@Spirocks

restaurant marketing

Sell Yes? Hell Yes.

What is a special request?

Its a momentary fork in the road, something that jumps up unpredicted, and can catch any of us off guard. That can scare, vex, and distract you, which is precisely why so many react with a negative emotion that is best indicated by a single two letter word. NO.

That’s the temptation which envelops and holds back so many, the magnetism of the ability to say no.

Let’s teach them a lesson. Who do they think they are? Who would want it that way?

Chefs do you recognize this emotion? Who else literally works in front of fire, dealing with randomly placed and unpredictable orders, some of which have at best half-witted requests on them?

Sell Yes.

That’s right, if you can say yes, just say yes. Then turn someone else’s weird taste, relative ignorance about flavors and combinations, or just boring preference into a profit for you and your co-workers.

It is literally just as hard if you say no, in fact, the tension it creates actually makes it worse when you refuse.

Now, I get it, sometimes it comes at the worst most stressful time. Here is what the best Chef’s I know do, they laugh at the absurdity, or post it on the wall with a collection of absurd requests, etc.

We open the door, we don’t control who walks through it.

When we sell yes, we enjoy our lives more, and make someone’s weird cravings go away.

Win. Win. Win.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Embracing Change to Improve Your Restaurant’s Business

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You don’t read about marketing to gain insight on maintaining your status quo, you read to learn how to improve your restaurant’s business. All of us seek out ideas, strategies, and technologies that can affect change on the success of our business. That success could be the bottom line, the well being of our employees, or the satisfaction of our customers. In any light it is improved success that we are after.

To get there we seek change, and must lead our teams to accept, embrace, and crave it.

This change after all is not change for change’s sake, it is based on several analytical studies, among them:

  • Our Organization’s Data from successful sales and failed leads.
  • Interpretation of Market Opportunities and unfulfilled demand.
  • Employee and Customer feedback from the POS interactions.

So the change I speak of is another way of saying improvement or strategic positioning.

Am I supposed to do all this for my restaurant?

If you want to improve, yes you are.

  • You should be using the sales data on menu items to sort through the winners and losers, you should be tieing that data into the food cost of each menu item so you can emphasize the winners and work on the losers. Also how many private dining requests came in last month, how many did you book, what was the reason that those that did not book decided to go elsewhere?
  • You should be looking at your city like a consumer; to decide if there is a market opportunity. Like a town that had lines out the door for Sunday breakfast might cry out for an affordable brunch.
  • You should be constantly getting feedback from employees about what the customers are asking for, what they are loving, and what they were not so keen on.

Yes, these things will guide you to the points of change that you need to make, to keep your business getting better, growing, and becoming more successful.

Did someone say #Brunch today? Andolini's gets it going at 11am... #Andover

Employees often resist Change, your job is to lead them through it.

One of the hardest parts of doing something new is that it is unproven, and those who rely on a paycheck based on the current way of doing things often resist and/or subconsciously sabotage the new process. An entrepreneurial leader is one who will face the unknown, take a leap of faith in the decision that was made, and have earned the faith of the company’s employees so that they too believe and will work toward a successful change.

You must build an environment that allows you and your employees to connect with each other over the opportunity ahead of you, an environment that is sustained by trust.

Your employees are your most valuable resource, the genesis of your organization’s strength, and the greatest determinator of your success. You should engage them in the changes you make, let them take part in the determination of what ultimately is the final change, and also reap some of the benefits of the success you foster together.

In this way you are not their Boss, you are investing in them as a partner, and you engage with them on a level of mutual dignity. That should be the goal.

Next: Explain the Change to Your Audience.

Your audience, in truth, is a combination of the following groups:

  • Your current customers
  • The potential customers that exist in your market
  • Your employees

Some of your current customers may be adverse to change and the unknown that it brings. They may be attached to something that is changing or taken out of their comfort zone for another reason by the change. It is important to be clear and direct, avoiding ambiguities and outlining the positives of the change.

On the other hand your potential customers first need to hear about the change so that they know about this new offering that is aimed at them. When they hear about it, you should have the reasons outlined why they will love it, told from their perspective. Why is this what is missing from their lifestyle?

