Restaurant Marketing Blog

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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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.

restaurant marketing restaurant promotion restaurant business restaurant managementrestaurant consulting hospitality marketinghospitality consulting foodservice marketing

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