Restaurant Marketing – Don’t Do List
It seems there are plenty of people offering advice about what to do in this unfriendly marketing environment. Much of this advice is a sales pitch to get the restaurant owner to buy something, hire a consultant or advertise in some amazing new way to get customers. Few of these schemes will have any short term impact on your restaurant’s performance.
Here is a list of things NOT to do when trying to boost sales in the next 3 to four months:
- Don’t panic! Frustration and fear are poor partners when making business decisions. Use common sense and look for marketing efforts that will make a difference next week, tomorrow or next month.
- Don’t listen to the people telling you that the Internet is the answer to all your marketing needs. It’s not. To develop a working marketing program on the Internet, it takes months or years to do. It is time consuming and can be costly.
- While email marketing is probably the best marketing tool in the restaurateur’s tool bag, if you haven’t started a program by now, use your skills to develop more short term marketing plans. Email marketing will take six to eight months to get returns.
- Increasing advertising in media that hasn’t worked in the past won’t do anything now. Many restaurant owners think the solution to sagging sales is more newspaper advertising or other mass publications. You will just be throwing a bunch of money at a small portion of the overall restaurant marketing equation. You will also just be like hundreds of you competitors doing the same thing. The chances are reduced of a new customer coming from a newspaper ad when more restaurants are being advertised.
- Don’t start some aggressive coupon program that trains your customers to become shoppers for the best deal. They will begin to expect discounts all the time or think you have over priced your product to start with. You may be creating a monster for the future that may be hard to kill. If coupons have been your main source of bringing customers in the door, stick with it. If it is used rarely, don’t change the pattern no matter how tempting it is to offer big discounts.
Now is the time to look for strength within your operation and build on those assets. Start with your existing customers. They are a great source for more business. Be creative. Give your guests more of what they want without giving away your product. Now is a perfect time to partner with non-competing businesses in your area to boost each other’s traffic.
There are many ways to build a re-vitalized a short term marketing program. Spend an hour or two focusing on the short term while working on the long term as time permits.
If you need help, spend a few dollars on The Restaurant Ebook. You will find dozens and dozens of new marketing ideas for both the short and long term. You will get all the tools to create and implement a marketing plan that will carry you through this economic downturn. You get a money back guarantee if it isn’t what you need to build a solid restaurant for now and the future.
Hunker Down or Market Your Restaurant – Surviving a Recession
In 1981 the interest rates on home loans ballooned to 15 to 18%. Savings and loans were going under and it was common for an apparent healthy financial stalwart of the community to suddenly announce they had been acquired or in some cases, were closing their doors. Virtually every home sold, if any, was financed by the sellers. It wasn’t a matter of tight credit; it was a matter of credit that people could not afford. You could qualify for a loan, but the payments were so high, you couldn’t buy anything you wanted to live in.
Here we are, almost thirty years later with economic conditions that mirror our history. The conditions may be slightly different, but the bottom line is that people lost jobs, restaurants closed, the housing industry crashed and people stayed home more. They ate out less, spent fewer dollars and changed their habits.
As a restaurateur you have some choices. You can hunker down, layoff people, cut every possible cost, increase prices with inflation, change your menu to higher margin items and weather the economic storm – if you can.
There is an alternative. People don’t quit eating out. They choose less extravagant food. A restaurant visit becomes a form of entertainment as well as a meal. Even well healed big spenders go into a conservative mind set as supposed pillars of the financial world crash around them. For some restaurant owners it becomes a time of opportunity.
Now is a time to build market share. You may not be able to achieve the profitability or sales level of recent previous years, but you can build a base of clients that will see your business flourish quicker when conditions start to improve. Your regular customers won’t totally abandon you, just visit fewer times and spend less money. The challenge is to build more regular customers.
In The Restaurant Ebook, we give you over 100 ways to market your restaurant that work in good and bad times. Many, if not most, cost very little to do.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- You and your staff have more time. Use it to develop clients by sampling. Pick five businesses per day. Deliver an appetizer or sampler platter of food to the five chosen for the day. Take menus, contact information and weekly events at your restaurant.
- Partner with the cleaners, hardware store, car wash, gift shop, clothing store or other businesses around your restaurant. Exchange coupons or special offers with them. They too are looking for ways to build their business.
- Building customers is more than just serving food. Now is the time to get your staff involved. Teach them about establishing rapport with your guests. A little friendlier, more attentive, and genuine interest in the customer. Conversation is key and entertaining by bright cheerful smiles, more detail about your food, and options for less costly, but budget pleasing alternatives.
- Think margins. For instance, in one of my restaurants I know our biggest profit center is the bar business. We implemented a bar snack program that included things like Twin Blue Cheese Sliders and Chips for $5. They keep patrons around a little longer and keep patrons from have a couple of cocktails and stopping at McDonalds on the way home.
- Existing customers are your best source of new business. As they leave, give them a coupon for a free appetizer when they bring a new guest back with them on their next visit. Your guests know it’s slow, they are happy to help you develop business.
If you haven’t had to market your restaurant in the past or don’t know how or where to start, invest a few dollars learning more about marketing and running a successful restaurant in good times and bad. I personally offer a money back guarantee on The Restaurant Ebook. It will teach you how to build a marketing plan, think margins and profits, train employees and get you embedded in the community. Don’t forget those 100 ways to market your business like those above.
