Restaurant Marketing Services: Want To Establish An Online Ordering System?

When was the last time you entered a restaurant, took one glance at the line, then walked right out again to look for another place? We’ve all done that one time or another. For the customer, it’s no big deal. For the restaurant operator, it could very well break his business.

The Internet makes a lot of things possible, even for restaurant establishments. Now modern technology allows even small business owners to establish an essential piece of marketing service for restaurants—that is, an online ordering system.

Here a couple things to note about having an online ordering system.

1. Prepare to take in extra work
An online ordering system, as a restaurant marketing service, isn’t going to pick a convenient time to take an order from a hungry caller. Orders are going to come in right when everyone else is hungry, during lunch or dinner rush. Are you prepared for this? The last thing you want is your delivery service getting in the way of your in-house operations.

2. Be prepared to hire more staff
To take care of the extra workload, you need to hire more people and, if possible, divide your staff into two teams – in-house and delivery. But take note this also means more names on the payroll. As restaurant operator, it’s your job to figure out if this new restaurant marketing service is worth the money that goes out.

3. Changes to your workflow operations
So okay. Hiring more people seems like the obvious solution. But when you got more employees competing for the same resources coming from the kitchen, inefficiencies begin to show themselves like a bad apple at the bottom of the basket. Be sure to provide both teams their own resources, or find a way for them to work around each other more efficiently.

4. Be flexible
Operating a restaurant is much like going out on dates – every one is different, and so each attempt to establish an online ordering service is going to present its own unique set of problems. Be flexible and learn to adapt your solutions based on the problem at hand.

Knowing the different types of restaurant marketing services and properly implementing them are two different things. Same goes for online ordering. It seems like a wonderful approach to attract more business, but unless you can smooth your operations to work with this new restaurant marketing service, think twice before setting it up.

Restaurant Marketing System: Techniques That Enable You To Maximize Your Twitter Potential

Twitter. Tweet. Tweets. Tweeting.

If you don’t know your way around the Internet, which I doubt if you’re reading this article, you might take those four words as the sound a bird makes or something. But any Internet-savvy person will tell you Twitter is a fun social networking website. To a restaurant operator, Twitter is also an efficient restaurant marketing system.

Twitter has been around some time, and many businesses – especially small restaurants – showed interest in it right from the beginning. Then Kogi BBQ opened and demonstrated businesses everywhere how to use Twitter as an effective restaurant marketing system like a seasoned Iron Chef.

According to surveys coming from Kansas and Boston City, Twitter is doing one hell of a good job. Major restaurant franchises use Twitter to advertise menu specials and events. Operators tweet to communicate directly with patrons. Even chefs, on their spare time, they use Twitter to talk with customers and share exclusive recipes.

Here are some tips on how to advertise properly on Twitter.

Be active. Popular franchises send out tweets several times a day. If you’re just starting out, the last thing you want is annoy your fans with a lot of updates, especially in the beginning. I suggest you create a posting schedule and stick to it. This way your Twitter fans will know when to expect an update from you.

Write in color. Tweeting is a lot like naming a book—you need to grab the reader’s attention right away, or else lose them to the next book on the shelf. Boring tweets will be ignored. Direct sales pitches will be deleted. Period. Write in colorful and creative language to engage your audience.

Give and take. The reason you’re tweeting is to advertise your services. But if all you do is sell, sell and sell—before you know it, people will grow tired of you. Share a few recipes, distribute discount coupons, ask their opinions for a new dish. Give your followers something if you want them to give something back.

Make them feel special. Put together an event or menu special exclusive to your Twitter fans. Give them a special code on Twitter which they could use to redeem a deal—discount, special wine, etc.—at your restaurant. This strategy is a great way to measure your Twitter success, and at the same time makes your Twitter followers feel special.

Twitter is no doubt the hottest recipe for success right now. If you’re looking to advertise your restaurant online for the first time, don’t forget to make room for this one-of-a-kind restaurant marketing system in your plans.

Five Sure-Fire Tips For Your Email Campaign To Boost Restaurant Sales

Email marketing is an effective and important way to reach customers and boost restaurant sales. There’s no denying it. Email marketing is convenient, cheap, and most importantly, it works – if done right.

Here are five simple tips on how to maximize your email campaign to help with restaurant sales.

1. Register your customers
There’s no point in sending out newsletters and emails if there isn’t anyone in your list. If the customers have no plans of coming back, there’s no point in sending them emails, either. Bait their attention by giving away deals and prizes. For instance, give away discount coupons or host raffle events to collect their addresses.

