Choosing The Right Tools To Market Your Restaurant

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.