Restaurant Marketing Top 20 Questions and Answers Free Videos

Hello everyone,

Today, after a long and hard work, I finally managed to finalized and upload to my website 20 videos (actually there are 3 extra ones but these don't count) with questions and answers about restaurant marketing.

You see? For several months now I've compiled questions and concerns that restaurateurs, just like yourself, asked me when they subscribed to my free Restaurant Marketing Strategies Newsletter and Book Summary.

Then, I've categorized the questions and selected the top 10 questions that restaurateurs asked me. To answer the questions, I've created 10 short videos (2 to 5 minutes each).

But I still wanted to do more to help you with your marketing, so I decided to create another 10 videos with the top questions that restaurateurs should ask me about Restaurant Marketing and my answers to these. These 10 additional Questions and Answers follow the chapters of my Restaurant Marketing Strategies Book.

So the total number of videos is 20 and the best of all is that they are all free for you to get.

That's right; you just need to go to my website www.myrestaurantmarketing.com and enter your name and email and you will get right away the first video as well as my Restaurant Marketing Strategies Book Summary.

You will also get subscribed to my Restaurant Marketing Strategies monthly newsletter.

I hope that you find the videos useful. Again, they are all free for you.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Having Other People Writing Content for Your Restaurant's Blog, Website or Newsletter

So you have a website and, since you have done your homework, you have also a subscription form where you capture your visitor's names and email on exchange from some freebies or discounts to try your restaurant (because you do this don't you?).

So now what can you do with all these names and emails?

Well, of course, you are going to send them newsletters, or emails or refer them to your blogs to keep your restaurant fresh in their minds.

But, who has the time to write all the content for the newsletter or blog?

You can write some of it, specially if you talk about your new staff, your offers, events or any other special celebration that happens at your place since this is your turf as the restaurant owner or manager.

So what can you do if you don't have any event or special celebration or any other interesting news to share with your clients?

Easy: you can borrow content.

Yes, that's right; there are hundreds if not thousands of bloggers out there who write regularly (unfortunately I am not one of them, I should dedicate some more time to write my blogs) and will be more than happy to share their content with you, on exchange for a link in your website or acknowledgment of their contribution

Whatever topic you can think of, there are somebody in the blogosphere writing about it.

So think about topics that you can include in your regular emails or newsletters, or if you have a blog yourself, in your blog.

For example do you have an ethnic restaurant? Then you can write about your country, or your specific region or about some interesting information about the foods and drinks that you sell in your restaurant.

What about if you have an all American restaurant or a fast food place? You can still write interesting facts about your area, recipes related with the food that you serve, etc.

So where can you find bloggers willing to share their stories with you?

Fortunately there are many resources available in the Web that can help you find the perfect blog for your content.

You may want to check out http://www.blogcatalog.com/ it is one of the largest blog directories on the Internet.

If you want to use the king of search engines, Google also has a blog specific search engine. You can find it at: http://blogsearch.google.com/

Another popular way to search the blogosphere is Technorati. In their directory at: http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/ you can find a Food and Wine category that can help you out.

These are just a few examples, there are many more. Just do a search, browse the blogs and, when you find one that talks about topics that you think would be interesting for your clients, contact the blogger and offer to publish their blog in your site/newsletter/email/website on exchange for full credit and a link to their own blog. Most of them would be very happy to do so.

So here you have it. Keep in touch with your clients and get free content to share with them.

This is a win/win proposition.

Happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Your Restaurant Marketing Needs to Be Creative in This Economy

In an economy where many people are trying to reduce spending, going out to eat is probably one of the first expenses to cut. Many restaurants are feeling the slowdown and seeing their revenues plummet these days.

So what can restaurateurs do to bring customers back?

First, let me tell you what you shouldn't do: You shouldn't reduce your marketing efforts to save money. Notice that I've said marking efforts, not marketing expenses.

Most restaurateurs are spending a lot in marketing without getting a good return of their investments. They are basically wasting their money.

So first thing that you need to do is sit down and look at all your marketing expenses. Make a list and eliminate the ones that you can't measure and test. If the results are not tangible, you shouldn't spend your money on them.

Next, categorize the rest starting with the ones that work the best and make sure that you keep on investing in these ones. Cutting down effective marketing campaigns is a big mistake in times of crisis, when customers need to hear from you more than ever.

Finally, try to come up with creative new marketing ideas that can bring you results and don't need big investments.