2. Don’t send unsolicited emails
Sending out unsolicited emails is one of the things that’s been giving email marketing a bad name. Again the best way to get customers to request restaurant emails from you is to give them back something in return—exclusive recipes, free wine tasting, etc. It’s up to you to figure these tactics into your budget.

3. Keep track of your conversations
You can’t measure success, or failure, if you don’t keep track of it. Try different offers and observe which ones contribute to your restaurant sales the most. Are discount coupons bringing in more customers? Or was last week’s eating contest a bigger hit?

4. Make up a plan and stick to it
It sounds tempting but resist the urge to send out emails everyday. A good schedule is one newsletter a week, or even twice in one month. Remember to stick to the schedule so you’re sending out emails on the same day, improving the chances of them being opened and read and therefore increase restaurant sales.

5. Readability first
Avoid spam. Period. Spam filters are allergic to words like “Buy now” or “Free” and other obvious keyword phrases causing them to flag the email or article. Too much capitalization and unnecessary punctuation also does the same thing. Avoid these spam words at all costs if you don’t want your efforts going down the drain.

The best advice I can give regarding email marketing is to always stay flexible. Different restaurants cater to different people, and each market niche responds only to certain types of email marketing campaigns. Always look for opportunities to improve your email campaign to help boost restaurant sales.

Skyrocket Your Sales By Engaging In Seafood Marketing

I have friends who don’t like to eat meat. When I asked them about it, they tell me the taste of beef or pork doesn’t do anything for them. I also know some who don’t eat vegetables. But I do have a lot of friends who love eating seafood.

In the US, some states are establishing their own local brand of seafood marketing. You’ve heard of Maine Lobster or Alaska King Crab. I think this craze for seafood is a good opportunity for you–the restaurant operator–to capitalize on your seafood menu.

An article on The Columbus Dispatch goes with the following sub-headline.

Customers pay premium prices for real Maine lobster, Louisiana shrimp.

If you’re just starting out in the foodservice business why not consider a restaurant dedicated purely to seafood?

It’s a healthy change from all those fried chicken and high calorie hamburgers they stuff our bellies with. Seafood also allows your chefs to get creative. Any skilled cook could dish out thousands of recipes given the various raw ingredients waiting to be pulled out of the ocean.

If you’ve been operating for some time, a section of the menu dedicated to seafood dishes is good way to initiate your seafood marketing. Make sure your waiters are well informed and prepared to explain your customers why your shrimps are extra special because they were imported—and kept fresh—all the way from Louisiana.

Here are some general tips on handling seafood products:

• Rinse steaks, fillets and whole fish with ice cold water. For shellfish, use lukewarm and salt water. Fresh water kills them.
• Store the shellfish under well-ventilated refrigeration. Take note you’re dealing with live shellfish here – they need to breathe, too.
• Refrigerate fresh products and keep only for three to four days.
• Thawed seafood should be consumed within 24 hours.
• Never refreeze seafood.
• Never cross-contaminate. Always work on fresh and cooked seafood separately, and wash your hands thoroughly in between handling them.

Low-fat fish (2.5% fat content). Mild in flavor with tender and flaky flesh. Tends to try out during cooking.

Medium-fat fish (2.5% to 5% fat content). Adapts well to most cooking methods.

High-fat fish (over 5% fat content). These fishes have firmer, meat-like texture, but the taste is more pronounced than any other category of fish.

Seafood marketing is almost a guarantee to attract lots of good business to your restaurant. Be a part of it.

A Guide To Identifying Restaurant Branding From Restaurant Marketing

Many small business owners think restaurant branding and restaurant marketing naturally go hand-in-hand. I used to think that way too when I first started out. When you market your brand, you are branding it, too. That isn’t always the case.

Most restaurants—or every small business, just about—practice business marketing by identifying key markets, attracting new customers and keeping the loyal patrons in. They put in a lot of time and effort establishing a connection between the product and customer. But once a certain comfort level is reached, when people seem to be aware of the product, amateur restaurant owners think the best move is to drop their marketing activities to start saving money, and rely on word-of-mouth and loyalty of existing patrons to sustain the business.

This is marketing in its classic sense. But is it branding? Short answer is No.

Not all products become brands. Restaurant branding and restaurant marketing are two different things. Don’t let it confuse you or it might end up hurting your business.

