Restaurant Marketing Blog

Friday, February 05, 2010

Tom Feltenstein writes in his newsletter, “Common Wisdom”—Everybody has an opinion on who will win the Super Bowl game. I’ve looked into my crystal ball and am ready to make a bold prediction.  The big losers won’t be the Colts or Saints, they’ll be the businesses who fork out up to 2.5-million dollars for a 30-second commercial.  Although the lineup of hilarious ads has become almost as big a fan favorite as the Super Bowl game itself, investing up to $80,000 a second to promote a product that people won’t buy the next day is a terrible waste of money.  And what happens if the game’s a blowout by the end of the first half?  Think millions of disappointed viewers will stick around for the second half just to watch the commercials?

While the Super Bowl ads have become a spectacle unto themselves, they historically don’t move the sales needle enough to make a difference.  In fact, spending millions on Super Bowl ads is a terrible investment!  It’s another example of mass media marketing gone awry, with only the network execs and ad agencies coming out ahead.  Why not spend your marketing dollars wisely by concentrating them on the customers who are most likely to buy your products?  For example, rather than spending their money on costly Super Bowl ads, as they’ve done in the past, wouldn’t Frito-Lay make more of an impact by sending a bag of chips to all of their customers?

That’s wisdom you can take to the bank whether you’re a huge business with a Super Bowl-sized budget, or a small, single-unit store.  Brands are built one neighborhood at a time across America, not across the sky.  McDonald’s didn’t become successful because of mass media; they became successful because of the way they penetrated each neighborhood across America.  Costco rarely spends money on mass media - instead they focus within their own 4 Walls, their immediate neighborhoods, and through direct mail campaigns targeted to their existing customers, which is exactly what you should do.

As for the game itself?  I’ll go out on the limb and predict a 31-27 upset win by the Saints.  But don’t hold me to it, that’s just a guess.  The Super Bowl ad flop is much more predictable - in fact, it’s a sure thing.

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

Restaurant Marketing: For the past few years it’s been a springtime ritual—every March, Bill Marvin, the Restaurant Doctor and I conducting a two-day sales-building workshop in a different city around the country. We call it our “March Marketing Madness” and it has always represented our latest thinking on how independent restaurants can grow and prosper.

This year, we’re doing something different ... something to make it really easy for you to attend in terms of time and in terms of your pocketbook.

Because dollars are tight and time is tighter, instead of another road trip, Bill and I are going to re-format the 2010 version of “March Marketing Madness” and bring it right to YOU ... at a fraction of the normal fee.

Rather than two days in a far away hotel meeting room, we’ll be doing a series of four 60-minute teleconferences. No airport hassles or hotel expenses. Yay!

If you’re interested in finding about a different way of thinking and a fresh approach to building your business, then you’ll want to be part of one, two, three or even all four of our teleseminars. We’ll give you the freedom to choose.
For signup and registration information click on “March Marketing Madness”—but do it now, because space is limited! And, it starts next week—Wednesday Feb 10th is the first of 4 sessions.

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

There’s a saying—the emptier the restaurant, the slower the service. It shouldn’t be like this. Yes, I know if it’s a Monday night and you bring labor on accordingly and the sparse staff may be wearing many hats, but that doesn’t mean the guests should “pay” for that. The slow time is the best time ever to connect with your guests and demonstrate real hospitality.

Unless of course, you were hired just to show up, take orders, serve the food and ask, “Is everything okay?”

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Friday, January 29, 2010

I love the in-store promo piece and the risk to try a new daypart that’s monopolized by other fast food feeders, but does anyone eat breakfast at Chick-fil-A? Is it a top of mind awareness thing? I’m not criticizing them, in fact I love any restaurant that tries something different. I’m going to give them a try for breakfast. If you’ve done breakfast at the Chick, let me know how it was.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Denny’s restaurant chain hopes to score another home run with customers by offering free Grand Slam breakfasts after next month’s Super Bowl. This article is written by Wayne Price of Florida Today.

The 24-hour-restaurant chain will give away its signature breakfasts from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 9 at its outlets across the country. That’s the Tuesday following Super Bowl XLIV.

Last year, Denny’s, with 1,500 locations nationwide, including seven in Brevard, served about 2 million Grand Slams after announcing the offer during the Super Bowl match-up between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals.

“Our motto for this year is that we’re going for 3 million,” said Dennis Brady, owner of Denny’s restaurants in Palm Bay and Viera.

A number of marketing experts tend to agree that Denny’s landed a hit with customers with its offer, which they suggest also had the benefit of putting competitors on the defense. The offer came just as people started to feel the real impacts of the recession then gripping the country.

There are several plusses for a company like Denny’s continuing with the free-breakfast promotion, said Richard Lutz, JC Penney professor of marketing at the University of Florida.

Denny’s earns good will among its existing customers, he said. And it’s also a good way for customers who have never dined at Denny’s to try the restaurant, akin to getting a free product sample in the mail.

“Now obviously this isn’t a little tube of toothpaste and there is considerable more expense to the company,” Lutz said. “You weigh that against the extra publicity value from it.”

The chain’s signature breakfast features two each of pancakes, eggs, bacon strips and sausage links.

“It was great,” said Linda Cowart of Cocoa, who took her three children to the free breakfast last year at the Merritt Island Denny’s. “The kids loved it. I’ll have to mark it on my calendar.”

There are no strings attached to the offer. Customers don’t have to purchase a beverage or any other item. They can, however, add certain items for 99 cents.

The offer is good for dine-in only, and customers can’t make substitutions. Those who can’t wait in what is expected to be long lines can get rain checks for the free meal.

From a public relations standpoint, the Denny’s chain earned a lot of good will with customers.

“They thought it was great that during a tough economic period that we gave back something free to the public,” Brady said.

Many students and teachers stopped by the Denny’s prior to morning classes last year and Brady expects that to happen again.

He took an early look at the Denny’s Super Bowl spot that will formally announce the breakfast.

It goes something along the lines of, “It’s a great day to be an American. It’s a bad day to be a chicken,” Brady said.

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