Think for example how can you motivate your current customers so that they come back to your place. What incentives can you give them to bring them over again and again? Most people think coupons but there are many other mechanisms to keep people coming to your place. Here you have a few ideas:

• Create a wine club and offer discounts in selected wines to your best clients.
• Offer to reserve their favorite table if they book the place right after they finish their meals and before they leave your restaurant. Many people really love to have dinner in a specific table.
• Make easy for them to make reservations via your website, OpenTable, Twitter, etc.
• Offer them a special dish and tell them that it is not available to the regular customers, only to select clients (just like them). You can have a special dish made just for your best clients. People love to feel special.
• If they don't drink a whole bottle of wine, offer to give them a good wine by the glass that you normally don't serve. You can use the same bottle for your frequent clients. Pick a good quality wine and don't overcharge them for it. You can even charge them to just make a little profit. The idea is to attract them back so that they have a motivation to come to your place.

These are just a few ideas. As you can see, they don't cost much to implement and can motivate your best clients to come back to your place.

Do you have more ideas? Share them in the comments field.

Happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Restaurant Inefficiencies

Yesterday I went with my wife to meet some friends in the bar of a restaurant. It was Friday night and, although the crisis, the bar was packed. Perhaps because it was 5:15 p.m.: Happy Hour time.

The bar was just next to (and open to) the, restaurant, which was almost empty, just two tables were busy. So we went around trying to find our friends but they weren't there yet. One restaurant manager came to us and told us that if wanted to enjoy the Happy Hour, we needed to wait in line. There was already a line of people forming by the entrance.

I politely asked the manager why they didn't use the restaurant space, since it was empty and was still too early for dinner anyway. They could sit people there and tell them that happy hour will finish at 6 p.m. (which it did) and after that time they needed to leave the restaurant area and relocate to the bar if tables were needed. Probably by 6 p.m. many of the people in the bar would be done anyway because it was the ending time of the happy hour.

I thought that this was a fair agreement and we would be totally willing to take it. However, the guy looked at me like I was speaking Klingon. "Sorry Sir", he told me, "but we can't do that. The restaurant is for dinner only". He took our names and asked us to wait.

Obviously, most of the people who were sited to enjoy the Happy Hour just arrived so they weren't going to leave anytime soon.

Many of the people in the line behind us started to leave the place. Many other people came, asked, and then when told that they will have to wait also left.

One of our friends came and we talked about going somewhere else. Since we were next in line, we agreed that she will leave and looked around to find available space. Five minutes later, she called us and told us that she found available tables in a restaurant located one block from there. Of course, we also left the place and join her over there.

Now, think about it. This place had plenty of people leaving because they didn't fit in the bar. It also had around 40 empty tables "waiting for people who may come or not for dinner".

They were leaving money walking out the door!

Does this make any sense to you? It surely doesn't make it to me.

They were blindly following some nonsensical rule that dinner tables were only for dinner, and letting people walk away while having empty tables. It would've been so easy for them to follow my recommendations and use the restaurant space... Instead, they preferred to stick to their guns and let people leave the place unhappy.

Now, if you follow my blogs, newsletters or read my book, you know how important is for restaurants to make their clients feel happy and special.

Do you think that they accomplished that? I don't think so, I'm surely won't go back to that place.

There is plenty of restaurants with bars and happy hours to make me happy without to be waiting in line next to empty tables.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

How Customers Are Looking for Restaurants

If you think that your potential customers will find your restaurant in the Yellow Pages, think again.

First watch this video, and then keep on reading...




Did you get it? People, (and not only young people, this also includes your potential customers) go online to look for places to eat. No more browsing in the paper ads or opening the thick yellow book. No Sire.

The Web not only provides them with information regarding the offers around them, but also gives them a map with the location, photos of the place, directions to get there and the most important, opinions from other people about the restaurants.

You can spend fortunes in marketing printing ads in newspapers and magazines, buying half pages (or whole pages) in the Yellow Pages, advertising on the radio, etc. but nobody really cares. Your customers are not looking there, they are looking online. They use the Web to search for the best places to eat.

So what can you do to attract them to your restaurant? Simple; have a great website with lots of useful information, but more important, have great reviews from anybody who goes to eat at your place.

And how do you do that? The answer is simple in words and difficult in execution: Make everybody who goes to eat at your place very happy. Exceed their expectations. Deal with any potential issue generously and never, never argue with a client, even if they are wrong. You will regret it later on because they will let the whole world how bad your place is.

And guess what all these people who are looking for restaurants online will read? Exactly, how bad your place is.

Don't make that mistake. Think about any complementary food that you need to give away as a marketing expense. Just make everybody happy and don't give them any room for complains. This is the only way to have great online reviews, this is your advertising and all your marketing should revolve around this idea.

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Restaurant Marketing: Do you know your customers?

Do you know your customers? No really; do you?

Often restaurateurs market to the wrong people instead of trying to target their message to their core customer base.

Again, who are your customers? Think about it, this is important for your marketing.

