Restaurant Marketing Plan: Three More Deadly Leadership Sins

This is the second part of the article restaurant strategies: Three Deadly Leadership Sins.

In business, nothing guarantees success better than success itself.

But let me tell you one other thing. If you could minimize your mistakes as a leader, what I call deadly leadership sins, that’s one step closer to becoming what you’ve always wanted, a successful restaurant operator.

An effective restaurant marketing plan deserves a good leader. Sure, you can read my articles as many times as you want. But until you acknowledge and make a conscious effort to avoid these three deadly leadership sins, all your restaurant marketing plans will end up nowhere. You’ll find yourself back at square one… again and again and again.

You’re doing it wrong if you…

1. Don’t follow the standards you set for others
A good leader lives and breathes and eats like a leader. This sounds easy, but you’ll be surprised at just how many people commit this mistake on a daily basis, people who could’ve otherwise turned out to be effective leaders of their respective businesses.

If you tell your staff to keep their focus on their work, don’t sneak into the back office to play Wii with your kids during operation hours. In short, give the right example.

2. Resist new ideas
The best entrepreneurs are the creative ones. In retrospect, some of the most exciting and innovative restaurant marketing plans are products of creative thinking. This is where collaboration comes in.

Thinking up new ideas doesn’t always have to be a one-man job. Conduct meetings. Ask input from your staff based on their experiences working for you. new restaurant marketing ideas might be a little risky, but with the right nurturing and proper planning, it might turn out to be something else after all.

Don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone.

3. Don’t learn from mistakes
Restaurant marketing plans can go either way. Sometimes even the most promising ideas turn out to be a dud. Here is the thing. While it’s important to develop an inner sense of smell for poor marketing ideas, I believe the ability to cope and learn something new from every experience signifies the making of a true entrepreneur.

If the idea turns out to be a hit, good for you. If it isn’t, don’t take your losses to heart. A good leader takes this opportunity to learn from his mistake.

That’s it. I just gave you six reasons not to look like a fool in front of your staff. You are the restaurant operator, and everyone else is working under you. Show them a good leader. Show them you mean serious business the moment you flip that sign at the entrance from “Closed” to “Open for business.”

Be a role model. That ought to be your first restaurant marketing plan.

Restaurant Strategies: Three Deadly Leadership Sins

In business, nothing guarantees success better than success itself.

It’s no secret that restaurant businesses are closing up shop one after another. No amount of “How to” restaurant marketing research is going to change that. Fact is there’s any number of reasons why a restaurant fails to get off the ground, and one of those reasons is lack of good leadership.

Forget about trying to bring in more customers if you can’t even convince your own employees. As a restaurant operator, it’s your job to make sure your chefs, waiters, service crew and everyone else is in top condition.

And believe when I say you aren’t doing that when you…

1. Lack of energy and enthusiasm
Lack of enthusiasm is contagious. In college, I only had to look at my professor who obviously wasn’t very satisfied with his job to get distracted myself. Same goes with being a restaurant operator. If you aren’t excited about running the business, don’t expect the rest of your team to stray too far from your tracks.

Find a way to trigger a positive emotion. Stick a picture of your kids next to your notes. Listen to the Rocky theme song. Anything to get you pumped up and ready to serve.

2. Lack of clear vision and direction
Here’s a fact. Did you know that 90%, just about, of the human brain’s sensory input is a result of visual stimuli?

A good restaurant operator and leader paints a fine picture of his restaurant strategies and goals and shares it with the rest of the team. If you can do that, provide visual stimuli, your staff will have a clearer vision of what is it you want to achieve in the long run.

If they see it, they’ll follow.

3. Don’t collaborate
A big part of motivating the team is getting them to take on more responsibilities.

I remember saying in another article that making your customers feel like they are a part of your operation is an effective way to lure them in and turn them into loyal patrons. The same applies to your staff. If you don’t collaborate, you’re missing out on a lot of fresh new ideas and restaurant strategies. At the same time you’re driving your staff to be indifferent to your business.

To run a successful restaurant business is to be a good leader. And a good leader is everything that isn’t one or more of the qualities I mentioned above.

Good restaurant strategies stems from good leadership. But it works the other way around, too. Let your being a good leader be your winning restaurant strategy.

Five Big Reasons Why A Restaurant Marketing Blog Is Essential To Your Success

Blogging is funny. If you’re reading this article, do I really need to explain why your restaurant business needs its own blog website? This article is evidence in itself!

