Restaurant Business Plan

Know Your Restaurant Numbers. Not just in your restaurant marketing numbers, but in all the important aspects of your business.

Jonathan Munsell

Your restaurant operations numbers, your financials, your marketing, even measure your customer/guest experience… measure everything so you know how you rate. Quantify it so you can constantly work on and improve it and your profitability.

Don’t forget the basics. Don’t forget what made you successful.Together with the marketing, you need to concentrate on an important feature. Keep a customer database so that you can market all these things and keep all the pertinent information you gather from the guests that you have now.

People are always infatuated about going out and getting new guests, which you need to do, but it’s not nearly as important or profitable as marketing to your existing guests. You need to have ongoing communication with your existing guests: monthly newsletters, birthdays, anniversaries, thank you, and any other monthly promotions of things happening – a feedback system. This does not mean or have to be discounts.

It may mean something more expensive than you’re used to selling … perhaps a package dinner with wine, flowers, chocolates – something to take home. Oftentimes this can be more expensive if you create a very exciting and compelling offer for your guests.

A really important characteristic of highly successful restaurant owners is that they look at all marketing in terms of return on investment, not cost. They don’t worry if something costs or 0 or .22 to mail out, what they look at is- after my expenses how much money did I make by doing this promotion? Cost becomes irrelevant.

What you focus on expands. The more you focus on a negative, the more the negative will happen, the more you’ll think about it, the more negative your staff will get. Don’t get emotional about your marketing. Take the emotion out of the marketing. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

You need to understand and look to see what is making you money. What marketing is working?

Let’s talk about how most people plan and spend on marketing…

“THE AD REP”"The Ad Rep” is a forbidden term around my neck of the woods. Let me tell you why:

You see, “The Ad Rep” gets paid based on the amount of money they can get you to spend on advertising. The more you spend, the more they make.

They don’t get paid based on the amount of new business they bring in for you. That’s not what they’re concerned about.

That’s why they keep telling you to keep running the ads over and over again. They say that the people need to keep seeing the ads over and over before they’ll respond. There is some minor truth to this.

But if an ad loses money the first time, it’s not suddenly going to make money the second, third, or fourth time.

(TIP: If your ads aren’t making you money right now: STOP RUNNING THEM!)

Running the ads over and over will build name recognition for you, but you can’t eat recognition.., you can’t deposit recognition in the bank, you need response — now!

Jonathan Munsell is a professional speaker, restaurant owner and owns and operates multiple restaurants and a large catering company. Helping other restaurant owners better their business through Restaurant Success System.Reach him at jonathan@restaurantsuccesssystem.com call him on +1 919.225.6015 or visit http://www.RestaurantSuccessSystem.com

Marketing for Restaurants – Why and how to Use Twitter and Facebook for Restaurant Marketing

Elisabeth Kuhn

How can you get more people to come to your restaurant? How about by taking advantage of the boost that social Media can provide when it comes to marketing for restaurants.

How to get started? Well, are you on Twitter and Facebook? You should be! Twitter and Facebook are key ingredients when it comes to marketing for restaurants. But don’t stop there… There are two sides to marketing for restaurants with Twitter and Facebook.

1) The benefitsTwitter and Facebook help you connect with a huge crowd of potential customers. They also are excellent when it comes to communicating in the moment. For example, let’s say you have a leftover stash of fresh oysters and you want to use them before they go bad. So you whip up a particularly yummy oyster special and… tweet about it to your followers.

If you’ve done your Twitter marketing correctly, you’ll have lots of followers, some of whom are likely to take you up on your offer. Facebook Business Pages is similar. Sending a message out to your fan base can also get great results, provided you have enough fans. So you see how Twitter and Facebook can really bring a lot of benefits.

2) The potential pitfalls

Quite a few restaurant owners I have spoken with believe that Twitter and Facebook is all they need. When I suggest that they might want to build a list, they proudly tell me about the number of followers and friends they have gathered.

Good for you, I like to tell them. But it’s just not enough. Why? For two reasons:

a) No real control

You don’t have complete control over your Facebook or Twitter account. If they decide to change their business model tomorrow, you’ll be out of luck.

This would mean that all those followers and fans you have gathered will be LOST. Not just that, but a surprising number of people routinely abandon their twitter accounts, so if that’s the only connection you have with them, you’ll be abandoned as well.

Ditto for Facebook accounts. Sure, it’s great if you have your menu posted on your Business Page. But people get tired of logging in all the time and other interests take over.

b) A better connection

Facebook and Twitter are terrific places to gather leads, but your goal should always be to actually capture those leads for yourself. Followers are nice, but they’re not REAL leads. The only leads that count are those who sign up for your email list and allow you to contact them.