If you have a fast food place, your customers could be almost anybody (even Warren Buffet eats once in a while at McDonald's) but they all have some common expectations such as:

• They want a quick meal
• They want a cheap meal
• They want it delivered fast

If you, on the other hand, have a family friendly restaurant your audience is looking for something different:

• Kids menus
• Good food for adults also
• Perhaps some alcoholic beverages for the parents
• Moderately fast service
• etc.

What about if you have a medium to upper scale restaurant? Then your customers will be looking for:

• Good food
• Quite environment so that they can talk and converse
• Perhaps romantic or elegant ambience
• Soft background music
• Good drinking list: wines, beers, spirits, etc.
• Slow service so that they have time to enjoy their meals and conversations,
• etc.

So you see? If you have a family restaurant, it is probably a waste of money marketing to singles or professionals looking for a quite atmosphere to conduct their business... And viceversa. Families don't care about fancy restaurants where they will be uncomfortable with their kids and will make the rest of the customers uncomfortable as well.

If you know your audience, you can totally target your marketing efforts to them: your advertising, your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), your offers and discounts, your communication... they should all talk directly to your customers. They should be totally targeted to your core audience. Don't waste your money, your time and your customer's time trying to offer them something that they are not interested in.

You will both benefit.

Happy sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Why Restaurant Marketing is So Important for Your Business

Many restaurateurs spend most of their time running the daily operations: inventory control and ordering, making sure that the place is clean, that the employees turns are in order, that the broken dishwasher gets fixed, etc.

There are a million tasks that form part of the daily routine of running a restaurant business. All are important and all of them need to be taken care of.

However, there is usually one task that most of the restaurateurs are happy to delegate: their restaurant marketing.

Most restaurateurs are not very business savvy people. They open their restaurants because they love to cook and to mingle with their customers. They naïvely think that offering good food at reasonable prices is enough to attract customers to fill their tables…

The reality check is often brutal and leaves restaurant owners scratching their heads in disbelief, wondering why their place is mostly empty while other nearby restaurants seem to be always full.

The problem is that the world is full of good restaurants. Competition in the restaurant business is brutal and, if you own a restaurant you should know that is not enough to offer good food. You also must compete with many other restaurants that are often wiser than you investing their marketing dollars.

So, if marketing is so important, why is that restaurateurs are more than happy to give their marketing budget away to sales reps?

You know whom I mean. These are the sales people who flock to restaurants always offering a good deal, although “You must act now because the next issue is going to print and you are going to miss it!”

You know what? Miss it! It is probably a waste of money anyway.

I’ve just started coaching a restaurant. When I sat with the owner and we did an inventory of all his marketing expenses, his eyes almost popped out of the sockets.

He is spending more than $3,000 USD a month in mostly useless marketing. And the best part is that, until now, he never did an analysis of the return of investment that his marketing expenses are bringing him.

You don’t need to be a marketing genius to expend your marketing budget wisely, just follow one simple rule. Just one. If you follow this rule and do nothing else, I guarantee you that your marketing will improve dramatically.

Ok are you ready?

The rule is: Never invest in any marketing that you can’t track and measure the results.

That’s it: Very simple, very straightforward and very logical.

If a sales rep comes to your place and ask you to place an ad in his newspaper, or directory or whatever he is selling you, just ask them: How can you guarantee me that if I spend $1,000 with you, you will give me at least $1,500 in business?

If all they offer you is their word that their ads work, just ask him to guarantee it in writing. If their marketing is really effective, they shouldn’t be afraid to back it up with a solid guarantee. However, I can assure you, they won’t do it. And you know why? Because they can’t.

Most of the traditional restaurant marketing only benefits the advertising companies that produce it.

If they can guarantee you the results, go for it, you have nothing to lose and much to win. If not, think about other ways where you can track and measure your results.

It sounds simple but it requires that you have a marketing plan and stick to it.

Good luck!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Interactive Restaurant Marketing

I've just finished watching a 15 minutes video presented by Noah N. Glass, Founder and CEO of GoMobo about Interactive Restaurant Marketing.

The key takeaway is that 2/3 of the top restaurant marketers in attendance are spending less than 10% of their advertising budget online in a time when customers consume 41% of their media online.

Closing this gap is the key to thriving in a challenging economic climate by increasing marketing targeting and tracking. You wan to advertise and market where your clients are.

This marketing won't work as effectively for everybody:

It works specially well for restaurants that sell food to go or to pickup.

So what about if you have a sit-down restaurant? You can still benefit from many of the online marketing techniques such as sending electronic gift certificates to celebrate your best client's birthdays (or anniversaries) or announce special promotions or events.

Your website should be the forefront of your marketing efforts. You need to capture your customers information (email, phone number) and then act upon it to reach your customers and invite them to take action:

If you have delivery service or food to-go, you can just add an online ordering form to your site so that you make easy for your clients to order food directly from your restaurant.
If you don't have delivery or food to-go you still can use your site to email your best clients gift certificates or award programs as well as targeted deals, restaurant news, etc. (Of course you can do this as well for the food to go or delivery service).