Anyway let’s get down to business, and allow me to explain why a restaurant marketing blog website is essential to your business success.

In another article, I talked about the decline of other advertising methods—newspaper ads, Yellow Pages ads, etc. I don’t mean to be harsh, but these platforms are simply no longer effective, and advertising through them is like throwing away good money into the roast pit. People are looking elsewhere for information: the Internet. On the Internet, blogs rule. In blogs, content is king.

I admit that sometimes no amount of words will convince a person with so much at stake, especially a restaurant operator, who’d rather spend his time managing the business than typing cutesy words on the Internet. But before you put your foot down, I recommend you check out these popular restaurant marketing blogs from Dairy Queen and Tyson Chicken.

Another popular blog website is KogiBBQ. See for yourself what a good restaurant marketing blog did for a small rolling store that sells tacos.

But to answer the question why it’s important, let me go into the details…

• Easily recognized by major search engines
• Helps identify your customers’ problems
• Allows you to share interesting and valuable information to your customers
• Works as a guide to your products and services without looking like an advertising gimmick
• It’s a great platform to cultivate your own fan base

1. Easily recognized by major search engines
Did you know that thousands—no, millions—of Internet users set their homepage to Google? Same goes for Yahoo! In fact I have Yahoo! as my homepage on my home computer. All this is absolutely free marketing. Imagine all those money used to pay for commercials turning into direct profit for you instead of being handed over to those TV executives.

2. Helps identify your customers’ problems
When you talk about new menu items and services on your restaurant marketing blog, your followers get the chance to react and post problems they might have with it. This is a good thing. As a restaurant operator, it’s important that you keep in touch with what your customers think about your little operation.

3. Allows you to share interesting and valuable information to your customers
A restaurant marketing blog is a two-way conversation platform. Customers get to share their problems, you get to communicate new and interesting tidbits about your restaurant.

4. Works as a guide to your products and services without looking like an advertising gimmick
A restaurant marketing blog is essentially a complete guide to your restaurant’s services. It’s effective, too. Instead of paying thousands of dollars for a TV commercial that says, “Hey, come to our restaurant. We have the best sausages in town”, you get to write about why your sausages are special, and let your followers decide if they want to try it or not.

5. It’s a great platform to cultivate your own fan base
A restaurant marketing blog is where you pamper your fans and followers outside the restaurant. Make them feel like they’re a part of your little operation, and I’m sure they’ll stick around much longer than if you chose not to blog about your restaurant.

Look at all the benefits of a restaurant marketing blog. Check the examples I mentioned. If you had made up your mind not to start a blog, I hope these will get you to reconsider. I’m going to spell it out for you here: there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain in starting a restaurant marketing blog.

Restaurant Promotion Ideas: See How Easily You Can Attract Customers Even During The Recession

I know these are tough times, with the recession and a worldwide pandemic going on. And both are perfectly good reasons to stay home and have dinner in the safety of your own kitchen.

As an entrepreneur, you need to step up your restaurant promotion ideas. You need to be able to grab a megaphone and tell your customers, “Here’s ten reasons why you should eat out at my restaurant rather than stay home and eat meatloaf.” When business is slow and shops are closing down for good, as the Pantene commercial puts it, it’s your time to shine.

I’m thinking why not develop low-cost yet delicious menu choices to attract diners to your place? It won’t be easy, but with less and less people eating out, you have all the time in the world.

I got this wonderful idea from Must Have! Menus when it announced that it was developing recession specials menus for cafes, bars, grills and restaurants looking to serve budget-conscious customers.

Jim Williams, the president of Must Have! Menus, says this about their new restaurant promotion idea,

“The idea behind our recession special menus is to provide a marketing vehicle for daily deals that will appeal to those of us with less discretionary spending money right now.”

I personally think it’s a great way to try and keep your restaurant business afloat during slow times. If there’s anything we learned from Ms. Diane Chiasson, it’s the use of bright, eye-catching colors and food sampling that’s the key ingredient in making this new restaurant promotion idea work in your favor.

It should be noted that simply preparing inexpensive meals isn’t going to be the end of it. You need to get the word out. You need to be able to come up with a good marketing plan to advertise this new restaurant promotion idea as much as possible.

If you already have an email newsletter campaign in place, use that to your advantage. You can also offer free dessert coupons to patrons for referring your place to their friends who ordered one of your recession specials.

The recession specials menus highlight a daily deal for every day of the week, promoting food that people love to eat at prices that are lower than they are used to seeing.

