Wednesday, September 30, 2009

People Are Searching Online to Find Restaurants

How important is your restaurant's web presence?



According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in 2008 over 72.5% of the U.S. population was online (that’s OVER 220 MILLION Americans), and 70% of them use the Internet everyday. This means that most of your customers are looking for restaurants online, and many of them use Google to find a good place to eat.



I don't know if you are aware that Google has recently introduced a local search feature that detects your location and shows local results instead of global ones. What this means is that, for example, if somebody wants to find a Mexican restaurant near their home, they just have to type "Mexican restaurant" in the Google bar...



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...and Google will show them a list with the top 10 Mexican restaurants nearby. No need for them to even tell Google where they are located. Google knows.



Now, if you happen to own the ONLY Mexican restaurant in town, you probably don't need to worry about showing up in the top-ten list. However, chances are that your restaurant is not the only one in your category so you better start working on your web presence or people won't find you online!



In addition of showing the list with the names of the top 10 restaurants, Google also displays their websites, their phone numbers, and the number of reviews that people made. It is just one click away to read what people have to say about your restaurant:





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So, OK now you get that you should show up in the Google searches when somebody looks for your restaurant’s cuisine, now what should you do to make sure that your restaurant shows up in the top-ten list?



To start, you should make sure that your restaurant has a decent website. This is a basic requirement. It is not enough to show up in Citysearch, Metaflavor or Yelp. If you’ve noticed, all the restaurants in my search have their own websites.



Also, your website should be informative and very easy to navigate. It should contain the following components:



✔ Your complete menu with prices



✔ Photos of your dishes



✔ Your location: address (with a map), and phone number



✔ Hours of operations



✔ Information about other services: catering, special events, cooking classes, etc.



✔ The option of making online reservations directly from your site (very important for many people)



✔ An online form to capture your prospect's name, email, birthdays and anniversaries (essential requirement to email them promotions and attract them to your place)



✔ Press releases, testimonials of happy clients



✔ etc.


In addition, you should promote your site so that it scores high in the Google natural search results. How do you do that? This is a whole new topic (it is called SEO) but basically you should have as many cross references to your site as possible from other sites and social networks: blogs, reviews, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

You can sign for a free account in Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and start blogging about your place. You can write about your dishes, your staff, your wines, or beers, about geography (country, region) and culture of your restaurant’s food or any other information that could be interesting for your clients.

Of course this blog will have links to your website. You can even link this blog so that it also publishes to your website at the same time…

Also, open a free Facebook account and populate it with content. Link it to your website. Open another one in MySpace. Do the same with Twitter and tweet away information, discounts, timely coupons, etc. Don’t forget to point people to your website as well in Twitter.

There are many other ways to promote your website. I will cover some in future blogs.

In the meantime, get to work.

✔ Google your restaurant’s cuisine and check if your website shows up in the top 10.

✔ Review your current site and start improving it with all the necessary requirements to make it attractive, useful and easy to navigate.

✔ Open an account in Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and start a blog. Link it to your website.

✔ If you don’t already have, open accounts in the various social networks and create your restaurant page.

✔ Open an account in Twitter (or tweet away if you have one).

Link all of your offerings back to your website and in a few weeks, check again. You should start showing up in the top 10 restaurants for your category. This is what you want. This will attract you new customers.

Happy meals,

Jose L Riesco

http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com




Friday, September 25, 2009

Simplify Your Life: Optimize Your Restaurant Operations (1st part)

Restaurant_Process.pngThis is the second blog of the Simplify Your Life series. The main concept behind these series is to give you some ideas to help you simplify your workload (and your life!) AND in the process, improve your business.

I my previous blog, I mentioned that you need to reduce the number of items in your menu. In this one, I will talk about simplifying your operations.

Operations in a restaurant are all the actions that happen from the moment that you open your doors in the morning, until the moment when you close them at night.

For simplicity purposes, I will split the operations in two separate components:

1. Your front of the house: whatever is visible to your customers.

2. You back of the house operations: what happens behind your restaurant doors that your customers are unaware of, but that it is essential for the smooth working of your restaurant.

In this blog, I will focus only on number one: the front of the house operations that covers from the moment than a customer makes a reservation (online, on the phone or in person) to the moment that they leave your place and everything between.

Every single aspect of your operations should work like a well-oiled machine; without hiccups and without your staff needing to wait and think how to act in each moment that something unexpected happens.

Often, restaurant owners and managers spend an incredible amount of time troubleshooting problems and dealing with customers complains and issues.

So what can you do to avoid this trap?

First, you must document all your current processes. I know that this may sound like a tedious task but trust me; it is important. You can’t improve your current processes if you don’t know what they are.

Just sit at your computer start writing down how do you currently handle your bookings:

Online from your site: do you have an easy and efficient way to manage online bookings? If not you should consider one. You should check www.bookingangel.com or some other online reservation system.

On the phone: Does your staff have a consistent and polite way to answer the phone?

Create a nice message and write it down. Make sure that you include the following points:

☛ “Hello, this is restaurant XXXXX” (Pronounce clearly the name of your restaurant), “How can WE help you?” (It is better to use we than I since it creates a sense of community)

☛ Make sure that you capture their name (ask to spell to make sure it is correct), contact's phone number, AND ask the reason of the visit and if they are coming for any special occasion.

This is very important. Most of the times when I make a reservation, the host(ess) don’t ask me why I am visiting the restaurant. If this is a special occasion, (birthday, anniversary, some celebration, etc.) make sure to write it down in the reservations book or online system so that you can greet and compensate your clients as appropriate.

☛ Repeat back to the clients the booking information: their names and phone numbers, the date and time and the reason for their visit. Not only this will avoid you misunderstandings, but your prospects will be happy to know that you are acknowledging the reservation, and you paid attention to them.

In person: Basically, follow the same rules than on the phone.

NOTE: Make sure that the person answering the phone or taking the reservation in person is smiling to the prospects. Even thought the phone, one can detect when somebody is genuinely happy and it makes the whole experience more pleasant.

In my next blog I will continue with the operations and talk about what to do when people arrive to your place.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco

© Riesco Consulting Inc.

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Follow me in Twitter:www.twitter.com/jlriesco

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Simplify Your Life: Reduce Your Restaurant Menu Items

rack_of_lamb.jpgIn these times of economic uncertainty, it is easy to get lost in trying to do many things all at once. A good example is restaurateurs trying to manage their inventories, their staff, their operations, their books, their sales, their marketing...

Do you know anybody like that? I thought so.

This is the first of a series of blogs covering simplification. You need to simplify your life and focus on just a few basic core competences to make your restaurant the best it can be to stand out from your competitors.

So let's start with your menu: do you have many menu items? If so, perhaps you should think about reducing the number of dishes that you offer.

Frequently restaurateurs think that having many choices is better for their customers, when the opposite is often true. The best restaurants in the world have limited selections with all around excellent offerings.

With large menu choices, the quality is often uneven since it is almost impossible to equally master all the dishes. It also becomes a nightmare to manage the inventory, probably your servers struggle to remember all the dishes (and components), and your customers get often confused with so many choices.

Perhaps you should take a hard look at your menu and reduce the items to just your basic signature dishes. Not only you will avoid that your clients order menu items that are less than exceptional, but fewer dishes mean that they will be easier to remember (making them; thus, memorable) the next time that your clients come over for lunch or dinner.

Having a short and exquisite menu allows your kitchen to focus on providing exceptional quality, reduces your inventory (and perhaps you can even get a volume discount since you will be ordering more of the same items), and makes it easier for your servers and your clients to remember.

There are other secondary advantages such as less programming in your computer or point of sale, better track of what items are selling the best, easier to create the paper menus (with larger font), etc., but the essential point is that your restaurant will be associated in your customer's mind to a few exceptional dishes. And this is what you want.

If you agree with me, I would suggest that you meet with your Chef (or cook) and go over your menu, eliminating dishes that are less than great until you focus on a few appetizers, salads, entrees, and desserts. Cut down everything else.

Believe me when I tell you that people, your customers, will love to go to your restaurant to eat just a few great dishes. The best restaurants in the wold are famous for one or two dishes that they cook to perfection. No need to reinvent the wheel and try to please everybody.

It is better to have faithful clients that come to your place continually looking for your signature dishes, than trying to please everybody by increasing the number of dishes that you offer, just to have everybody leaving your place with just an OK experience. The world is full of mediocre restaurants; you don't want to belong to this category. You want to make yours exceptional.

This is the only way to stand out from your competitors.

We will cover other aspects of simplification (operations, sales, marketing, etc.) in later blogs.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Follow me in Twitter:www.twitter.com/jlriesco

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Restaurant Marketing Strategies: Surprise Your Clients Today

pleasant-surprises.jpgWhen your clients go to your restaurant, they are looking forward to enjoy good food, good service, and usually to share a good conversation with friends, colleagues, or family members.



They expect to be taken care of, and to have a pleasant experience; what they don’t expect is to be surprised.



Usually, people like consistency when they are eating out, but this can play in your favor if you can provide them with an unexpected and enjoyable surprise.



It doesn’t have to be something amazing or expensive. It is more about the “wow” factor of a pleasant non-expected act from you that will make the eating experience memorable for your clients.

I will give you an example. A friend of mine, manager of an Italian restaurant located in Seattle bought a prosciutto to eat at home. He paid with his own money but asked the providers to deliver it to him at the restaurant.

Since he loves prosciutto, he started cutting the ham to get a taste of it. Then he though that it will be a good idea to share it with the people eating at the restaurant, so he asked one of the cooks to cut fine slices of prosciutto. He then offered it to the clients with compliments from the house.

Needless to say, his idea was a success and welcomed with open arms (or I guess mouths in this case). People were really happy to get a sample of prosciutto that they didn’t order, and specially didn’t have to pay for.

To make a long story short, this restaurant gives away now regularly complementary prosciutto to their best clients, and they just love it!

This is just an example of the many things that you can do to surprise your clients. Here you have some other ideas:

• Buy some flowers and give a flower to each woman in your restaurant.

• Buy very small bottles and fill them with extra virgin olive oil (you can buy it bulk at a very good price), then make a hole in one of your restaurant’s business cards and tie it with a ribbon (or ask one person from your staff to do it) around the neck o the bottle. Give one to your best customers for them to take home. They will love it.

By the way, you can also do this with any nice container filled with a special sauce that you use in your restaurant or some spices, etc. You get the idea.

• Create little snacks made with olives, dried fruits, nuts, or some other appetizer that your restaurant may serve. Give them to people who order a wine or a cocktail. They will happily eat them and will order more drinks from you.

• Print copies of two or three of your best recipes in a nice paper and give them to people ordering the dish. Put the name of your restaurant, your website, and the phone number. They will love it and keep it. And don’t worry about giving away your secrets. Most people are too lazy (or afraid) to cook even if they have the directions so you won’t be losing any business.

• Etc.

These are just a few ideas of things that you can do for little money to surprise your clients. You and your staff should come up with many more…

To conclude: here is an idea for you: Why don’t you establish the “Best idea for a surprise” weekly context and promote it among your employees? You can offer the winner a complementary meal, a movie ticket, or any other small reward. On exchange, you will get your staff involved in the process and very motivated to help you out.

It is a win-win situation for you, your business, your employees and most important, your clients. They will leave your place very happy and will be coming to your place again and again, looking forward to get surprised. As a bonus they will tell everybody how great it is to have dinner at your place!



Happy surprises,

Jose L Riesco

© Riesco Consulting Inc.

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Follow me in Twitter:www.twitter.com/jlriesco

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

My Book is for Sale in Amazon Now

RMS_cover.jpg
Today was a very intense day.

First, I had a very interesting interview/conversation with Jenna Lloyd. She is an online marketing consultant and copywriter who just launched a very interesting offer for restaurant owners and managers. It is is called My Internet Manager and it is basically a hands off approach to online marketing aimed to restaurant owners and managers.

So we talk for 1 hour and 15 minutes about online marketing, how to use social media to promote your restaurant and know what people are talking about your business, etc.

You can listen for free to the complete audio interview here: http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com/Audio/JennaLloydInterview.html

At the end of the recording, she made a very generous offer to all my readers. You can find more information about her product and a very generous discount offer here: www.myinternetmanager.com/Jose

If you would like to subscribe to her restaurant online marketing offering, you can enter the following discount code (when you are in the shopping cart): 88F8D2 and you'll receive a discount of $200!!

But that's not all; while I was talking to Jenna, the UPS truck came and dropped off 30 author copies of my new Restaurant Marketing Strategies book. To my surprise, a friend told me that it is already available in Amazon. com and Barnes & Noble online.

You can find (and hopefully purchase) the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Restaurant-Marketing-Strategies-Dramatically-Spending/dp/0981935117/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252113817&sr=8-5

and here:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Restaurant-Marketing-Strategies/Jose-Luis-Riesco/e/9780981935119/?itm=1

The book came out pretty good. It contains really valuable and logical marketing strategies to help you improve your restaurant marketing (and business!). Check it out.

Now, I need a rest to enjoy the long (and rainy) weekend.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
©Riesco Consulting Inc.

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Follow me in Twitter:www.twitter.com/jlriesco

CLICK HERE TO TWEET!