The employees are your ambassadors, they will be face to face with customers when they are asked what the Change is all about. If you do not give them the information they need, your change will be a muddled mess of interpretations not based on anything other than speculation. This is a major fail on your part.

Here is an example of how I addressed a major Change at my Restaurant to all these groups: http://andolinisrestaurant.com/brunch/

In Short, Change is a Challenge which when conquered results in Success.

What does your business need? I would love to talk about it.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

The Social Feed and Employees

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How does your social feed embrace your employees? Does it at all?

These are the questions you should ask yourself. Are you tagging employees in pictures of the product of their labors, are you recognizing the fact that many hands are involved in creating what your business accomplishes? Do you thank, mention, and acknowledge in your social feeds?

Here are some reasons you should: 

  1. People who love doing a good job, like to know it is appreciated. And keeping great employees is the first step at keeping customers coming back. Be the leader they want to work for, one that gives them love.
  2. Social Media is public, and employees of other businesses in your area are watching. They will be more likely to want to work for you if they see you building your team up.
  3. Your employees have friends and family that want to see there work life celebrated too, these are not only sources of positive reinforcement but also potential customers who are looking to embrace those that support their loved ones.
  4. These employees are the faces of the story of your business that the community will want to embrace, a cocktail without a bartender is not the same experience. Celebrate your story, and the characters that make it unique.

There are tens of thousands of reasons to involve your Social Feed and Employees. These are just a few. Above you can see Mike, Spencer, and I having some fun at Sauce. If you wore your Jorts in that Thursday you got a free hand cut french fry… see those Jorts are worth something!

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Tip: Consistently Communicate with Customers

Marketing a restaurant is a game of consistency, you can’t post/email thirty two things in the next 15 minutes and then take two months off. You know that. Yet it is still likely the case that you find yourself with gaps in your communications, lapses in the connection with your customers that helps drive business through your door. What you need is a plan, a system that helps you simplify, and I have one for you. 

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See What I do on Instagram and Twitter by following @spirocks on both. 

Restaurant Marketing Simplification System:

First you need a base that you control, a place where you can guarantee the rules won’t change and affect all the work you have put in. That is your website/blog, and I spelled out the reasons here: ( Don’t Just Rent Your Friends ) If your restaurant website does not have a blog section, you should make that project number 1.

  1. Create a Blog on your website: Your blog is going to be the place where you create the content that is spread throughout your social networks and email lists.
  2. Create a Mailchimp Account. Great news; they are free up to 2000 contacts so you can try this out with no risk. Mailchimp allows you to send RSS campaigns, which means that once you publish a blog post you have Mailchimp automatically create an email from it and email it out when you want, like say 10am on Friday. That’s it, email campaign done. 
  3. Decide the frequency with which you wish to contact your email list. Once you have that plan, all you need to do is create a post before the date and time (give it an hour early) you set in Mailchimp and you are done. Most people find creating a blog post a less cumbersome process than creating an email and best of all you kill two birds with one stone. 
  4. Social Network integration via Mailchimp allows you to connect your restaurant social accounts and post to them at the same time.

So there you have it a simple way to create great content once, on a platform you control, and get it distributed free to everywhere it needs to be.

How frequently to post to your social networks:

In addition to the above, I suggest having a plan for social media only posts, as you should post to them more frequently than you email. So say you have a new special every Tuesday, share a picture of that with a simple one line description.

One great place to do this is through instagram, where you can take a photo of a special appetizer for example and share it to not only instagram, but also facebook, twitter, flickr, and tumblr all at the same time. Maybe I will write another post on that if you are interested.

Got any tips on how you streamline your restaurant’s online marketing? I would love to hear.

_Summer_isn_t_over_yet.__Boston_and_beyond_soak_it_in.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

New Tools Proliferate for Restaurant Marketing and Operations

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It is an exciting time for Restaurant Technology, new tools designed to identify the best customers, employees, and facilitate both groups are ready to help you. It can be a bit complex but if you can see through the technical haze to a future that has these technologies built in, it is an exciting idea to be sure.