Every restaurant goes by a name. Okay. All of them encourage consumption to sustain the business. Sure. But the main difference between restaurant branding and restaurant marketing is that restaurant marketing is short-term, while restaurant branding is a long-term effort to imprint, or engrave, the restaurant’s name into the customer’s mind. A restaurant brand transcends generations.

But what do brands have that commodity products and services don’t? Kevin Lane Keller, author of Strategic Brand Management, believes the following traits characterize a strong brand.

Brand awareness. Most restaurants never achieve a cult following. You don’t have to either. As long as your restaurant enjoys a certain familiarity among customers, if they could remember your name or logo simply by mention of a particular food, that’s a strong sense of brand awareness you got right there.

Brand loyalty. Here is the thing. Customers should be able to look at your restaurant brand as an extension of themselves. That’s true brand loyalty. If your restaurant were a person, he or she’d be everyone’s pal.

Perceived quality. I can’t remember a single brand that doesn’t offer quality. If you want to attract patrons, you need to be able to provide them more than just average food service they could easily find at the convenience store.

Brands should have strong, positive associations. Customers should only have positive, unique associations with your restaurant brand. Anything else means you are entering the dangerous territory of commodity service, and that’s a place you don’t want to be in.

Brands have patents and trademarks. Enough said.

Take Jollibee for example. Jollibee started out as an ice cream parlor in the Philippines in 1975. Then it decided to play its best card and positioned itself as a full-blown fast food chain restaurant against the global giant, McDonald’s. Thirty years later, Jollibee Corporation has more than 650 chain outlets operating under its trademark slogan “Langhap Sarap,” which pretty much underlines the Filipino belief that good food smells good.

Build your restaurant brand on a foundation of long-term goals and efforts, not on temporary marketing efforts intended to make a quick buck and then dissolve like ice on a frying pan. It isn’t worth it. In the end, you lose more than you gain. Invest on a real marketing philosophy that is restaurant branding.

Little Known Ways To Making The Most Of Your Restaurant Gift Certificates

Times are tough. I mean, it could be worse, but the bottom is everyone wishes the situation was better. My heart goes out to restaurant operators. They are one of the few hit hardest by the recession.

It’s about time you, the restaurant operator, get creative if you want your business to survive this economic meltdown. I’m thinking put restaurant gift certificates to good use. I know. Restaurant gift certificates aren’t exactly novel ideas, but these methods on how to use them effectively to boost sales might just be the big break you’re looking for.

• Partner with online restaurant finders
• Host in-house events and use the certificates as rewards
• Partner with local businesses

1.    Partner with online restaurant finders
A restaurant finder is a website that lets people search for restaurants based on the user’s preferences. For example this website, Restaurant.com, it allows users to find restaurants and afterwards offer them to purchase restaurant gift certificates.

What’s the big deal? The big deal is that partnering with these services entail free online advertising for your restaurant. If you failed to do this, the customers would’ve never seen your place, and proceeded to eat at another restaurant around the corner.

2.    Host in-house events and use the certificates as rewards
Restaurant gift certificates also make great prizes.

Why not hold an eating contest in your restaurant? Contests attract a lot of people. To offset the costs, sell admission tickets or else raise the menu prices a little, with restaurant gift certificates as prizes to the contestants. It’s a good opportunity to draw the spotlight to your restaurant and attract new customers throughout the year.

Of course you don’t always have to go with eating contests…

3.    Partner with local businesses
A good move is to partner with local businesses in your area. For example, provide realtors with free restaurant gift certificates worth $100 to give their clients who bought a home in the area.

Don’t let this example restrict your choices. You can also partner with car dealerships, retailers, etc.

Did you know that, according to a survey, 18% of restaurant gift certificates go unredeemed? And the best thing about them is that they are paid in advance. This means the whole amount is yours until the customer with the certificate shows up at the counter.

Get creative and boost sales during hard times with restaurant gift certificates.

Restaurant Marketing Solutions: Discover The Foolproof Approach To Opening A Restaurant Business

A successful restaurant business lives on a balanced marketing approach. Make good use of everything, and everything will come back to you as profit. I think it’s about time I recap some of the most essential restaurant marketing solutions I’ve discussed in my previous articles.

So here goes…

• Restaurant marketing solution #1: Plan ahead of time

A foodservice business isn’t all about food - it’s also about bringing the best dining experience on the table so patrons wouldn’t want to eat at home anymore.

This is done by having a clear vision of what you, the restaurant operator, intend to do even before a single dollar is put down as investment. Do you wish to serve high brow clients? Or are you looking to cater to the more average citizens of the community? Think ahead. Your future plans ride on these answers.

