
have become trusted sources and "mavens" for suggestions and reviews
based on personal experiences of the anonymous content creators. These
networking sites are often the first choice for information by
travelers and interested foodies. In a business environment where word
of mouth is absolutely vital to success, what can shop owners do to
manage the buzz about their business, restaurant, or hotel?
Old School Vs. New Media
It should come as no surprise that a traditional and continuing
response to a bad review by a food critic is...SUE THEM. For many years
this tact of sending in a horde of lawyers to beat up the publisher and
reviewer was viewed as a ham-fisted attempt to subvert the perceived
Freedom of Speech. This assumes, of course, a constitutional right to
complain about cold soup, overdone fish, and belligerent waitstaff.
Nonetheless, many hospitality trade folks believe that a bad review is
libelous.
Recently, some notable chefs and eateries have revived the practice
of overlawyering a dispute. Courts in renowned foodtowns like
Philadelphia, Dallas, and New York City have all handled lawsuits
stemming from criticism in newspaper articles and restaurant reviews.
While there are any number of reasons for bringing these kinds of
suits-the mantra of "any publicity is good publicity" being one of them
- these leverage lawsuits against old school publishers are not
applicable to the new media, web-based networking sites.
First, when an established food critic savages a restaurant,
everyone knows who published the review. In these user-generated
content communities like YELP.COM the reviews come from anonymous
posters. So, even if a business owner has been unfairly or even
illegally harmed by comments...the victim will have a terrible time
trying to identify the critic. Sure, the business operator can run to
court to file suit, issue subpoenas, and raise a ruckus. But, there is
no guarantee that any of the online service providers will disclose any
information about its posters and courts are not always willing to
compel such disclosure.
Second, lawyers tend to overlook the fact that hospitality is a
viral business. Lawsuits are a bad virus. Restaurants and hotels need
to spread good vibes to drive its core business rather than alienate
the very community that it is trying to engage.
Good Options
If you or your business feels that you have been unfairly criticized
at a review site or someone has posted blatantly false and damaging
information, your first reasonable course of action should be to
contact the service provider directly. Most of the social networking
sites have formal or informal complaint procedures to ensure that the
subjects of the reviews are treated fairly. In many instances, the
sites will simply offer to remove the objectionable content.
In the "old days" when a restaurant critic would publish a
potentially harmful commentary, the owner or proprietor would often
respond directly to the magazine or newspaper in a Letter to the
Editor. This remains a good and reasonable option. There is no reason
that your business cannot have an online presence to actively monitor
and address the poor reviews and to dispute the allegedly inaccurate
portrayals on the sites. The websites themselves certainly appreciate
and welcome the additional traffic and information from both sides.
As a final recommendation, the hospitality industry needs to embrace
the change to the new media. Each and every person coming into the
hotel or restaurant is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist. So, each
customer should receive the highest level of service and attention to
detail that was previously reserved for the known professionals.
Likewise, each and every customer is a Madison Avenue marketing
firm. Encourage your valuable customers to get on these sites and
spread the good word. A few negative reviews are easily dismissed as
crackpots when the vast majority of reviews rave about your place.
Anthony Martin is a Partner in the St. Louis office of Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin. He can be reached at 314-345-6202 or at amartin@blackwellsanders.com.
This information provided is general and educational and not legal advice. For additional information go to www.hospitalitylawyer.com.