So your goal has to be to build an email list. Set up a customer capture page or section on your website (and also on your Facebook Business Page), and invite people to sign up.

CLICK HERE to learn more about online marketing for restaurants and other small to medium sized businesses.

For more tips and resources on how to use online strategies for marketing your restaurant online, check out Elisabeth Kuhn’s article on Marketing for Restaurants on her web marketing blog.

Restaurant Marketing Tips – Advertise Online For Free! Part 1

Rudy Vener

There were 11,820 searches for pizza restaurants in Chicago on Yahoo! in May, 2006. In Los Angeles there were 7,993 searches and in Detroit, 5,522. Identical searches occurred in nearly every major and not so major city in the U.S.

And not just for pizza restaurants. Italian, Mexican, American, Chinese and just plain restaurants, all had their share of online searches.

In short, there are a lot of people looking for good food online. The smart restaurants are positioning themselves to reach these online customers, make them feel welcome, and encourage them to try their restaurant’s food.

Marketing your restaurant on the Internet means targeting your Internet advertising so that it will reach your local customers. Bring them to your website, give them good reasons to try your food and make it easy for them to place their first order with you.

Unless you happen to own a national restaurant chain, or are located in a major tourist destination, your customers are probably going to be located within a five to ten mile radius of your restaurant.

Your ultimate marketing goal is to get people to try your food. Internet marketing is no different, only the tools you use are new. One key tool you should have is your own website.

Once potential customers visit your website, your site should have all the tools needed to convince them to give your restaurant a try.

But before your website can do its job, you need to bring local online visitors there.

That’s where local Internet advertising comes into play. There are plenty of ways to reach your local online community on the Internet. One often overlooked method is the Yahoo! local business listing.

Anyone can create a local Yahoo! business listing for free. The listing can contain your restaurant contact information and include a link to your website.

With a local Yahoo! listing your restaurant can show up near the top of the search results when someone does a search for your selected category. When they browse your listing they can click on your web address and will be taken to your web page. For example, let’s assume you operate a pizza shop in Chelsea, Michigan. Go to Yahoo! and do a search for “pizza restaurant Chelsea Michigan” or “pizza Chelsea Michigan.” In the first page of the search results notice a section called local listings. You will probably see an entry for Ollie’s Main Street Pizza. Click on it and you’ll see their local listing which includes their website, www.olliesmainstpizza.com which you can click on to visit their web page.

You can create your own local listing on Yahoo! just like Ollie’s.

To create your free listing, use your web browser and navigate to http://local.yahoo.com. If you have a Yahoo! member ID and password and are not logged in, you have to log in now; if you are not registered with Yahoo, you will need to create a member ID and password (it’s free) to list your business.

Once you have accessed http://local.yahoo.com, scroll down to the bottom and click on “Add/Edit a Business.”

You will then be on the Yahoo! Search Marketing Local Listings page. In the lower right of the screen you will see “Local Basic Listings FREE”. Click on the Get Started button (you may need to scroll down to see it). You may need to log in again with your Yahoo! ID and password.

The form for your local business listing now is displayed. When filling it out, be sure to include your full web address. That is, http://www.yourpizzeria.com rather than just www.yourpizzeria.com.

Include a description of your food and services in the description section. Avoid hype or blatant advertising, the listing must pass Yahoo’s editorial review and the simple facts are your best bet here.

Also, be sure to select the appropriate business category and sub categories. In our case, this would be restaurant and pizza.

Assuming your listing passes editorial review, it should show up in 3 to 5 business days.

When it does, someone who searches for pizza restaurants in your town will see your restaurant in the local listings on the search results page. Through that listing they will be able to visit your website and you can convince them to try your fresh baked, hand tossed, home made pizza.

This is just one of many ways to advertise online for free.

Bear in mind though, that all the free Internet advertisements in the world will do you little good unless your web site can engage your visitors and convince them to become your customers. Since it is not yet possible to upload the mouth watering aromas that waft from your kitchen, you’ll need to use other techniques on your website.

We’ll talk about that in the next part of this article series along with another free online marketing tip.

Rudy Vener is president of Pizza Galaxy. He has helped restaurants reach new generations of customers with online ordering and Internet marketing since 2003. Visit his website at to see how he can help your restaurant attract new customers and increase sales.

A restaurant seating management solution that functions as a restaurant beeper system with an integrated restaurant marketing program built right in!! What a great restaurant marketing idea. Think about it, what’s the most direct marketing there is? How about a text coupon right to your guest’s cell phone. 95% of text messages are read, 75% are read instantly and 9 out 10 of your customers have a cell phone. The restaurant marketing idea takes the concept of direct marketing and email marketing to a whole new level! Response rates have been as high as 10 to 15%. mobilevipbiz.blogspot.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Restaurant Marketing: What Do You Need?

