Restaurant Marketing Blog

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Restaurant Marketing: Did you ever think that possibly your restaurant is boring? Are you afraid to look at it from that angle? It would be like an alcoholic afraid to admit he/she is one, but once you admit that possibly your restaurant is average and mediocre and that everything you do is routine and robotic, then can you only be ready to make critical changes. Here’s how to start. Take a fresh piece of paper and at the top, write down “My Boring Restaurant: The Changes I Am Going To Make.”

Next, take your key people and do a complete restaurant tour, from the outside in, put yourselves in the shoes of your guest and ask, “this is routine and normal, what if we did this?” Take every element of your restaurant, every customer touchpoint and take it up a notch. If others are doing it, then do it differently.

It’s too easy to be average, mediocre and routine. That’s why most restaurants are that way. The challenge is to be different and be talked about so you WOW your guests and they remember you.

It’s your choice: blend and be bland or Wow and be remarkable. It takes very little to do the latter.

I’m doing 4 workshops at Pizza Expo this week. If you’re there, come up to me and say “hi.”

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Restaurant Marketing: Here’s a WOW! If you’re traveling on Southwest on Valentine’s Day, a glass of vodka & fruit juice are on the house. Something unexpected.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Restaurant Marketing: The “poor” Toyota owners. (We have 3 of them.) Some have stopped driving them. Some are extremely cautious. But all are highly aware of the massive recall of their cars and feel somewhat betrayed by a long-standing icon of quality.

It seems to me that Toyota owners - specifically your guests who drive one - could use some caring right now, which is where you and your restaurant come in.

So, with a little imagination, craziness and creativity - and this is what some restaurants could really use right now - consider the following:

1. Toyota Owners’ Night
Using your email list and other social media platforms, invite Toyota owners to your restaurant on a Monday night. Offer them an incredible “Recall Special.”  Invite the managers of your neighborhood Toyota dealerships to be there to answer any recall questions and to explain how their dealerships are going to service your car for the recall. How will they handle the rush? How long will the repairs take? Invite the local newspaper reporters and your TV news departments to cover this event.

2. Toyota Twitter Deal:
Great for pizza restaurants. Tweet out the following, “First 50 who drive up in their Toyota, get a small pizza at “no charge” (or another attractive offer).

Is this crazy? Yes and it’s fun to be crazy sometimes. But remember, all you’re doing is showing your guests who are Toyota owners, that you care and once you demonstrate to your guests that you care about them, they’ll start to care about you. That’s where real guest loyalty starts.

My vision? I’d like to turn on the evening news, with a live reporter at your restaurant talking about your special “Toyota Night.”

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Restaurant Marketing: After the Super Bowl, did you run out to buy your Snickers or Doritos? Changing from Corona to Bud Light? Yes, good water-cooler buzz (versus word of mouth) for the next week or so, but I guarantee you that in 90 days, you’ll probably forget 90% of the messages. Good immediate awareness but most likely no sign of long term increased sales.

But wasn’t it most strange to see that while only a few commercials mentioned their respective web sites, virtually none encouraged viewers to sign up as Facebook Fans or Twitter Followers, or even take advantage of important mobile opportunities?

Imagine the lost profit-building opportunity of a sponsor like Snickers to collect names, email addresses, mobile phone numbers etc of their fans and then proceed with follow-up and future promos.

Marketing is about connections, and there were certainly no connections online or offline made to develop a product loyalty that would result in long term sales increases.

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Tuesday, February 09, 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! Wednesday Feb 10th is the first of 4 sessions.

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