Larry Edger
Author and Restaurateur
Restaurant Menu Theory Tested in Key West
Immediately after posting the article preceding this one about menus needing chicken noodle soup, I left for a business function in Key West, Florida. Arguably, there is no one mile stretch of pavement in the country that has more restaurants than Duval Street. You also won’t find any more basic marketing than all of these restaurants relying on their menu posted in front of the entrance to entice people in the door.
On a couple of morning walks, I spent some time perusing menus at many of the restaurant stalwarts who have braved the Duval Street crowds. Here are a few results of my informal study:
- Hard Rock Café – Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich and their Twisted Macaroni and Cheese were being advertised at the entrance.
- Fogarty’s – (and their Flying Monkey Bar) were advertising Triple Cheeseburger Sliders.
- Bagatelle – included Ahi Tuna Sliders and had 4 of their 12 pricey entrées with linguine or fettuccine and pork chops.
- Antonias – their 24 year old world class Italian menu featured Veal Scaloppini.
- The Grand Café – pictured a surf and turf wrap with shrimp and steak.
- The Trattatoria – not to be out done by Antonia’s, had Roasted Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo as an evening feature.
My earlier post was confirmed. People are eating old favorites. Viewing the menus and specials from some of the more famous restaurants recognized around the world on this short street that gets as much fame as does Bourbon St. in New Orleans, confirms that comfort food is getting a lot of attention is this atmosphere of economic uncertainty.
Restaurant Menu Marketing Needs Chicken Noodle Soup
When we were children and you lost your first ballgame, your old dog died or your first girl friend at the ripe old age of 12 started to hang around your best friend, the person who always comforted you was your mother. She would fix your favorite macaroni and cheese, Mickey Mouse pancakes or good old grilled cheese.
As we grew up we learned that when things got a little rough, a meal with a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes made us feel better. Peanut butter and jelly with a glass of chocolate milk always satisfied what, at the time, seemed like life threatening disasters
Our minds turned to palate and stomach filling foods that just plain tasted good and helped us get through the day. In the past few months people have moved back to “feel-good” foods due to job worries, general economic problems and the mutual fund that may have lost 30% of its value. Someone pass the fried chicken and a chaser of granny’s lemonade during these “hard” times.
Restaurants will find they are selling more sandwiches, lower priced menu items and old standard fare. Consultants will tell you consumers are cutting back and to some extent, it may be true. Look a little closer at what guests are buying, rather than what they aren’t buying. It is not a coincidence that the fried chicken is cheaper than a grouper dinner, but comforting as well. My guess is that more hamburgers will be sold this year than any year in history. Meatloaf, chicken fried steak, milkshakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, chili and all the “comfort” foods will sell. Is it because of the economy or is it because of memories of mom’s chicken noodle soup or a little of both?
One of my restaurants is in the middle of $500,000 upward homes of mainly retired or semi-retired upper middle class demographics that really don’t have to worry about the cost of their dinner. However, they too have moved their general attitude towards a conservative palate. People want to feel good. Food is a way to do that. We are selling more $10 hamburgers, more chicken marsala and more pasta than ever before as a percentage of total sales. $25 steaks and $20 fresh seafood dinners still are the menu mainstays, but the addition of comforting entrees and specials have been a hit.
Spend a little time with your product mix during the last couple of months. You may find the menu marketing information you need to sell what your customers really want right now. At the same time your margins will increase during a tough year for the restaurant industry.
Now, back to my plate of spaghetti and meatballs in my steak and fresh seafood restaurant!
Larry Edger
Author, Restaurateur
Choosing the Right Restaurant Marketing Tools
Restaurants are bombarded today with people selling all kinds of marketing ideas. This year has been difficult for many restaurant segments with lower consumer spending, higher prices and stiff competition. Restaurateurs are inundated with all kinds of buzzwords, gimmicks, advertising proposals, magazine advertizing, website improvements, email marketing ideas, viral marketing schemes, mobile marketing, coupon promotions, direct mail proposals, customer retention programs and many more.
How do you choose? Where do you invest your marketing dollars? How do you know what will work? What is a waste of money?
You could use what many restaurateurs use; a technique that I call “mud on the wall marketing”. You throw a bunch of mud balls on the wall and see what sticks. In other words, they waste a lot of money on things that don’t work to hopefully find something that does work. This is costly and unproductive.
Marketing is like taking a vacation to North Dakota to see the sights. What would be your first step? You would get a map, locate the attractions that interest you and plan the trip. Restaurant marketing is the same process.
Marketing without a plan is pure luck and very expensive. However, if you spend a few minutes planning your program, you can almost guarantee results quickly. Here is a thumbnail sketch of the process:
Step 1 – Evaluate your needs. What is it you want? Are you busy on the weekends, but can’t fill those seats during the week? Are you busy at night, but have no lunch trade? Is it a general slowdown all day long? The answers to your questions become your goals for your restaurant’s marketing plan.
Step 2 – What can you afford? What have you done in the past? How do you focus on your goal? What will set you apart from competition? Choose the tools that fit your restaurant. Be creative, venturesome and unique. Throwing a bunch of coupons in a newspaper isn’t the answer.
Step 3 – Restaurant marketing is not synonymous with advertising. There are three components to restaurant marketing – communicating your message, selling your product and delivering your product. All three aspects must be addressed in your plan.
Step 4 – Schedule your marketing efforts over the timeframe you choose. Get staff involved and determine how you will measure results.
Use these steps and your results will be spectacular. Do it once and you will never go back to “mud on the wall” tactics that rarely produce results.
Need a little step by step help? Try The Restaurant Ebook, A guide to Keeping Your Restaurant Off the Chopping Block. It’s a very small investment, but a guarantee for success.
