The Best Restaurant Marketing In the World
Restaurant owners and managers often spend quite a lot of money n marketing, trying to bring new customers to their restaurant with mixed results.
However, that obsession with bringing new customers often diverts the attention from their core business.
Let’s face it; before you start spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars a month trying to bring new customers to your restaurant, you should focus on your core competences, making sure that you can deliver an excellent dinning experience to your clients.
Restaurants should show their commitment to excellence in four basic parameters:
However, that obsession with bringing new customers often diverts the attention from their core business.
Let’s face it; before you start spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars a month trying to bring new customers to your restaurant, you should focus on your core competences, making sure that you can deliver an excellent dinning experience to your clients.
Restaurants should show their commitment to excellence in four basic parameters:
Quality of their food
Excellence of their service
Cleanliness of their place
Agreeable, beautiful, unique, and/or attractive ambience
If you can’t deliver in all these categories, then perhaps you can still bring new customers to your restaurant using smart and targeted marketing. However, many of these people won’t come back to eat at your place, so you will have to keep on investing over and over in new marketing vehicles to attract always new customers.
Instead, try to take a hard look at your current offering. Do you deliver great food with excellent customer service in a clean and attractive place? If so, great, you are ready now to promote your business.
If not, if you think that you are missing in one or more of the four categories, you should focus your energies on improving them.
These are some basic things you can do to improve your core business:
Instead, try to take a hard look at your current offering. Do you deliver great food with excellent customer service in a clean and attractive place? If so, great, you are ready now to promote your business.
If not, if you think that you are missing in one or more of the four categories, you should focus your energies on improving them.
These are some basic things you can do to improve your core business:
Changing or simplifying your menus. Some times less is more and your kitchen can focus all their energies on your signature dishes and your servers will know better the menus. If your cooks can deliver great quality food, then hire new more skilled cooks.
Training your staff by switching all the emphases to customer service and satisfaction. Setup clear guidelines about how to deal with unhappy clients.
Making sure that your restaurant is spotless. There is not excuse for less than a clean place where people eat. If your place is not clean enough, change your cleaning service (if you hire one), or ask your in-house people to clean better and review thoroughly after they clean to make sure that the place is spotless.
Creating a nice ambiance. Some times, a fresh coat of paint and some accessories is all you need to give your place a fresh and pleasant look.
But the most important aspect of all, is a total commitment from the management to deliver to your clients a great dining experience. This is what separates the great restaurants from the mediocre ones.
I encourage you now to go to the main restaurant review sites (www.yelp.com, www.citysearch.com www.metaflavor.com, http://www.wherethelocalseat.com, etc.) and read the reviews that people wrote about your restaurant.
Sometimes this is a revelation because as the proud owner, you think that everything is fine with your place, and then you read some nasty reviews from disgruntled customers. I know that these reviews are hard to swallow but you must think about these reviews as a great opportunity for you to know your weak spots and improve your business.
Do they mainly complain about your food? Your service? Do you have tables that people really don’t like? (perhaps no very well located…)
These should be clues for you about what are your restaurant weaknesses and try to improve upon them.
Many times, the problems are related to consistency. A great review from one day becomes a horrible review the next because the dish was wrong, or the service poor. This is also a clue that you must setup processes that everybody should follow to make sure that things work as expected.
Of course, all the processes and safeguards in the world won’t assure you that mistakes won’t be made; after all, the restaurant business is a people’s business and people will make mistakes, count on it. So, what can you do to make your clients happy? You should make sure that people are adequately compensated for any wrongdoing that spoils their dining experience.
Having a compensation plan for your clients is the best marketing strategy that you can implement in your restaurant. After all, happy clients will write enthusiastic reviews about your place. These glowing reviews will be read by many prospects in the many restaurant review sites, and they will bring you many more happy clients.
Also, once you have solid systems in place to assure your customer's satisfaction, you can implement a formalized restaurant referral systems to bring back over and over your increasingly happy crowd.
Focus on your core business, always exceed your customers’ expectations, and you won’t have to worry about marketing anymore.