Articles on the subject: The Truth About Restaurant Start-Up Costs, Winning Tactics For opening a restaurant, What Everybody Ought To Know About restaurant menu designs.

• Restaurant marketing solution #2: Hire a restaurant consultant

Even if it’s just a small business, consultants have become indispensable in the process of setting up a new restaurant. Seriously, they help with just about anything–planning, designing, allotting the proper budget, managing the staff and, most importantly, getting the business open in the first place.

Articles on the subject: Top Three Reasons Why You Must Hire A Restaurant Consultant, A Guide To Hiring A Restaurant Consultant.

• Restaurant marketing solution #3: Create an online presence

After everything is set up and the restaurant is running smoothly, it’s time to make your brand known on the World Wide Web.

Take note this encompasses a lot of things - from building a restaurant website to maintaining an online monthly newsletter to conversing with your fans on social network sites. Online marketing is apparently a big thing nowadays. It’s the kind of stuff you don’t want to go to waste.

Articles on the subject: Five Big Reasons Why A restaurant marketing blog Is Essential To Your Success, If You Don’t Create A Mobile Ad On Google Mobile Maps Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later, Learn How To Explode Your Restaurant’s Sales Using Twitter.

• Restaurant marketing solution #4: Teach them something about great cooking

When all is said and done, it comes down to maintaining a healthy relationship with your customer’s taste buds.

Advertising here and there is fine, but don’t forget what you are really trying to sell here: the food. Write up a distinct menu, hire a team of great chefs, treat them well, and you’ll leave competitors wondering why customers keep coming back to your place and not theirs.

Articles on the subject: How To Generate restaurant loyalty The Old-Fashioned Way, Five Ways To Incorporate The Delicious Florida Sweet Corn To Your Restaurant Menu.

Effective restaurant marketing has always been about a lot of things. You can advertise online, but that alone won’t cut it. You can send newsletters to loyal clients, but that alone won’t cut it. You can serve the best steak in town, but for some reason that alone won’t cut it, either.

Hopefully these restaurant marketing solutions sway you on the right track to success.

Basic Tips On Writing Restaurant Marketing Articles For Your Business Newsletter Or Blog

The foodservice business is a tough nut to crack. Put aside the fact that we’re in a recession, one minute your essence of crab soup is the talk of the town and the next, a new place opens down the block and eats into your profits like a worm to an apple.

This is where restaurant marketing articles come in.

You know how important online marketing is these days. If you want to prove customers you are more than just operating within the four walls of your establishment, give them a good article that will grab their attention and, hopefully, keep them coming back. Here are some tips on writing quality restaurant marketing articles.

1. Be casual with your words
I usually see marketing articles on the Internet written like it was going for the Pulitzer Prize equivalent for restaurant marketing articles and, let me tell you, it isn’t very effective. I hate to see honest marketing efforts go down the drain, but that’s exactly what it is.

Be casual with your words when writing your articles. It doesn’t matter whether you’re spilling a deep trade secret or talking about doughnuts. What matters is you get the point across, and get it done without putting your audience to sleep.

2. Share some of your best recipes
Food lovers are always interested in knowing the recipe to a delicious pasta sauce or chicken pot roast. If there’s anything on your menu that’s been getting a lot of attention, consider discussing it in one of your restaurant marketing articles.

While the fans are dying to get their hands on your little secret, I’m pretty sure not everyone who sees it is going to try it. Eating out is still a popular past time in this age of free online cookbooks. On the other hand, sharing recipes is a great way to spark some positive word-of-mouth about your restaurant.

3. Introduce readers to your suppliers
So okay. I know the idea sounds boring, but look at it this way. Writing about your food supplier puts a human face to your restaurant business. Besides there are groups who’ll always be interested in this type of information, including those concerned about environmental issues, ethical sourcing, and patronizing local products.

Restaurant marketing articles help establish a more friendly relationship between brand and customer. As a restaurant operator, this is your chance to speak in your customer’s language. The article doesn’t always have to be online–restaurant marketing articles apply to mailers and newsletters, too. It’s a worthy investment that pays good interest, if done right.

Marketing Strategies For Restaurants: Discover The Insider Strategies To Working With Social Media

This is the second part of the article marketing tips for restaurants: Do You Struggle With Social Media?

Conversation is king–I mean queen–on social media. I think we got that much down in the previous article. If you want a solid relationship with your customers, start by conversing with them through dialogue, not some static promo message that clogs up their inbox. Hiring someone competent is also a step in the right direction towards establishing an organic and interactive online presence.