In any case, a totally worthwhile 15 minutes of your time. You can watch the video here: Watch GoMobo's 15-Minute Video on Interactive Restaurant Marketing

Enjoy the Holidays!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

How Restaurants Should Respond to Customers Asking for Money for Charities

One question that often remains unanswered is what to do with all these people coming to your restaurant and asking for donations (gift certificates).

It seems like lots of people all the sudden think that it is a great idea to go to their favorite restaurant and ask the owners for gift certificates to donate to their children's schools, their churches or their preferred charities.

Of course, they don't realize that hundreds of customers and organizations have the same idea and ask for the same gifts. And perhaps they think that this sinking economy is not impacting your business.

And what can you do, poor restaurateur, but suffer the unpleasant experience of having to say NO to these, often pleasant and good people?

Don't despair. I have a couple of ideas for you to use next time that you get the happy solicitor asking you for a donation:

• If the solicitors are organizations with many people: school, hospital, church, charity, etc. Offer to give them many small gift certificates that don't cover your average price per customer. For example, if your average ticket is $25 per person, offer gift certificates for a value of $10. Also make sure that you clearly print on them that they can't be combined. You want to take advantage of this opportunity to give away coupons masked as gift certificates for a value less than your average check so that the customers coming will spend more money in your place.
• If the solicitors are individual customers. Offer to sell them the gift certificates at a discount. You can apply the same principle than before. You can sell them several $10 gift certificates for a value of $5 each. They can buy as many as they want but they have to give them or raffle them to many people (and not bundling them together) so that many people get to come and try your place. Tell them that you are contributing your share by giving them the discounts, but they also have to contribute theirs by paying for the difference. After all it's their idea and it should be their donation, not yours.

If you apply both techniques you will:

• Be happier because you won't have to say NO to a good cause
• Leverage your marketing by distributing gift certificates that will bring additional customers (who could be potential clients) to your place at a minimum cost

It is a win-win proposition.

Happy Sailing,

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

Bracing for a recession

These are tough times for everybody but perhaps restaurateurs are feeling the impact more than most other business since people are cutting down the eating out budget.

I read somewhere that the restaurants suffering the most are the middle priced ones. People who used to pay $20 to $30 for a meal are going now to fast food places to eat cheaper. Fancy restaurant clientele are not being affected that much by the crisis so they can still afford to go out to their favorite upscale restaurant and pay the fare.

So what can you do, if you have a small mid-priced restaurant to survive these down times?

Here are some suggestions for you:

• Look at your marketing budget and cut any expenses that you can't measure. This doesn't mean to cut down in marketing. Cutting down in marketing in slow times is a terrible idea, although for many restaurateurs is the first thing to do to save money. What you have to do is to make sure that your marketing dollars are working hard. If you don't know if a marketing campaign is working for you, then assume that it is not. For example, don't spend money advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio or Yellow Pages if you can't count how many customers these ads bring to your place. You need to make sure that you are making more revenue from the ads than you are spending in the advertising. This looks like an obvious thing but I can guarantee you that many restaurateurs never question or analyze their advertising expenses.
• Reduce your portions if you give lots of food in your dishes. Not only you'll be doing a favor to your customers (they really don't need to overeat these huge portions) but you will save in food costs. Reduce quantity and improve quality. Everybody will benefit.
• Look at your menu and see if you have dishes that give you very small profits (either because of the high cost of their ingredients or because they are very labor intensive and difficult to prepare). If so, replace them by dishes easier to make or that require less or more inexpensive ingredients. Again, you will save in food costs increasing this way your profit per sale.
• Keep an eye on your labor expenses. If you see that some days of the week are slower, reduce your employees these days. If you reduce your labor expenses, you will cope better with slow times since you won't spend in food if they don't eat.
• Spend extra time and energy pleasing your clients. They are your most important asset, more than your food or your chef or anybody else. If you don't have clients, nothing else matters. Period. Make them very welcome to your place, bend backwards to please them and try to always exceed their expectations. This is the best way to assure that they will come back.
• If you haven't done so, start a formalized referral system to bring back your best clients. Please read my previous blog to get more information about this point.
• Replace costly snail mail by communications via your website and email. This cost you nothing and will allow you to keep in touch with your clients more often.

These are just some ideas for you to implement. In these time of crisis, ingenuity and excellence go a long way to make sure that you'll be there when the economy recovers and hungry customers are looking for the best places to eat. Your restaurant should be always on top of their minds and their harts.

Good luck!

Jose L Riesco
© Riesco Consulting Inc.
www.twitter.com/jlriesco
http://www.myrestaurantmarketing.com