Tips for Marketing Your Restaurant

Do you know someone who owns a restaurant, diner, or café? Then this blog post is for them.

Today we talk about marketing for restaurants –an often neglected practice for many eateries.Why so many restaurants think they are immune from the basic laws of marketing, I will never know, but it’s time we set the record straight on the importance of marketing to this industry.

Effective marketing will not only increase the number of patrons that visit your establishment, but will help you minimize traditional restaurant ‘downtimes’.

Act Locally

• Most restaurateurs will tell you that most of their clientele is from the local neighborhood. So focusing the bulk of your marketing activities to your surrounding area is key.



• Surrounding billboards, bus stop advertisements, and community newspapers are a great way to capture the attention of the locals and the passer-bys.



• Direct mail and flier campaigns are the most effective for a targeted campaign. Set aside a budget to allow for at least three mail campaigns per month to your neighborhood. Doing this ensures that you will always be at the top of people’s minds when their stomach starts to growl.
  

Get Reviewed

• Restaurant reviews are a great way to capture citywide attention at minimal cost.



• Hire a good Public Relations person or firm and let them drum up media attention for you.



• It’s cheaper than advertising and will give you great exposure beyond your local ‘hood.



• If you can’t afford a PR person, work the phones and invite reviewers down personally.



• You won’t know that the reviewer has eaten at your place until you read the review , so always be ready!
  

Brag

• Once you get reviewed –and of course it will be a great one- give the article a prominent place near the outside of your restaurant for potential clientele to see.



• People will always choose to eat at a restaurant that has been reviewed positively, than one that has never been reviewed at all.



• Be careful to keep such postings current however. No one cares about the glowing review you got when you first opened in 1967. They want to make sure that you are still great TODAY.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be posting about how restaurants can take full advantage of online technologies to give their businesses a shot in the arm. So stay tuned!Do you have a suggestion for how to market a restaurant? Share it with us!

Turn Downtime into Uptime

• Most companies hold most of their meetings when restaurants are at their slowest. So convince those businesses to hold their meetings at your place.



• If possible, create a ‘corporate’ area at your establishment with easy access to electrical plugs, and maybe even a projector and screen. (In Toronto, a restaurant called Insomnia has done this brilliantly).



• More and more companies are also holding their events during the day. So let businesses know that they are able to completely book your establishment during certain hours.



• You can easily send a mail campaign to only businesses in your neighborhood letting them know that you are now biz-friendly.



• Students and freelance workers are always desperate to get out of the house to get some work done. Make your business friendly to them by offering free WI-FI access.



• Even if all you get is a few extra patrons a day who order only coffee, this could mean HUNDREDS of extra dollars a month in sales.

Keep it New

Sooner or later your regulars will have tried everything on the menu, and will be in the mood for something new. That’s why it’s really important to always be on top of the latest culinary trends, and incorporate them into your menus if possible. The trick is to always give your patrons a reason to come back.

• Have a daily special, and make sure you never repeat it more than once every two weeks.



• Make sure your menu evolves. Always make sure that your menu is operating at peak efficiency. Drop the less popular items and substitute them with new dishes.



• Try a new twist on an old favorite. Put your chefs had on and experiment. People want to try new things, and your job is to make sure it is delicious.

Deliver, deliver, deliver.

People are lazy. They don’t want to walk all the way across the street to get some food, when Pizza Pizza, Quiznos, Pita Pit, and Swiss Chalet will now deliver. You need to start doing so to remain competitive.

• Start off small. Let your regulars know that you now deliver within a three block radius.



• Expand your circle of delivery as demand grows.



• Send out a flier to your delivery zone once a month making sure you mention that you deliver.



• Set up a page on your website (you DO have a website don’t you?!) devoted exclusively to delivery, and posting your menu there for easy access.

The restaurant business is probably the toughest industry in the world. You think stock brokers are under pressure? Try owning a hot dog stand. But with the right skill, a great menu, and a solid marketing push, a restaurant is in a unique position to make tremendous money.

Yusuf Gad

President, a5MEDIA

http://www.a5media.ca