I encourage you now to go to the main restaurant review sites (www.yelp.com, www.citysearch.com www.metaflavor.com, http://www.wherethelocalseat.com, etc.) and read the reviews that people wrote about your restaurant.
Sometimes this is a revelation because as the proud owner, you think that everything is fine with your place, and then you read some nasty reviews from disgruntled customers. I know that these reviews are hard to swallow but you must think about these reviews as a great opportunity for you to know your weak spots and improve your business.
Do they mainly complain about your food? Your service? Do you have tables that people really don’t like? (perhaps no very well located…)
These should be clues for you about what are your restaurant weaknesses and try to improve upon them.
Many times, the problems are related to consistency. A great review from one day becomes a horrible review the next because the dish was wrong, or the service poor. This is also a clue that you must setup processes that everybody should follow to make sure that things work as expected.
Of course, all the processes and safeguards in the world won’t assure you that mistakes won’t be made; after all, the restaurant business is a people’s business and people will make mistakes, count on it. So, what can you do to make your clients happy? You should make sure that people are adequately compensated for any wrongdoing that spoils their dining experience.
Having a compensation plan for your clients is the best marketing strategy that you can implement in your restaurant. After all, happy clients will write enthusiastic reviews about your place. These glowing reviews will be read by many prospects in the many restaurant review sites, and they will bring you many more happy clients.
Also, once you have solid systems in place to assure your customer's satisfaction, you can implement a formalized restaurant referral systems to bring back over and over your increasingly happy crowd.
Focus on your core business, always exceed your customers’ expectations, and you won’t have to worry about marketing anymore.
Your clients will be your best marketing and sales force!
Finally, if you haven't done so yet, please subscribe to my restaurant marketing strategies subscriber's list. I won't trade or sell or give away your email. I promise you. When you subscribe to my list, not only you will get my monthly newsletter in PDF format, but you will also get the complete Chapter 4 of my book. The title of the Chapter 4 is:
"Why You Must Have a Strategic Mindset"
This chapter explains that you need to have a vision for your restaurant if you want to succeed and covers:
Your Restaurant Vision
Your Restaurant Strategy
Your Restaurant Operations
Your Strengths
Your Priorities
It explains to you the kind of clients you want, and gives you some guidelines to help you understand how to target your clientele.
But this is not all. When you subscribe to my list, you will also get access to my over one hour audio interview with Fred Gleeck. In this interview, I will tell you:
But this is not all. When you subscribe to my list, you will also get access to my over one hour audio interview with Fred Gleeck. In this interview, I will tell you:
The Most Effective Methods for Getting more people into your restaurant.
THE MOST IMPORTANT way to KEEP your customers happy.
Two important things you can do to set your restaurant apart from your competition.
Why are so many restaurants unsuccessful? What do restaurant owners fail to focus on that is the MAIN reason for this failure?
Why and how to test your restaurant advertising.
What types of advertising REALLY work. Period.
How to optimize your restaurant's menu prices to make sure you’re getting the profit you need – while keeping your customers happy.
A secret completely underused method for getting things you need (sometimes even for free) – most restaurant owners don’t know about this money saving technique (that can bring in new customers, too)!
Easy ways to get more customers coming to your restaurant AND to keep them coming back!
Three Simple Ways to increase the purchase amount that people spend once they’re inside your restaurant
And much more...
So don't delay any longer and enter your name and email in the yellow form below.
You will soon have access to Chapter 4 of my Restaurant Marketing Strategis book as well as the complete audio interview with Fred Gleeck (over one hour long), where we discuss restaurant marketing tips, ideas and strategies.
You will also get a subscription to my monthly newsletter (you'll receive in a couple of days this month's and then on the first day of each month after that).
You don't want to miss all these free information!
You will soon have access to Chapter 4 of my Restaurant Marketing Strategis book as well as the complete audio interview with Fred Gleeck (over one hour long), where we discuss restaurant marketing tips, ideas and strategies.
You will also get a subscription to my monthly newsletter (you'll receive in a couple of days this month's and then on the first day of each month after that).
You don't want to miss all these free information!
Subcribe now: