Restaurant Success with the Right Advertising

Would you buy a T-bone steak, cut out the tenderloin and serve it to your customer and then throw the rest of the steak away? Of course you wouldnít! If all you need is a tenderloin then that is all that you would buy. Right? Yet just like the above example I see restaurants throwing their dollars away every single day with the money they spend on advertising or even better the money they donít spend on the restaurant systems or proper training.

With our unstable economy, and every operator looking for more business, I am going to focus on the advertising portion.† So much time and effort goes into operations, food, preparation and getting staff to do their jobs. Leftover time is allocated for getting new customers in the door.

Is Your Restaurant Ready?

The worse thing in the world you can do is go out and market a restaurant that isnít ready for it… You could market yourself out of business… and quick! We have all heard the old saying “You have to have your ducks in a row” well in this case you have to have your ducks, chicken, burgers, service staff and system in order before you fire up all these great ideas.

Advertising that Pays

It has been the norm for years now that we can quickly get any restaurant firing on all cylinders, running real tight and easy for the owner and start pushing huge marketing returns through the doors. Typically, restaurant marketing decisions are made when some advertising sales rep walks in the door and seems to give the restaurant owner a good pitch on why they should use his paper or coupon book. Since most restaurant owners are already overworked they rely on the sales rep to come up with the advertisement and the restaurant owner makes sure it “looks good”. However, advertising sales representatives are selling space not results. What you bought is advertising space and what you want is results. You need a different kind of advertising.

Image Advertising

There are two types of advertising, image or institutional advertising and direct response. Image advertising is what very large companies do, Coke, McDonald’s and Goodyear. Their advertising is designed to make you aware of their business and HOPE that eventually that awareness will translate into you purchasing their products. I don’t know how a blimp flying above a stadium translates into tire sales but it must, somehow. It’s a very indirect method of getting results. With it comes lots of waste.

McDonald’s with its $1.2 billion global marketing budget and its nearly 14,000 restaurants, in the United States alone, can afford image advertising. However, most restaurant owners don’t have the money or the number of outlets to last long enough to see any benefits from image advertising. For the single or several unit operator, this kind of marketing is a recipe for disaster. Despite this fact, many restaurant owners continue to use image advertising.

Direct Response Advertising

What restaurants need is direct response advertising. That is, marketing that is designed to produce measurable results every time; marketing that is proven and targeted to reach only people that are similar to your best customers. That is target marketing.

Focus your marketing resources where it has the best chance of success. If you can’t measure the amount of business you get from some form of advertising then don’t do it. You need to get hard nosed about this. This should save you thousands of dollars a year.

Reinvest in Your Biz

Next, you need to reinvest the marketing dollars that were previously wasted into direct response marketing. Find out everything about who your best customers are. Match this information with the media that closely resembles this group of people or businesses. Monitor the results. Remember you are paying for all the circulation or coverage of the media you choose. The less waste the better. The people that your advertising reaches are not likely to come to your restaurant, that’s wasted money. Shouldn’t you stop throwing away your hard earned marketing dollars?

• Video Blog: Dramatically Increase Your Sales & Profits Over The Next 12 Months Video Blog This video is part of a series of videos where I, Jonathan Munsell,...
• 10 strategies that are working in the tough restaurant economy Waiter, Bring Me a Fresh Idea 10 strategies that are working in the tough restaurant...
• Social Media Marketing for Restaurants - Video Presentation Jonathan Interviews Cynthia Richards, Social Media Marketing Expert on How To Successfully Use Twitter, Facebook,...