Learn Exactly How To Promote Your Restaurant Website

I’ve always talked about opening a restaurant website. For good reason, too. There’s no better place to advertise a business, a restaurant, than on the internet. Even when people are hungry and looking for a quick bite, they look it up online to see if there are any good places to dine around their area.

But here’s the next logical step – how do you promote your website? First and foremost you need to consider two things.

1. Is there anything special about your restaurant you can use as a marketing push?
2. Do you offer discounts on orders coming from the web?

Why do you need to figure out this “special” thing about your restaurant? Because you need it to use for your keyword.

A keyword is an essential element for negotiating with search engines. Let’s say you operate a restaurant with a Japanese theme. So the keyword you’re going to use is “Japanese restaurant” or “Japanese restaurant Ontario” to be more specific. This brings up your website every time someone enters those keywords on Google or Yahoo or any other search engine. Handy, isn’t it?

It must be noted that even on the internet, there’s going to be tough competition. How do you put your website on top of other restaurant websites with the same keywords—that is, “Japanese restaurant”? I know and you know that you aren’t the only owner of a Japanese restaurant who’s trying to advertise his or her business on the internet. This is where restaurant website optimization comes in.

Here are some tips.

• Make good use of H1 tags and putting the keyword “Japanese restaurant” in there. An H1 tag serves more or less as a heading on your website.
• Make sure your pages load quickly. No hungry person wants to wait while the website loads a dozen images and videos from the server.
• Create a specific page where you can abuse your keyword. For example, why not cook up a page on the history of Japanese restaurants?
• Find restaurant review websites. Submit yourself for a review in as many websites as possible.
• Establish a presence on social media. Make sure your forum signature includes a link going back to your website.
• Leave comments on relevant blogs mentioning your restaurant name and URL.

Check back on us next week for more online restaurant marketing tips.

Share your insights on restaurant website promotion by leaving a comment after this post.

A Guide To Reducing Advertising Costs For Restaurant Owners

I have a friend who is a restaurant owner. He runs a fairly popular restaurant in his local area. But thing is, 2009 left him with a small hole in his pocket, and now he’s interested in hearing ways how he could cut down on his advertising costs without compromising his restaurant brand awareness.

He used to enjoy advertising in food magazines, etc. But when those publications demanded higher fees, my friend knew he needed to look someplace else if he wanted to keep advertising.

I was lucky enough to talk to him one afternoon over coffee, and he happened to share his dilemma. I asked, “Have you tried marketing online?” He said, “No,” and shook his head. “You’re missing out on a lot,” I said. Those were my exact words.

Seriously, what restaurant owner wouldn’t advertise online and not miss out on a lot of good things? So I told him, “You should think about advertising on social media like Facebook and Twitter. That way you’ll reach a broader set of audience without feeling the expensive costs of print media.”

My advice to restaurant owners, start with the most popular social media websites around – Facebook, MySpace, Multiply, etc. Of course, Twitter. Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, online restaurant marketing, then you can move on to deeper stuff like blogging. You could write for the blog yourself if you’ve got the time. Otherwise, you could hire a blogger or assign one of your chefs to blog on his or her spare time—of course, with proper compensation.

My friend was worried about the same thing. “I’m not a computer person,” he said. “I know my way around the kitchen, but I can’t tell one side of an iPod from the other. Isn’t hiring an online marketing company going to cost me more than what I used to spend on magazines?”

That’s a good question. But that’s also where online marketing shines. You don’t need to hire a company. You just need to hire someone—an internet-savvy person—to spend just a few minutes in front of a computer everyday to check your email, send newsletters, update your Twitter status. But here’s an even better solution: why not pay one of your servers to do just that for you? Unless you require your servers to be above the age of 60 and possess a senior citizen’s card, they should know how social media works and wouldn’t mind earning some extra income on the side.

More restaurant owners should recognize the power of online marketing on social media. It’s here, and it’s mostly free-of-charge. Why not use it to boost your restaurant business?

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

4 Simple Tips To Catapult Your Restaurant Brand Name On Facebook

Who hasn’t tried Facebook? Who doesn’t even know Facebook? I’d be hard pressed to find someone without a Restaurant City or Farmville account. Simply put, Facebook has become one of the most visited—or overcrowded—websites over the last couple years. A study shows that 6 billion minutes are spent every day on Facebook all over the world. The question: what does this mean for your restaurant?

Get that worried look off your face. If anything, Facebook brings a lot of blessings to your restaurant—or any business, for that matter. Facebook is a household name. It’s a place where millions of people hang out. Facebook is one of the most popular websites on the internet. Therefore Facebook is a marketing machine.

But take note there more than 700,000 other businesses are competing for people’s attention on Facebook. Your restaurant is just one of them. But what am I here for, right? Here are 4 effective strategies to advertise on Facebook and gain a loyal following.