These times are tough, I know, which is why I think offering budget-friendly meals to your patrons is a fool-proof strategy for your restaurant business. It’s only a matter of time before other restaurants realize the beauty (and potential profitability) of this idea and begin to follow suit. Go ahead and milk this restaurant promotion idea while you still can.

Three Ugly Scenarios On How Twitter Could Fail As A Free Restaurant Marketing Platform

Twitter this. Twitter that. It seems every business and every restaurant wants to advertise on Twitter. But let me assure you Twitter is not fool-proof. Twitter as a free restaurant marketing platform has its share of setbacks too, and I think it is best that you find out about it before any permanent damage is done.

Here’s an example of a Twitter faux pas I’d rather not share, but I’ll say it anyway, all in the name of free restaurant marketing.

• Scenario #1

Last week I responded to a public message a friend of mine posted on Twitter. Call it stupidity, but there were clearly several meanings to my reply, a reply I didn’t even bother to read twice before posting it. It was enough to make my friend blush. She told me herself. Later my wife got wind of this mess and there you go.

Lesson learned. Now I have a built-in system to filter everything I type at least twice. Since Twitter is both a social media and a free restaurant marketing tool, it really helps to screen everything before posting it to the public.

• Scenario #2

Here’s a strange one.

The other day a friend of mine received a message from a fellow restaurant operator couple saying they were blocking him indefinitely for “making a useless post on Twitter”. My friend was really upset by this. He sent several emails to the couple (since he could no longer message them on Twitter) asking them what was up. But all of them were ignored.

Then several weeks later he received a reply. The couple said they were away on vacation, and that they had received dozens of similar emails asking them about the block. Strange. I’ve seen spam and auto-responders, but are we now seeing auto-blockers on Twitter too?

• Scenario #3

This final scenario involved me and a fight, and it wasn’t even my fight.

A couple friends of mine got into a heated argument on Twitter. One of them is an entrepreneur, the other an Internet savvy fellow who runs an online media service. I was stupid enough to jump into the conversation to try and explain a point my entrepreneur friend was trying to make.

My plan immediately backfired. I got shot down by my Internet savvy friend even before I had the chance to take off. He took it that I was taking sides, and he said it in a way I don’t ever want to read again in a post from a friend. The experience really left a bad taste in my mouth.

When you put your restaurant out there to the world, something’s bound to happen. Not everyone is going to like what you say. You might even make some enemies instead of friends and customers.

I guess these scenarios depict perfectly the other side of social media. As a restaurant operator, be prepared to get your pride scarred here and there. Some people will un-follow you. Some might even block you. The answer is to keep it honest. Twitter is both a social media and a free business/restaurant marketing platform, so you need to learn to be subtle in your approach. Too much direct selling never works, both online and offline.

Learn from these situations. Learn to use Twitter as a free restaurant marketing platform to the fullest.

How A Publication Going Out Of Business Can Impact Marketing Plans For Restaurants

A newspaper going out of business doesn’t really stir a lot of water. That is, unless you’re a restaurant operator, and then it becomes an entirely different story. Every publication that decides to close shop will affect the marketing plans for your restaurant in ways you don’t expect it to.

The Seattle Post Intelligence posted the following message on its website in January 9, 2009.

After 146 years of delivering news, the Seattle P-I faces becoming what it has chronicled: history. The Hearst Corp., said Friday that it has put the paper up for sale, and it will stop publishing unless someone buys it in 60 days.

That’s some bad news indeed. But allow me to skip to the root of the problem. Why do newspaper businesses continue to bite the dust? It’s got something to do with their major source of revenue: print advertising is dying.

Consumers are crossing over to a more accessible medium for information to travel from writer to reader. The Internet. This is what I’m trying to get across when I said you should let the demise of a publication affect the marketing plans for your restaurant. Advertise where the customers are.

The marketing plan for your restaurant should include the following online ventures.

• A streamlined website

A website per se isn’t enough. Make sure your restaurant website is easy on the eyes and user-friendly to attract customers.

• An email campaign

There’s nothing wrong with sending ads through email as long as it isn’t spam. Refer to this article for tips on how to get started on your email campaign.

• Presence in social networking sites

Popular websites like MySpace and Facebook allows you to interact with your customers on a personal level… from a mile away. Even politicians embrace this form of free online advertising.

• A Twitter account

I separated Twitter from the previous pointer because Twitter is as different as it is significant. In other words, Twitter has something Facebook and MySpace don’t: immediacy.

• Online booking system

It’s convenient for your diners. Enough said.