On the other hand, here are some more tips…

1. Appoint a brand ambassador (or get fans to spread the good word)
They say you can’t please everyone. That’s absolutely correct. But nobody said anything about asking a little help from your fans.

A good marketing strategy for restaurants is to utilize your fans’ loyalty and turn it into something productive. I’m not telling you to take advantage. Find people who truly care about your brand, and give them access to insider information from time to time. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to talk about it on social networks and forums of which they are a member.

2. Talk in your customer’s language (or stop spamming like an overpaid Superbowl ad)
Crosby Noricks says,

There is a dance between how promotional you are and how much you’re actually communicating.

It’s all right to send promos once in a while. But don’t overdo it. As an effective marketing strategy for restaurants, sharing outside links won’t hurt your brand and is useful in stirring up healthy conversation. Also give tips and advice not related to your brand. It shows sincerity, and that you are indeed listening.

Noricks is a social media strategist at Red Door Interactive.

3. Know when to talk, when to observe (or avoid adding insult to injury)
There will always be people armed with negative remarks towards your brand. If they fire at you, dodge and remember, always remember, to keep your cool. The saying goes, “Don’t stoop down to their level or they’ll beat you with experience.”

I am a big fan of John Mayer. I remember one of his songs goes something like this,

My stupid mouth has got me in trouble. I said too much again, to a date over dinner yesterday.

Let this be a lesson to every restaurant operator looking to advertise on social media. Conversation is good, but the ability to step back and let things go its natural course is even more important.

That should cover the basics–as well as essentials–on advertising through social media. I hope these marketing strategies for restaurants pave the way for your brand’s success online.

Marketing Tips For Restaurants: Do You Struggle With Social Media?

Social media is both familiar and unexplored lands for restaurant operators. It’s been around some time, yet any online marketer will tell you there are still vast uncharted opportunities in social media waiting to be tapped. Problem is, you already signed up for Twitter, Facebook, and even YouTube, but for some reason customers just don’t seem to come in. You are losing money, you are losing hope on your restaurant business, and this whole social media thing.

Let me quote a simple fact about online marketing.

If content is king, then conversion is queen.

John Munsell, CEO of Bizzuka.

I’ll tell you one thing. Marketing your restaurant through social media –Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc–has more to do than just signing up an account and introducing today’s wine dinner or next week’s lunch specials. Conversation is key. You need to bridge the gap between your brand and your customers, and social media, if done right, can help you with just that.

Here are some marketing tips for restaurant operators looking to advertise through social media.

1. Devise a plan (or know what you want to do before you do it)
Advertising on social media requires more thought than it looks. To paraphrase the CEO of M Strategies Inc. Michelle Smith, it isn’t strategy just being there.

The first crucial marketing tip for restaurant owners is to know their audience. Are your customers or market niche on social networks? Which social network?

Then proceed by establishing a friendly relationship with them through dialogue. Tell them about your brand, the latest news and events happening in your restaurant. I’m sure everyone one of us is a customer, a consumer, and isn’t it wonderful when a certain brand takes the time to hear us out?

2. Listen to your brand feedback (or get ready to mingle)
People hate filling up customer feedback forms, but they seldom hold back saying what’s on their mind on the Internet, especially in social network forums. Any marketing tips for restaurants article or blog will tell you that.

As a restaurant operator, this is incredible customer data, and you don’t even have to offer free dessert. In social network forums, customers will say what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they’d have wanted to see but didn’t, etc. Since most social network forums have IM features, it’s easy to reach out to them.

3. Invest time to do the task (or don’t do it if you don’t have time to do it)
Kogi BBQ is a small, albeit very successful, food business that roams around Los Angeles on a van selling tacos. But here’s the real piece of news: Kogi BBQ has its own exclusive social media manager staff - Mike Prasad. His sole responsibility is to handle the brand’s presence online.

When advertising on social media first started out, it was okay to assign an intern on it. But times change, and competition only grows over time.

Nowadays it’s brand suicide, almost unethical, for a restaurant operator to put a kid on the job. These days it’s best, as a marketing tip for restaurant operators, to invest time and money to hire someone with the right skills and knowledge. And make sure this person can tie it all together. So your restaurant website, newsletters and microsites all track back to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and all other social networks with your presence.

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin.

This is it for now. I’ll give you time to digest everything so you could get started on planning your social media efforts.

Check back later this week where I’ll discuss more social media marketing tips for restaurants.

Next Page »