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Having no opinion is having an opinion
Not planning is planning to fail
Not investing in growth means you are being left behind.
There are always ways to be better, stronger, and build a better restaurant.
Mediocrity is like trying to run your restaurant in neutral. It will only get you so far. Then you either need to put the foot on the gas, or you will start rolling backwards.
"Don’t let mediocrity be the best you can achieve."
Newsletters are usually long-form content. They have lots of information. They take a lot of time to put together and get blasted out once a month.
You may see success with it by getting a spike in your business everytime you send it out. Does that mean you should send more newsletters?
No.
Try this next month.
Take your newsletter and divide it up into four separate e-mails.
Segment your list into four groups.
Send each group a different e-mail for four weeks.
Now you will see a more consistent increase in sales instead of a spike.
You will also see which section of the newsletter created more engagement and sales.
Every Monday we send you a mashup of marketing thoughts, tips, and resources.
It's a quick way to start off the week with tips on how to keep your sales funnel flowing.
Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
AKA Don't just use one tool for marketing your restaurant.
Going all-in on one form of marketing limits you to only those people who follow that one channel. Can you do everything? No, but you need to build out a few different paths for your marketing strategy.
1 - Website, this needs to be clear on the type of experience people will have at your restaurant.
2 - Email capture system, have a process to turn websurfers who are not quite ready to commit to a visit into contacts and connect with them in the future.
3 - In-house email capture system, add people who visit your restaurant to your database, either through a contest, reservation list or anything else that may incentivize them to give you their information. (Remember to not add them directly to your list, send them an email asking for permission.)
4 - Post to social media daily, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business. Being consistent daily shows the internet that you are contributing and you are dependable. Although you may receive less engagement per post, on average, for the week, you will have more engagement than posting once in a while
5 - Paid advertising, pay to play. Spending at least $10 a day to boost your post or create an ad will get you in front of new people. Having the call to action to subscribe to your email list will permit you to market directly to them.
Marketers talk a lot about creating engagement. Your restaurant should have engagement as part of its marketing strategy. But the kind of engagement you are creating is what is important.
Definition of engagement
1: an arrangement to meet or be present at a specified time and place
2: something that engages
3: emotional involvement or commitment
4: the state of being in gear
5: a hostile encounter between military forces
The word has many different meanings, but the one that should matter most for your restaurant's marketing strategy should be;
Creating brand awareness with the result of direct interaction resulting in sales.
See, creating a like or a follow does not put money in the bank and does not transform directly into sales.
Make sure the engagement you are working so hard to create, creates sales for your restaurant.
Everything has a cost. It might not be a dollar value; it may cost time, energy or the big one opportunity cost.
Not investing in a marketing strategy is free.
But what is the missed opportunity?
To achieve a return on your marketing investment, the first step is you need to invest.
There are many free marketing tools available, but free may be costing you if you are not using them correctly.
You create a website using a free tool.
You put up some pictures and create some content but is it effective?
Is the information people after easy to find and understand?
Is it optimized for search engines?
Does it give a good understanding of the type of experience a guest will have at your restaurant?
With your website, you only have 5 seconds to make a great first impression. However, you may have a "FREE" website, but if it is not converting websurfers into paying guests, then that's a missed opportunity.
Now "FREE" is costing you revenue and new guests.
If you knew that it was a guest's first time, would you take extra measures to ensure they enjoyed themselves? Maybe send them over an appetizer to start or a dessert at the end of the meal. You want to make a great first impression, so they remember you and come back.
The Restaurant Funnel Sales system provides your restaurant with a marketing strategy that is personalized, engaging, systemized and trackable, providing a positive ROI on your investments.
You would make it for them. You would create the special event, you would add the menu item, you would change an element of your service.
You can't be everything to everyone, but if you ask your existing guests for feedback, it just might inspire something new.
Don't just assume that your guest loves everything you create.
Make sure you are always asking for feedback to make an informed decision on the direction of your restaurant's experience.
Every Monday morning we send you a mashup of marketing thoughts, tips, and resources.
It's a quick way to start off the week with tips on how to keep your sales funnel flowing.
Most people don't care about a restaurant newsletter; they search you up because they are looking to solve a problem. That problem might be hunger, entertainment, connection with a friend.........
So how do you get them on your list? Give them a sample of what you're offering. Not a discount, a sample.
Once they are on the list, send them a personalized welcome email and a campaign with short emails every few days highlighting how you could solve their problem.
Oh yea, don't bury the sign-up form at the bottom of the home page. Have it the first thing they see when they come to your website.
"Your websites should be 100 percent focused on signing up strangers to give you permission to market to them" Seth Godin
Got 60 seconds? Check out the video.
When constructing a building, whether it be a single story or a multilevel structure, the strength comes from the foundation that most people never see.
No matter how impressive the building is on top of the foundation, if the base is not built correctly, it could cause many future problems.
However, when you have a solid foundation, you may never think about it again, and you can concentrate on the structure on top that everyone can see.
Building a database of engaged guests to include a process of adding new guests and tracking existing guest visits is the foundation of your restaurant sales-building process.
"I was told to post to Instagram. So I post to Instagram. I am not sure why or how followers from different cities and countries liking my post help me serve more guests and generate more sales, but they say to post, so I post." said the restaurant owner.
If this sounds like your marketing plan, then stop posting. The time and money will be better spent serving the guests inside your restaurant. The content you provide needs to have a purpose. It needs to be tied in with a strategy and a vision.
995 photos are uploaded on Instagram every second.
That's a lot of stuff.
How do you fit in amongst all that stuff?
Are you a stuff creator or an experience provider? Wouldn't it make more sense to give people a sample of your experience instead of just a picture of it?
Everyone is quick to want to add contacts to their email list, some people even buy lists of names to get that number up.
But what's more important? 500 people on your list that are engaged with your messages or 5000 that don't care.
Some people argue that having lots of people on the list and sending them emails is worth it in "hopes" that they might engage. But then they start sending more emails and see the unsubscribe rate climb, so they panic and stop sending emails.
Kinda defeats the purpose of having an email list.
We believe in building a healthy list, like a group of friends. You want people you can count on to get excited about your promotion, new menu, or special event. ANd not only get excited about it and share it but come in and spend money.
Build a list that you can send an email to every five days. That's a truly engaged list. Build that list with a 25% click-through rate, and now you have superfans.
