Restaurant Marketing Consulting Services
NOTICE: At this point, I am not offering any consulting services since my time is totally booked out. Please check again in the future. I will announce here when I am able to take on more consulting.
Thank you for your understanding and sorry for the inconvenience!
Jose L Riesco
Thank you for your understanding and sorry for the inconvenience!
Jose L Riesco
How Much Should You Invest to Market Your Restaurant?
As a restaurant marketing and consulting expert, I get often this question: How much should an independent restaurant spend in marketing? The answer is... it depends. There is not a hard rule or fixed amount that a restaurateur must expend.
When I bought my first restaurant, I remember that the previous owner told me "You should invest at least 10% of your gross income in marketing if you want to be successful." So for a while I complied. Although 10% sounded very high to me, I knew nothing about the restaurant industry so whom was I to question the opinion of an expert restaurateur?
Very soon, however, I started realizing that I was wasting my money in marketing vehicles that just didn't work (many inherited from him). After lots of trial and error, I reduced the amount that I was expending in marketing; but even more important, I started investing in marketing that worked and brought me lots of customers.
So, let me ask you this question. Would you invest $1,000 in marketing if I told you that it will bring you $2,000 in profits? Of course you would, it would be silly no to.
However, many times, when I recommend some marketing investments to restaurateurs, they complain that they are expensive and can't afford them; even if I tell them that they will bring back many times their investment. This is specially true when these marketing investments are not the usual ads, flyers, coupons, etc. that restaurateurs are so used to, and love to hate.
You need to start thinking about marketing as an investment. If you get enough extra business to cover for your marketing expenses, then it is just a smart investment. If, on the other hand, after a few months, you see that there is not enough growth in your business brought by the marketing to justify the expenses, then this investment is obviously not working for you and you should cancel it.
At worst, you will expend only a few hundred dollars. At best you could improve their business dramatically. Isn't worth it a try?
So should you cut any of your existing marketing and replace it all by an online system? Again, it depends. If it's working for you (and you can measure it and track it), then you should keep it. If not, you should just cut it and save your money.
It is as simple as that.
I hope that this post put some sound ideas about investing wisely in your marketing. I surely hope so.
When I bought my first restaurant, I remember that the previous owner told me "You should invest at least 10% of your gross income in marketing if you want to be successful." So for a while I complied. Although 10% sounded very high to me, I knew nothing about the restaurant industry so whom was I to question the opinion of an expert restaurateur?
Very soon, however, I started realizing that I was wasting my money in marketing vehicles that just didn't work (many inherited from him). After lots of trial and error, I reduced the amount that I was expending in marketing; but even more important, I started investing in marketing that worked and brought me lots of customers.
So, let me ask you this question. Would you invest $1,000 in marketing if I told you that it will bring you $2,000 in profits? Of course you would, it would be silly no to.
However, many times, when I recommend some marketing investments to restaurateurs, they complain that they are expensive and can't afford them; even if I tell them that they will bring back many times their investment. This is specially true when these marketing investments are not the usual ads, flyers, coupons, etc. that restaurateurs are so used to, and love to hate.
You need to start thinking about marketing as an investment. If you get enough extra business to cover for your marketing expenses, then it is just a smart investment. If, on the other hand, after a few months, you see that there is not enough growth in your business brought by the marketing to justify the expenses, then this investment is obviously not working for you and you should cancel it.
At worst, you will expend only a few hundred dollars. At best you could improve their business dramatically. Isn't worth it a try?
So should you cut any of your existing marketing and replace it all by an online system? Again, it depends. If it's working for you (and you can measure it and track it), then you should keep it. If not, you should just cut it and save your money.
It is as simple as that.
I hope that this post put some sound ideas about investing wisely in your marketing. I surely hope so.