I don’t mean to add fuel to the fire, but if you’re still advertising on newspapers and on the Yellow Pages, you’re probably paying hard-earned money to reach even fewer potential customers. Advertise on Craigslist. Advertise on Yahoo! Anywhere is better as long as it’s online.

Or you can follow those tips I just mentioned. Go online with your marketing plans for your restaurant.

Discover The Recipe To A Successful New Restaurant Marketing Plan

I can’t help but get annoyed at how most restaurants are willing to pay hundreds—no, thousands of dollars for marketing campaigns that don’t work.

I have friends in the business who tell me their clients continue to pay the same sales people who bring up the same ineffective strategies again and again: magazine and newspaper ads, Yellow Pages, blanket mailing of restaurant coupons to the wrong audience, radio ads, etc. These ideas would’ve worked twenty years ago. Twenty years ago.

These days it’s a different playing field altogether.

It should be noted that new restaurants are immediately at a disadvantage. They haven’t found a place in the market yet, and while they’re busy establishing their own niche, big name restaurants are hogging all the hungry diners in sight. Which is why it is critical that the new restaurant’s marketing plan is focused and efficient and fool-proof. Anything less is a recipe for disaster.

An effective new restaurant marketing plan incorporates several different components to attract a wide range of people. It should also be measurable so you can track its failures and successes.

Running a restaurant is much like coaching at the NBA Finals. When putting together a new restaurant marketing plan, consider the dynamics of your business. This includes identifying the market, defining the customer base, checking out the competition, identifying your business’ competitive edge, and implementing focused marketing efforts for new and repeat business. Remember every decision is critical. A wrong move could mean the end of your business.

Those are just some of the things you need to keep in mind.

A good new restaurant marketing plan should address slow and busy months. You should set a marketing budget based on your profits in a certain span of time. Here’s a tip: around 3% to 6% of your sales is good enough. Think creatively and always be looking for opportunities to market your restaurant.

However the most important part of a new restaurant marketing plan is the part that promotes repeat business. For example, cook up a special event that honors patrons on their birthdays with a promotion encouraging other customers in the restaurant to join the celebration. This should get people talking about your new place, which in turn leads to more referrals. Now that’s repeat business ala mode.

This is simply a basic overview on what makes a great new restaurant marketing plan. For more in-depth tips, check back on some of my previous articles in the online and offline marketing sections.

Restaurant Promotional: Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Email Newsletter?

My grandfather owned and operated a small restaurant. He did it for many years, and back then he didn’t need to worry about restaurant promotionals, such as email newsletters, that kind of thing. For my grandfather having good food and sometimes running a small ad in the local paper was all he needed to run a good business.

We all wish it was that simple.

Today restaurant operators need to worry about restaurant promotionals. Period. If you want to keep your patrons interested, maybe even encourage some new customers over, a monthly newsletter is the budget-friendly way to do that.

Here are some tips on what not to do with your restaurant newsletter.

1.    Don’t be a cheapskate.
Subscribers will get tired of your newsletter quickly if they think of it as nothing more than an advertisement.

Solution: Don’t give them a reason to think it’s just a virtual ad. Instead give them something they wouldn’t find at the restaurant—dessert coupons, invitations to special events, chef profiles, exclusive recipes, etc.

Co-owner of Niche Restaurant Jody Richardson says,

People love feeling like they are getting insider info and a sneak peak behind the scenes.

Simply put, give your subscribers an offer they can’t refuse.

2.    Don’t be boring.
Subscribers aren’t going to bite your promotions if they’re the same old same old.

Solution: Get creative with your restaurant promotionals. In my experience, the funnier the promotions, the better. I remember receiving an email from Four Corners bar inviting me to join their “Merry Moustachemas” event party. Anyone with a moustache gets a free beer, even women with hand-drawn facial hair.

3.    Don’t be brief.
Subscribers are like selfish children. They’ll walk away as soon as they get what they want from you.

Solution: Build anticipation for events.

Ali Mackani is the managing partner at Restaurant 55 Degrees. She tries to build excitement by focusing on just one or two events per newsletter, no more. The method paid off. Their monthly newsletter currently has an open rate of 400, just about, out of 2,200 subscribers, well above the average rate for online newsletters.

4.    Don’t send newsletters like there’s no tomorrow.
There really won’t be any tomorrow for your newsletter campaign if you keep sending spam every other day.

Solution: Send at the right time. Most restaurant operators send their online restaurant promotionals in the evening when mail servers aren’t loaded. Big mistake. Think about it. What’s the first thing you do when you open your email in the morning? Clear out the spam. There goes your funny and creative newsletter.

I found that sending newsletters in the morning achieves the highest open rate. Elliot Feldman agrees.

I would launch campaigns between 9:30 and 10:30 in the morning, to avoid being grouped with overnight spam.

Feldman is the owner of Nova Bar and Restaurant establishment in San Francisco.

If you’re looking for a cheap, efficient way to market your restaurant—I mean come on, who isn’t?—then the path of email newsletters is the way to go. But here is the thing. Email newsletters are definitely inexpensive, and they are very effective ways to promote your restaurant too, if used right. Keep that in mind.

Here’s my final tip. Don’t make these mistakes with your online restaurant promotionals.

Meet The Chef: A Guide To Email Marketing For Restaurants

Email advertisements flying around isn’t exactly a novel idea. Businesses have been experimenting with the medium for some time now. But here is the thing. Nobody ever seems to get it. Even now, after all these years, email marketing for restaurants is still considered a mediocre marketing approach.

If you have may email address, why are you brand advertising to me instead of trying to build a relationship and get to know me and tell me about yourself.

I found this video on the Internet and it is very helpful. I recommend you watch it before we go on.

Done? Let’s begin.

The secret to a successful email marketing campaign for restaurants is by building an organic relationship with your clients. Customers want to see real information, not one-liners. And definitely not a picture of a stuffed potato. Don’t treat them like 6-year-olds who’d look at every piece of spam you send them with profound amazement.

Instead why not let your customers meet your chef through your email marketing campaign? All of us enjoy good food at restaurants but rarely meet the person that prepared it. In most restaurant establishments, the gap between the chef and the customer is as thick as the drywall separating the kitchen from the dining area.

Here’s a thought. Why not design a “Meet the Chef” section in your email ads, and then ask one of your chefs to produce a write up for it? Here are some ideas for the article.

• showcase their experience
• explain the nuances of preparing a certain dish and give out coupons for it
• tell a story behind the creation of a dish
• provide an exclusive recipe
• write about a day of working in your restaurant
• give a tour of the kitchen, introduce the other staffs
• provide nutritional information on your dishes

Don’t pressure your chef into writing a 5,000-word essay. Keep it short and sweet, and about making the section into a monthly thing, give it a thought, too. Hopefully you’d be able to turn a boring email advertisement into something your customers would look forward to on a monthly basis.

It’s about time somebody revolutionize this long-standing, but underused, campaign of email marketing for restaurants.

Learn How To Start Hiring Employees Like A Seasoned Restaurant Owner

The foodservice industry is a volatile industry. In foodservice, employees turnover as quickly as McDonald’s turns tables. One minute Jerry is your new pastry chef, the next minute he’s filing his resignation. What can I say? That’s just the way it goes.

I can tell you two things though. First is that, as a restaurant owner, you need to learn to roll with the punches. Don’t take your losses to heart. Instead focus on your human resources programs. Which brings me to my second advice—basically, tips on how you can reduce training costs and increase efficiency by improving your hiring campaign.

1.    Cast a wide net
Don’t hold back on your advertisements. As the restaurant owner, whenever you have an opening, get the word out, I mean really out, so you get the most number of candidates possible. The more people that shows up, the more likely you’ll find the right candidate.

2.    Use multiple media, such as:

• Word-of-mouth by your existing employees
• Internet postings (careerbuilder.com and craigslist.com are good sources)
• Paper classifieds

3.    Screen carefully
Going over every resume and interviewing every candidate takes a lot of time and effort if you want to do a good job with it. But it all pays off in the end. Take it from me. A little careful screening goes a long way in helping you save money down the line.

Here are a couple things you, the restaurant owner, should look into during the screening process.

Revelant job experience. This is one of the most important things you need to remember about being an employer and restaurant owner. The more experienced a person is at the job, the faster he or she’ll be able to plug in to your operation.

Interview. You should ask questions that require more than just one or two words to answer. Ask questions that would help you understand the candidate’s views on his prospective job and, even better, how he stands in his life right now. Pare down the candidates and conduct a second interview if necessary.

Structure the interview process so that everyone who’ll be working with the new employee is involved in some way.

Salary requirements. I recommend you to just go straight out and ask the candidate his or her minimum salary requirements. This will help you make a better decision later on.

“Now you know,” says Manny Pacquiao. Now get out there and start hiring employees like a real restaurant owner.

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