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.

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.

The Truth About Yelp And How It Helps (Or Hurts) Your Restaurant

I’ve been talking about social media—Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.—as means of establishing presence on the internet. Do you own a small restaurant business? There’s no better way to spread that piece of good news than to create a fan page on Facebook or get fans to follow you on Twitter.

I’ve also worked with a few clients whom I asked the question, “So what’s your take on Yelp?” only to get this look on their face as response.

If you don’t know Yelp by now, then you need some catching up to do.

To make a long story short, Yelp is an online review website for bars, restaurants, retail stores and other commercial establishments. Customers sign in and post reviews and tell this and that thing about your restaurant.

In other words, Yelp could be helping or hurting your business right this minute, and the scary thing is you just found out about it.

Here is the thing. Yelp’s review system makes it possible for your competitors to put out a bad word about you by posting “fake” reviews of your restaurant. You can suppress these bad reviews by “sponsoring” Yelp at $150 a month minimum, which is another way of saying “corporate blackmail.”

This “sponsorship” system is Yelp’s primary source of income. But even so, more or less only 1% of businesses on Yelp became site sponsors, which has more to do, I believe, with the owners being unaware of Yelp as a review website than not wanting to shell out the money.

Look at eBay, Amazon, Epinions.com. Online reviews are here and they could burn your restaurant right down to its foundations if you continue to pretend they won’t affect you and your business. As a restaurant owner, it’s important to know what’s being said about your establishment online, and address these praises, issues and complaints appropriately.

Why not conduct an in-house survey? Ask customers if Yelp had anything to do with their being in your restaurant. If it turns out the majority found you on Yelp, then maybe you should consider sponsoring the website.

The younger your target market niche, the more likely they found out about you first on Yelp.

So what’s your take on Yelp? Tell me your experiences with Yelp by leaving a comment below.

The Ugly Truth About Restaurants And Social Media

Who hasn’t heard of social media? My kids love their MySpace, I mingle on Twitter from time to time. Even my wife plays her farm and restaurant applications on Facebook.

But here’s the real thing: are restaurants actually using social media? I’ve been raving about them ever since I started this blog, and I’m sure every other consultant and business coach out there is doing the same – trying to emphasize the importance of social media in today’s business environment.

The sad news is that most restaurants don’t seem to be getting the same message about social media.

Chalkboarder.com recently surveyed restaurants in the better parts of San Francisco, New York, and Portland. The survey wasn’t about food preparation or anything like that. They were only interested in one thing: do restaurants actually use social media?

About 80% of restaurants in Portland and New York maintain their own website. Pretty good. But not considering that San Francisco only compares by as much as 50%.

The city is home to Silicon Valley, considered the cradle of the internet. If so, then why is it that only half the restaurants in San Francisco are using social media? I don’t get it either.

This is where it gets more interesting. In all three cities, only 10% of restaurants, just about, are using Twitter and Facebook as a free online marketing tool. This is San Francisco, New York and Portland we’re talking about – not Timbuktu or any other location where internet access is either scarce or banned.

The reason why these restaurants aren’t doing anything is beyond me.

Maybe it’s got something to do with the owners coming from an older generation before the internet. The restaurant is going well even without social media marketing, or they can’t afford to hire someone with the marketing expertise. Or the restaurant owner simply doesn’t believe in the kind of influence social media could have on people.

Since I’m here anyway, I’d like to make one point clear. Put social media to good use. It’s convenient, it’s accessible, and most importantly, it’s free. Trust me. If you don’t take advantage of social media now, you’ll be kicking yourself in the #@$& later on.

Are you using social media to introduce your restaurant? How much do you think is it affecting your business?

Leave a comment below.

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.

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.