Frank Salsa

One of the biggest mistakes many restaurants make is printing their own marketing materials. They view print marketing as an expense, when it is actually an investment in revenue generation. Desktop-printed menus, brochures, flyers, and postcards are dull and lifeless; but the same pieces printed on state-of-the-art presses are sleek and attractive. Your restaurant customers crave a friendly and inviting atmosphere, so choose an affordable online printing company such as PsPrint to deliver your message with professionalism.

Must-have restaurant marketing materials

Menus – Perhaps the most obvious restaurant marketing tool is the menu. Still, menus are often overlooked despite the fact that they’re powerful sales tools. All of your other print marketing efforts get patrons in the door, but the menu can upsell, close deals, push drinks and desserts, and drive profit margins through the roof.

Business cards – Business cards are cheap and expendable. Print as many as you can hand out, and make sure everyone you meet has one. Try printing a mini-menu or coupon on the back of your business card to earn business.

Postcards – Postcards are likewise extremely cost effective and a great way to showcase a monthly dish, drink or dessert. Turn your restaurant postcard into an advertisement with coupons and you’ll get more patrons eager to try out your menu.

Posters – Strategically placed posters can grab attention. Try community bulletin boards, and if you’re close to a large institution such as a university, tech firm or factory, see if you can purchase some ad space in hallways and on bulletin boards and place your posters there. Maybe you have someone on the inside who can do this for your free of charge. Your restaurant posters should make passers-by hungry for your restaurants menu with large, scrumptious images.

Flyers – Like posters, flyers can be placed on bulletin boards and anywhere else your target patron frequents. Under windshield wipers in the grocery store parking lot is a good option for a restaurant.

Booklets/guides – A rather unique yet extremely effective approach to restaurant marketing is to print booklets to send in the mail as menus your customers can keep on-hand for takeout orders or to get them to your establishment. Infuse your booklet with sales information about your fresh food sources, staff training, preparation, and other features and their benefits to your customers.

Catalogs – Some well-branded restaurants, such as the Ohio-based Winking Lizard Tavern, sell T-shirts, shot glasses, beer mugs and other merchandise to customers. Another great example is Cracker Barrel, which has a shop in every restaurant.

Brochures – Your brochure should include images, features, benefits of your restaurant and your best dishes along with your features and benefits. Don’t forget to include a great coupon and call to action!

Calendars – Everyone loves (and uses) free calendars. Try a different dessert, drink or entrée listing each month.

Other materials you should consider producing include a website, door hangers and a corporate identity package (complete with letterhead, envelopes, brochure, flyer, business card and pocket folder).

Learn about how your business can take your exposure to the next level of branding through PsPrint’s postcard printing and business cards. Capitalize upon the variety of printing services that PsPrint offers to maximize your company’s branding efforts and marketing presence.

Increase Sales with Restaurant Marketing

Guy Holmes

There are a number of restaurants that start business but without undertaking proper marketing strategies. For restaurant branding a professional campaign is required. Only word of mouth about the restaurant service, the quality of food and its ambiance is not enough. For promoting a restaurant business you need proper marketing to increase restaurant sales.

A marketing strategy is also required if you are planning to open a pub. Advertising is always not sufficient for building the reputation of your business. Restaurant marketing, bar and pub marketing are necessary to set up your business and it should not be taken as any redundant activity.

Different marketing techniques, marketing ideas, public relations, media relations, and creative designs are required to build a brand image for your restaurant, pub and bars. You also need to have proper local marketing, Internet marketing and marketing budget.

For restaurant and bar marketing different new marketing ideas are to be adopted. For building brand image and brand loyalty of your eatery, promotions are required inside as well as outside the business venue.

To build the image of your restaurant inside the business venue and for better sales you should take marketing advice from expert, maintain customer database and give emphasis on in-house branding.

For restaurant marketing outside your business venue, you need proper media relations, arrange corporate events, regular product launch and Internet marketing. Adopting sound and effective restaurant and pub marketing strategies, your business will draw more customers.

Giving out discount coupons, discount codes and special offers are surely to bring customers to your restaurant and bars. There are a many people who collect the discount coupons from Sunday newspaper and use them the next time they visit an eatery. This way they can save on their food bills and you get regular visitors.

Promotional discounts are very effective to draw new customers and it is your restaurant service that will tend them to come to your eatery on a regular basis. Competitions and games to win free meals and drinks can also be arranged which are also part of effective promotion for your restaurant.

Guy Holmes is an expert in restaurant marketing and restaurant web designing. He is also a renowned author of www.tri.eu.com.

www.runningrestaurants.com – Get your restaurant marketing plan going with restaurant marketing tips for marketing your restaurant on traditionally slow weeknights.