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Exchange and incentive for contact information.
Track when and who uses the incentive.
Send them future relevant, personal and engaging messages.
Oh yes, and the hard part, make sure every guest has an amazing experience!
Happy Marketing!
Even a greasy fast-food burger joint will use fresh lettuce and tomatoes!
So the question is, do the majority of people care?
No.
Most guests will spend their money on a great experience, even if it is previously frozen beef.
In fact, if you are honest with yourself, some things are even better frozen. Is fresh seafood caught three days ago served at your landlocked restaurant better than frozen at sea unthawed daily?
It would be best if you promoted what makes you unique.
What can people experience at your restaurant that's different than your competition?
Don't rely on generic words to be the base of your marketing.
The philosophy of most restaurant advertising campaigns has been to get buts in the seat.
Well, this is the ultimate goal, but the process has changed.
Use your advertising to generate leads.
These leads are a list of contacts that can directly be communicated with for future specials, incentives and events.
Your restaurant will have a strong competitive advantage by having an active contact list.
Many restaurants use coupons for their restaurant to help bring in sales. This is part of a HOPE MARKETING strategy.
You HOPE that people will see your advertisement and use your coupon.
You HOPE they come in and have a great experience.
You HOPE that they will come back.
You HOPE they will tell their friends.
That's a lot of HOPE.
However, when you offer a trackable incentive for the exchange of an email address, you can measure your campaign's effectiveness.
You KNOW who used your incentive.
You can extend an expiry date or re-send the incentive later for people who didn't redeem.
You can request feedback and ask for a referral for people that redeemed the incentive.
The best part of this is you are building a list of contacts that can directly be communicated with for future specials, incentives and events.
No HOPING that social media will show the right post to the right person at the right time.
Stop HOPE marketing and start MEASURE marketing by creating a trackable engaging marketing system.
Full-service operators are continually having to make the hard choice of creating their experience to survive on take-out business or close until dine-in service can come back.
When you have an engaged contact list, getting feedback to make, these tough decisions can be as easy as sending out a google form.
Rember, it is not about you. It is about what the guests want and satisfying that is the foundation of your restaurant.
When you have an engaged network of contacts, they will always be honest and provide you with relevant information so now you can make an informed decision.
Are you using your website to tell the story of your restaurant?
Food Pictures,
Interior Pictures.
The history of your brand and location.
All of these items paint you as a hero to help the hungry guest.
But what if you used the words on your website to make the guest visualize the experience they will have. What if you wanted to be the guide in their story so they can be the hero.
Too often, we try to be abstract or "cute" with our website, when most often, a direct message is the best approach.
In the book Building a Storey Brand, Donald Miller talks about changing the way you market your brand. His most famous quote is, "If you confuse, you lose."
Make sure your marketing is straightforward and easy to understand.
But don't just take our word for it; read the book.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller
I hate to tell you that most people don't care about your newsletter. People are not part of your network of contacts for you to supply them with content. Most people join restaurant contact lists because they want offers and promotions, not a lengthy story about how special your grandma's recipe is.
People who initially visit your website are leads. Leads are interested in dining with you but not ready to make a reservation or stop by for a visit.
Capturing information from these leads is crucial in your marketing plan.
The best way to capture these leads is to exchange their contact information with something they want: an offer or a promotion.
Now is the time to be collecting contact information from every transaction your restaurant has.
Build the list, send a welcome email and follow up with a short connection once a week.
Whether you are fully open, reduced capacity, takeout only, or closed. Building a contact list that you can have direct communication with will forever change how effective your future event, promotions and specials will be.
Don't rely on the social media megaphone to just broadcast generic messages to your fowlers.
The right decisions are hard to make when you don't take the time to think!
Prepare yourself; when the dark clouds over your restaurant start to clear, people will be eager to go out and have an experience.
Are you just providing a meal, or are you providing an experience?
Having thousands of email addresses on your list may give you a false sense that you are doing a good job.
Send this email to your list,
Hi {FirstName}
We would love for you to check out our website.
{website link}
Thanks
{Owner Name}
If 10% or more of your contacts click the link, then you have a healthy list.
The busiest month of the year could end up being your slowest.
Most communities have either forced restaurants to close, be on take-out only or dine-in with limited capacity.
You are freaking out.
This is super stressful, and you have every right to feel a bit disheartened.
But you are resilient; you will prosper.
Let's change your mindset.
If this was January, what would you be doing?
January is typically the slowest month of the year.
It's a month where good operators take the time to re-evaluate, update their menu and plan features and promotions for the upcoming year.
So do that now!
I know it's hard to plan when you don't know what restrictions are coming next. But the reality is, things will loosen up.
Although life may never go back to normal, people are craving the dine-in experience. It is one of the first sectors that will see massive growth.
Will your restaurant be ready?
Trying to separate yourself from the competition using food alone is not enough.
With quick-serve and fast-casual concepts coming into the market, producing excellent quality food, shorter wait times, and at less of a ticket price, your full-service restaurant needs to market something more than just great food.
In the book Traction, Gino Wickman explains how you need to establish three uniques as part of your marketing plan.
Showcasing these items makes it clear to new guests what they can expect from your restaurant experience and keeps your messaging clear.
Your Three Uniques: These are what make you different, what make you stand out and what you’re competing with. If you line yourself up against 10 of your competitors, you might all share one of the uniques. Some of you many even share two, but no one else should have the three you do.
Once you have a clear understanding of what makes your restaurant unique, focus on marketing only those items.
If you are paying for marketing services and can't measure how many NEW GUESTS are dining-in or taking-out with your restaurant, you are wasting your money!
The Process can be straightforward.
Use paid advertising to generate contact information.
Use that contact information to connect and create actual paying guests.
Track it, measure it, and modify to maximize your return on investment.
When you overthink your social media posts with the intention and hope to go viral and soar your business into fandom instead of being consistent in posting messages, this is lottery ticket marketing.
Everyone has heard of the stories where someone created a post, and it caught on, and everyone shared it. Their life and business were forever transformed. Did you know that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than having your post go viral?
Think about it, 8. 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day.
Your posting strategy should be in being consistent. Post once a day; repeating a post from the past is better than not being consistent!
