Discover The Top 5 Restaurant Trends For 2010

The year 2010 is going to be an interesting one for restaurants. There will be changes, and they will be big, enough to draw the line between success and failure of your restaurant business.

New York-based restaurant consultants Michael Whiteman and Joseph Baum have compiled a list of potential dining trends for 2010. I find their predictions quite interesting, enough to discuss about there here.

The 2010 dining trends are:

1.    Hotdogs and hamburgers. Whiteman and Baum are seeing a spike in burger and hotdog sales in 2010, but not because these foods are cheap. So okay. It’s partly because they cost less than sirloin, but also because they’re delicious, especially when garnished with homemade relishes.

2.    Fresh is healthy. People are starting to get more health-conscious in the face of apocalyptic movies such as The Road and 2012. And it is a common belief that local, fresh and handmade foods are healthier foods. Keep this in mind when organizing your menu.

3.    Strong tart flavors. A lot of people have been avoiding strong tart tastes for the past couple years. It’s about time these flavors make a comeback. Homemade pickles, sour candies, anyone?

4.    What’s on their menu? The best way to make money in a recession is to steal your competitor’s customers. How are you going to do that? Start by stealing their top menu items. Pizzerias now serve fresh sandwiches. Fast-food chains like Burger King brew gourmet coffee.

5.    Bring your brand to the kitchen. Brand awareness does wonders to any restaurant business. Start by partnering with local manufacturers and have them paste your logo on their supermarket products. When families decide to eat out on weekends, they are more likely to come to your restaurant in search of that familiar and homemade-like flavor.

Got anymore ideas for 2010? Share them by leaving a comment below.

Put Yourself In Their Shoes: Why You Should Become A Customer In Your Own Restaurant

For some reason, the title of a short story I read a long time ago called “Put Yourself In My Shoes” came to me as I sat down to write this article.

Last month I came across an article by Rohit Bhargava on the internet. The article had an interesting title, “Forget Eating Your Own Dog Food - Just Try Buying it…” Rohit believes the best way to understand the customer is to experience your own product and services yourself – from the initial awareness up to the purchase period. That means every single step of the way.

It makes sense. If you put yourself in your customer’s shoes, you’d see things from their perspective. It might explain why your restaurant business is booming, or being unprofitable.

So how do you put this into practice?

The first step is to create a portrait of your ideal diner. What is her social status? Has she eaten at your restaurant or is this her first time? Is she a local or an out-of-town visitor? Is she here to conduct a business meeting or is the meal purely for leisure?

Answering these questions will help you put together an image of your prospective client.

Next stop is establishing a visible online presence. A successful restaurant internet marketing plan is when your restaurant is visible no matter what the ideal client is looking for. If your restaurant is only visible to those looking for it, then you need to reconsider your online marketing mix.

Search for restaurants in your city using Yahoo!, Google, Ask—any other popular search engines. Are you in the Top 20 list of local restaurants? Too bad if you’re not – your online visibility is minimal. If you’re in it, are the descriptions about your restaurant accurate and appealing to first-time diners?

Also look for your restaurant on Facebook and Twitter to check the social media community for fans and detractors.

Last but not the least, it’s time to check your website’s usability first-hand. Pretend you’re a potential diner looking for a place to eat and came across your restaurant’s website.

• Is the address, phone number and email address clearly visible on every page of the website?
• Do you have a dedicated page showing directions to your restaurant’s location?
• Is the menu available online? Is it in an easy-to-read format?
• Can you order online?

It’s probably going to take a while to get all of this done, but believe me, and Rohit Bhargava, it’s worth every ounce of effort and penny you put into it. The idea is to thrust your restaurant’s name out there on the World Wide Web, and eliminate every obstacle that stands between the ideal diner and your front door.

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. You might just find something useful – a new marketing idea or opportunity – you didn’t know was there from the beginning.

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.