Here is what I am doing:

I am Currently testing out and designing products for my own restaurants and those of my clients. To be sure, some of these new ideas will not be developed well, only proper testing and experimenting can weed those out from the standouts that will become the pillars of the burgeoning restaurant technology industry. It is time that we had tools to quantify, evaluate, and define a path to serving guests better, and managing employees in ways that embolden and reward them for their success.

The Big Four Ideas: 

1) I am working on the implementation of “card less” loyalty program that integrate with a restaurant’s POS system and the cloud to deliver customer data to the restaurant operator and loyalty bonuses to the customer without paperwork or manual tracking. A text message capable phone is all the customer needs to enroll, claim points, and redeem them. Dead simple and the backend tracking is amazing.

2) Online ordering is old news, but truly mobile online ordering with Amazon like ease of order is not. These days your customers need to be able to order from their phone without fumbling for credit cards or using  laptop. There are several new tools that provide just that.

3) New POS integrations allow for service staff to compete for better shifts on a variety of metrics like check average, dessert sales, attendance, and other manager set goals. This is part of a current trend in management and motivation called the Game-ification of the workplace. It is very exciting and has roots right here in Boston.

4) Online hiring and application tools ask all the questions and help you sort through applicants to find the best fits for your labor needs. You don’t have to do it the old fashioned way anymore. I am building a recruiting and application platform for my business that takes care of regulations and gathers applicants to fill openigns that before I would have to manage piecemeal.

What new technologies are you using, or are you interested in?

The time is now to take advantage and focus on delivering amazing experiences to your guests, this is the food business not the database business after all.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Twitter Contest for Restaurant Marketing

Running a little contest on Twitter for Sauce Wings:

Here are the entrants:

 

 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Video Marketing Example for Restaurants

We are always looking to find ways to use video for restaurant marketing.

Each video has a common goal which is to highlight that which makes the restaurant unique, and when you use video to market your restaurant you should do the  same. Where video stands head and shoulders above the other mediums you may choose is the human aspect, you get a feel for the person in the video and that is a key part of connecting with your audience. I have said this before but you can not be marketing the fact that you have food and drink. If you are doing that you are wasting your time. Most likely there is a subway or other processed food vendor that is selling cheap calories somewhere around you.

They have food and drink.

Your restaurant marketing should be about the things that set you apart, the one of a kind things that make your restaurant a unique destination and a value to the community that it is in. One thing that makes it that way is the people who make and serve the food and drink, it is their passion for the process and the end product that is of interest and value to the audience. Your restaurant marketing should be highlighting these things, and naturally the food and drink will be noted.

Here is and example of Video Marketing for Restaurants:

As you can see, this is as much about Lindsay, and the Process, as the product. It is an invitation to come see her and the rest of the staff. Video allows a window into what it would be like to sit at the bar and have Lindsay make a cocktail for you, it is personal and only possible in person or on video.

Have you used video for your business marketing or are you thinking about it? If you want ideas for how it could work for your particular business, just ask, its what I love to do.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Restaurant Marketing Cheat Sheet

Here are some quick hit tweaks to your online presence that will get you found:

  1. Info people want should be front and center: Menu – Hours – Address – Phone Number. All on mobile ready pages. Get it done.
  2. Check your info on the big referrers, Google Local, Yelp, etc I recently found one of my places had a wrong phone number on Yelp.
  3. Think like a customer when you write blog posts, what are they looking for when they search? “Rehearsal Dinner Locations in Malden”
  4. Photos have been shown to drive trafic and are particularly powerful with Food. Always Use them.
  5. Talk about why you love what you do, not how cheap you are willing to sell it.
  6. Make sure your brand has a message and stick to it, don’t try to be everything to everyone. Be your brand.
  7. Respond to customer requests and issues, make them right, let them and others see you are responsive.
  8. Monitor your reviews for fake competitor driven ones, Yelp is particularly bad for this.
  9. Share whats new on a regular basis, don’t put a hard sell on it, just share it.
  10. Remember that you are not just selling food, you are selling a social experience and/or a service just as much.

You can get a lot of bang for your online marketing buck (and time) if you use these tweaks to adjust what you already do. It doesn’t all have to be technical and complicated, its still human interaction.

@spirocks on Twitter 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.