1. Add, add, add friends
Facebook is a gem for business owners because it connects friends with friends and friends of friends of friends. The same goes for maintaining an active business page for your restaurant. Keep adding people to your friend list. Add as many as 5,000 friends, or more. Don’t stop adding until you hit that magic number.

2. Create a fan page for your restaurant
A fan page is where your fan and followers can post their ideas and suggestions about your brand name in an open forum. It encourages discussion and brand awareness. So as soon as you’ve created an account on Facebook, proceed to creating a Facebook fan page for your restaurant. And remember – keep the fan page updated as often as you can.

3. Keep the fan page active by publishing interesting content
After a brief biographical background of your restaurant, you need to keep updating your fan page with fresh, interesting content to keep it going. There’s no concrete rule on how many times a fan page requires an update. But a good rule to remember is at least twice a day, usually before the major meals – lunch and dinner. Add mouth-watering pictures of your delicious recipes and offerings. Who knows? You might just attract the taste buds of a hungry friend or two.

4. Find a partner
Two heads is better than one, right? Right.

Go around your neighborhood and search for businesses with a fan page on Facebook. Ask them that if they’d be kind enough to promote your business on their fan page, you’d happily do the same on yours. The more partners you have, the better. This way you could still market your restaurant to people outside your market range without looking like an outsider.

Follow these tips when creating your Facebook fan page, and update me with your results.

Tell me what you think by leaving a message after this post.

Discover How You Can Accommodate Tweetup Dates In Your Restaurant

A lot of people are getting into this digital matchmaking thing these days. I could name at least a couple friends – or friends of a friend – who met their significant other while chatting online or else browsing a social media website. Twitter is quickly becoming a household name when it comes to meeting someone online. And you know, where there’s Twitter, there should be your restaurant.

The term is Tweetup. Tweetup, according to its online definition, is wordplay between “tweet” and “meet up”. People organize tweetups on Twitter. As a restaurant owner, this is a perfect opportunity to market your restaurant and serve as the rendezvous spot for these folks. You get to be the generous restaurateur who provides them a good place to talk and chill as they get to know each other a little better – one coffee cup at a time.

Here are some tips.

1. Designating a secluded area for tweetups doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t have to be a private room. Think of it as a smoking area versus a non-smoking area. Just make it so your tweetup clientele doesn’t have to put up with your other noisy customers.

2. Design simple nametags for your tweetup customers. Remember these people know each other by their online names. Wearing nametags make it ten times easier to find someone you just met online, compliments of your restaurant.

3. Don’t be a snob. As a restaurant owner, come out and greet your tweetup clientele – say a few words about your restaurant’s history, what type of food you specialize in, introduce your head chef, things like that, etc. Trust me, it makes a big difference.

4. Spare them a dedicated waiter, if you could afford it.

5. Offer them special menu pricing. In other words, discounted prices. You could also tempt them to come back a second time by offering them discounted coupons for future visits.

6. Treat them a free dessert or a glass of wine. I’m sure they’d be surprised, and will remember it when they share their tweetup experience on Twitter the next day. This is free online marketing for your restaurant, for the cost of two glasses of wine. It’s a fine idea, don’t you think?

The thing is to make sure they have a splendid tweetup experience at your restaurant. Afterwards, they’ll keep coming back, and maybe even spread the word about your establishment on Twitter. You know the value of positive word-of-mouth as a restaurant owner, right? So for the sake of all things online, put your best foot forward when tending to your tweetup clientele.

Share your insights on restaurant marketing via Twitter by leaving a message below.

If You Don’t Market Your Restaurant To Appeal To Food Bloggers Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Take away the customers, and you’ve got basically nothing going for your restaurant business. So how do you attract more customers? Referrals. It’s the name of the game, which is something that came to mind while I was watching TV the other day.

A few days ago I was watching National Geographic in my living room. I couldn’t sleep. So I turned on the TV and found this Nat Geo program where they featured food bloggers from different parts of the world. The Food Lover’s Guide to the Planet – I think that was the name of the show. In the program there was this food blogger from Vietnam who stalked the night streets of Hanoi in search of authentic Vietnamese-style noodles called Pho, this Hong Kong blogger who led a double life—an office worker during weekdays and sick female steamed crab lover and blogger on weekends. Then there was also this blogger who moved all the way to France to rediscover the country’s distinctive taste for desserts. Then they would come home and write about their food experience on their blogs over a good ol’ cup of coffee.

An idea suddenly hit me. These good folks are out looking for food to write on their blogs. As a restaurant owner, why can’t you be the one who gives them something to write about?

In fact it sounds like a pretty good idea.

Make time to sit down at your computer and search for popular food bloggers in your area. Blogging is mainstream these days. Especially if you live in a big city, there should be at least one or two food bloggers residing in your area. Then send them a personal message inviting them to stop by your restaurant for a free lunch or dinner. Being food enthusiasts, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind entertaining your invitation.

When they arrive, come out and offer them a personal greeting. If it isn’t a busy night, have your head chef chat with them while your waiters serve the appetizers. It’s always a nice touch to have them offer food advice to your head chef, and vice versa. Afterwards serve the main course and make sure everything is done right. Designate a dedicated server to your guest if possible.

As I said earlier, one way to attract more business is through referrals. What better way to do just that than to get in the good graces of a food blogger? One of the bloggers I mentioned earlier, the one who lives in France, his website gets around five to seven thousand hits a day. If you could get a similar blogger like him to write positively about your restaurant, isn’t that worth the price of a free meal?

Get the Internet talking about your restaurant by appealing to food bloggers in your area.

Share your tips on how to attract more business online by leaving a comment after this post.

3 Sure-Fire Tips To Promote Your Restaurant Brand Without Spending A Fortune

Tough competition has forced restaurants to advertise. There are more restaurants than most customers could afford dine in, especially in major cities. So what’s a restaurant owner to do? Advertise, of course, to get the lion’s share of the market. But when restaurant owners think of advertising they think about getting an effective message out and mass appeal. Then they think about expenses, expenses, expenses.

There are simpler, cost-effective ways to market your restaurant. You don’t always have to spend millions to advertise on Super Bowl. Sometimes all you need is a little creativity and a techie friend working at your side.

Here are some tips.

1.    Distribute business cards and leaflets
The restaurant owner must work “on” the restaurant, not “in” it. While your waiters are busy serving tables, you should be monitoring your restaurant and figuring out who your target customers are. In time you’ll form a better picture of your regular clients. These are who should focus on. Reach out to them by distributing menu fliers, leaflets and sample cards.

2.    Stay in the public eye for all the right reasons
It’s important to have locals talking about you, but make sure it’s for all the right reasons. Do this by promoting your restaurant locally. Offer discounts, coupons, and even sponsor charity events. Make sure your restaurant’s presence is heard during festive seasons.

3.    Get into social networking
This is where your techie friend comes in. Social networking is advertising on the 21st century. And the best thing about it is, it’s FREE – or mostly free. Get your restaurant’s name out through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or by blogging, what KogiBBQ did for its franchise. Social networking is the best way to get your name out without spending a fortune.

Tell me what you think about these cost-effective means of marketing your restaurant by leaving a comment below.

Do You Struggle With Direct Mail Marketing For Your Restaurant?

I remember doing an article on direct restaurant marketing a few weeks ago. I had good things to say about the method. Direct mail marketing is the future of restaurant marketing, and its only a matter of time before big-name franchises starts joining the bandwagon as well, if they haven’t already.

But according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, some businesses are eschewing direct mail marketing in favor of the good ol’ ways of snail mail marketing. The article goes,

“Spending about $20,000 on the personally signed letters, which offered customers a discount on early orders, seemed indulgent for Per Annum Inc., which sells city diaries, albums, and planners in the struggling corporate gift market. But after swapping snail mail for email last year, Ms. Settle saw a 25% drop in early orders compared with the same period the previous year.

‘We realized we had made a huge mistake,’ says Ms. Settle, president of the New York firm.“

The problem with most restaurant operators–or most business owners—is that they hear about a new and effective marketing approach and quickly see it as an easy way to attract more customers. Let me get one thing straight: there’s no such thing as an “easy way” in the foodservice industry. While direct mail marketing is more costly and expensive than email marketing, it is also much more effective, when done right.

For example, direct mail marketing research firm Mintel Comperemedia tracked nearly 5.2 billion direct mails sent out during the third quarter of 2009, down 27% from 7.1 billion in 2008. How do these business owners expect to reap more sales when they’re sending out fewer advertisements? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the problem lies, and I’m pretty sure the method itself—direct mail marketing—is not at fault here.

Here are some tips to improve your direct mail marketing endeavors.

1. Please, personalize your pieces. The best way to grab a customer’s attention is to make them feel special.

2. Mass distributing of fliers and coupons isn’t very effective. It’ll also drain your budget faster than you think.

3. Find a way to balance your snail mail marketing and direct mail marketing efforts. There’s no need to abandon either. Figure out the perfect mixture of the two that works best for your restaurant business.

Even Ms. Settle concluded the same thing. “Ms. Settle, for instance, plans to use e-marketing to complement the hand-signed direct-mail piece, not replace it.”

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

Here’s A Quick Way To Send Restaurant Tweets Using Your Mobile Phone Or Blackberry

2009 was a good year for Twitter. It was the year when Twitter finally took off and got the attention of many businesses owners, including restaurant operators. A couple of months later, advertising and marketing your restaurant on Twitter have become essential for any aspiring restaurant owner looking to make a good business.

Thing is, I’ve been receiving calls from my friends saying how difficult it is to use Twitter. They tweet on the move using their mobile phone or Blackberries. I’ll tell right now, you’re really going to have a hard time tweeting if you’re going to do it like that.

Enter TwitterBerry and TweetDeck.

TwitterBerry
TwitterBerry is exactly what its name suggests – Twitter on your Blackberry. But the thing about TwitterBerry is that it makes tweeting extremely easy (as if it weren’t easy enough).

First you need to download the application on your Blackberry. Once downloaded, you’ll be greeted with a simpler interface compared to the usual one on your desktop. Everything is pretty much self-explanatory from here. If you’re using a Blackberry to tweet your restaurant, why not give TwitterBerry a try.

TweetDeck
Do you normally see the message, “about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck” underneath your friend’s tweets? That’s it – TweetDeck. TweetDeck allows you to send tweets faster and more efficiently using your mobile phone.

TweetDeck has a default white font on black background theme, but I think other themes are available online. Unlike regular Twitter, TweetDeck lets you organize your followers under different groups—friends, staff, patrons, partners, etc.—and view them in separate columns. This makes it much easier to browse what group is doing what, and to send tweets to specific groups.

If you’re always on the move and you need to send out a message to your restaurant patrons—special offers, a new event—then TweetDeck is no doubt your best friend.

Share your insights on tweeting for your restaurant by leaving a message after this post.

Get An Instant 10-20% Increase In Restaurant Sales By Establishing An Online Presence

Restaurant operators nowadays are lucky. They don’t know what it’s like to market a restaurant the old-fashioned way: purely word-of-mouth. These days customer feedback is still as valuable to a restaurant entrepreneur, but it’s much easier to get around, thanks to the Internet.

Online restaurant marketing tools such as blogs, SEOs, social media and etc. are making it easier for restaurant owners to reach out to their audience. This blog is a living example.

Last year Wal-Mart, while not a restaurant, started the plan to overhaul its website as a step to beating its biggest online competitor, Amazon.com. If that doesn’t convince you, maybe this will - investment firm Credit Suisse expects e-commerce sales to increase 10%, around $144 billion, by 2010.

Simply put, you can’t go wrong with online marketing for your restaurant. You just have to do it right.

Here are a few tips on how to establish a solid online presence.

1.    You are not marketing online if you don’t have a restaurant website.

2.    Make essential details about your restaurant available online. Address, contact number, menu offerings, company history, etc. Give customers what they want and not just what you want them to know.

3.    Use social media to raise awareness about your restaurant brand.

4.    A web programmer isn’t an online marketer. Web programmers design websites; online marketers sell them to customers. You need to hire both.

5.    Hire a competent marketing firm to handle your online marketing. This is a job for the pros.

6.    Promote your restaurant website both online and offline.

7.    Make changes to your restaurant website as needed.

Online marketing is essential to your restaurant’s success. Either embrace it or watch every other restaurant in your town grow to become more successful, leaving you and your recipes trailing in the dust.

Share your insights on online marketing for restaurants by leaving a comment below.

9 Reasons Why Women Make Better Restaurant Marketers Than Men

There’s the saying,

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.“

That should tell you women know a thing or two about food and how to satisfy men with their cooking. It should also explain how more women restaurant managers and owners are driving more customers into their restaurants over the past couple months. And they’re doing this on a shoe string budget.

Looking at current statistics, it seems men are more likely to rely on conventional restaurant marketing techniques than women. Thing is conventional methods are becoming less and less cost-efficient and effective. I thought men took risks more than women, too. But I guess when it comes to restaurant management that simply isn’t the case. When it comes to managing their restaurant business, women have become far more aggressive.

Their secrets…

1. They stay away from print, TV and radio advertising.

2. Instead women seem to have found a niche doing direct mail promotions. Email promotions are also proving effective.

3. Remember the term “USP” or “Unique Selling Proposition” in your management classes back in college? Women restaurant owners know their USP, and they make it a point to convey it to the customer using as few words as possible.

4. It seems women are better negotiators overall.

5. Women do a better job of overseeing their restaurant marketing campaigns than men. So they have a better knowledge of which ones work and which ones don’t.

6. Women tend to remember customer names, addresses and other personal information better than men.

7. They take advantage of press releases.

8. They write better headlines. I have no idea how, but apparently they do.

9. Women understand their customer’s demographic than men.

Maybe it’s about time you think about hiring a woman restaurant operator to manage your restaurant. Better yet, study their methods and tactics and apply it yourself.

This blog post is based from information by Jerry Minchey. He is the editor of Marketing Your Restaurant.

Feel free to leave a comment below.

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