Opening a Restaurant? Terms May Confuse You
Restaurateurs come from many backgrounds. Most new owners never had formal training or experience with marketing. Commonly, I see the term advertising used interchangeably with the word marketing in the restaurant business. Advertising is just a small part of marketing, but unless you have the direct experience or training, the other components of the marketing function may elude you.
One of the key errors I made in the early years of operating restaurants was that I thought media advertising was the way to get new business and keep old customers. I followed what I saw the competition doing. As a first time restaurant owner, I just didn’t know any better. Newspapers, magazines and other publications were full of restaurant ads. I just thought newspaper and publications were necessary; so I followed the pack and spent thousands of dollars just like every other restaurant up and down the street.
When business wasn’t growing as fast as it should, my old business skills reverted to basic marketing techniques to build a plan. We needed to find out why customers were coming in our doors for the first time.
We found that very few first time guests were motivated by ads. Most came because of a referral from a neighbor, friend or family. Even more surprising was the extremely high cost to acquire new business through traditional advertising. For every new customer that came in the door as the result of an ad it may cost as much as $75 each! We might as well have sent a $75 check to random people just to try our restaurant! Not very smart.
By applying techniques of basic marketing we determined;
Who our potential customers were.
Methods to communicate directly with them.
What motivated them to act.
What made them want to return.
It sounds like heavy business school stuff and typical “consultant” drivel you read every day. Really it was simple, just ask!
Managers, owners and servers need to communicate with new customers as they come in the door. First time visitors like the interaction and are more than open about why they are there. You can create an easy to use form for employees to fill out after visiting with guests. Record their responses to the questions above. After a few days a pattern will emerge.
There are many aspects and components to the marketing function. The Restaurant Ebook details exactly how to go about creating a marketing plan and executing each step. The size of your operation is insignificant. A small coffee bar and a 300 seat theme restaurant must do the same thing to keep growing and expanding their customer base.
Rarely is advertising successful economically for the independent restaurateur. Advertising cannot produce the results a well thought out marketing plan can produce, usually for much less than the cost of traditional ad media. If you want to learn more about restaurant marketing, The Restaurant Ebook covers the subject in great detail along with all the other functions of owning and operating your restaurant.
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