Restaurant Marketing – Have You Formed Your Community Yet?
Part One of Two
According to Wikipedia the definition of the term community is still being debated by sociologists. For our purposes, a community is a group of people that are related by a common bond and usually in the same area. From a restaurant marketing perspective the common bond is your restaurant and its proximity to the group. The group is your guests and prospective guests. 
There is a lot of buzz in the restaurant business about viral marketing, online marketing, social marketing and all of the great things that can be achieved online. Yes, a lot of the marketing trends are very adaptable to the Internet and the constant resources being developed there. The Internet IS a valuable tool, but should not be the only element of getting new customers and maintaining business at your restaurant. If you rely only on the Internet, you will miss 30% to 40% of your customers and prospective customers. Those are the ones who don’t have computers and the ones who don’t fully embrace the technology.
Your restaurant marketing plan needs to develop what I call your “branded community“. That is a group that is defined by the use and potential use of your restaurant. They reside in an area that a reasonable person would define as your potential marketing area. It could be a 2 mile radius, 3 mile radius or much smaller or greater – but clearly within a distance a guest would be willing to travel on a fairly regular basis to visit. Who are the members of your community? The answer depends on the type of restaurant, demographics and structure of the area you have defined as your marketable community area.
Your restaurant community may include:
- residents
- businesses
- groups and associations
- athletic teams
- government offices
- schools
- hotels
The list could go on, but generally can easily be defined by just a quick drive within your community area.
Once you have defined the members of your restaurant’s community, you have to define how you will communicate with them. Commonly, the most recognized method of communication is advertising. However, normal advertising like newspapers, direct mail and even yellow page ads are expensive and not very productive. Can print media advertising be useful? Perhaps, but there are many more productive and less costly ways to get your messages to your community.
Part two of this post will take a common restaurant business model and show you how to communicate directly with each member of the restaurant community you form.
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