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A Guide to Building a Sunday Dinner Program

Spiro Pappadopoulos

group of people eating together

Sunday dinner at your restaurant can bring in extra weekend revenue and ensure your regulars keep coming back. So, how do you create the perfect Sunday dinner experience?

Let’s get started with a few tips:

➡️ Create a unique menu: Your Sunday dinner menu needs to offer choices that make customers keep coming back. You should focus on classic comfort foods with a modern spin or classic dishes from around the world. Think about menus that will attract multi-generation families as Sunday is frequently a family day.

➡️ Set an attractive ambiance: Warm lighting, high tables, and comfortable seating help create a cozy atmosphere ideal for Sunday dinner.

➡️ Offer attractive service: Unleash your customer service teams’ creativity – provide excellent service with a friendly, personal touch. What can you do differently within your concept on Sundays? A special Sunday-only touch will distinguish the service and make those who join you appreciate the Sunday effort.

➡️ Develop an attractive marketing strategy: Promote your Sunday dinner program on social media and websites. Utilize word-of-mouth and reviews to engage with your customers. Invite VIPs and regular guests to get the new service style started.

➡️ Pay attention to customer feedback: Guests’ feedback should always be considered when creating your Sunday dinner menu. Ask guests what would make Sunday dinner at your restaurant attractive.

➡️ Keep your price point attractive: Make your Sunday dinner affordable and appealing. A great price point can help you attract more guests and increase revenue. Larger family parties will be more likely to attend if they have an affordable way to do so.

➡️ Keep up with trends: Research trending topics and flavors to keep your Sunday dinner program fresh and appealing. Incorporate seasonal adjustments, make special menus for Holidays and try to include viral recipes (http://spirop.us/viral) in special one-off menus.

For more inspiration, check out a few ideas for successful Sunday dinner programs:

• An Italian restaurant with special Sunday hand-made pasta dishes and affordable wine bottles from a rotating Italian region.

• A Spanish restaurant offering a Sunday family-style paella and sangria pitcher dinner party.

• A Tavern serving hearty Prime Rib and potatoes anna on Sunday night only.

Now that you have a better idea of what could make a successful Sunday dinner program, it’s time to plan your menu! Get creative, and don’t forget to monitor customer feedback for guidance.

#Restaurant #SundayDinner #Marketing #Food #foodanddrink #lifestyleandleisure #MarketingStrategy #RestaurantManagement #RestaurantBusiness

Filed Under: Business, Food and Drink, Just Think Tagged With: marketing, restaurant marketing, restaurant promotion, small business marketing, social media marketing

How the NFL Playoffs Impact Restaurants

Spiro Pappadopoulos

selective focus close up photo of brown wilson pigskin football on green grass
With the NFL Playoffs upon us, it’s important for restaurant owners to understand how the demand for catering, reservations, and the influx of customers can directly affect their business.

The volume of reservations at restaurants across the US typically see a spike during the NFL playoffs, especially when a local team is in contention. This means restaurants should plan accordingly and make sure they are properly staffed and have adequate supplies and food on hand.

In addition to the spike in reservations, restaurant owners should also stay prepared for what customers will be expecting. Popular dishes for NFL playoffs include classic comfort food, fried favorites, and all the usual suspects such as buffalo wings, pizza and burgers. Catering can be a huge revenue source for gametime. 

Here are a few tips on turning catering orders into opportunities to maximize revenue:

🍗 Tailor a special menu that plays to the crowd. Having a game-day themed menu helps capture attention and adds a specialized touch.

💰 Offer party packages for large orders. This encourages customers to buy in bulk, increasing both your revenue and order volume.

🌐 Utilize online delivery services. These facilitate order and delivery, making the process easy and flexible.

🥣 Items like buffalo wings, pizza, burgers, chili, jambalaya, and salads are great options, as they require less maintenance and travel well.

💬 Reach out to customers in different ways. This can include emailing customers, hosting giveaways like catering gift cards or featured dishes on social media, or offering loyalty rewards.

Make sure to implement the right strategies to boost your catering business this NFL Playoff season and win customers’ business!

#restaurants #catering #foodbusiness #NFLPlayoffs

Filed Under: Business, Food and Drink, Just Think, Make Local Sell Local Tagged With: marketing, restaurant marketing, restaurant promotion, small business marketing, social media marketing

Restaurant Marketing Tools to Out-Perform in 2023

Spiro Pappadopoulos

According to Statista, in 2021, it was estimated that there were 32,027 full-service restaurant franchise establishments in the United States. This doesn’t include the many quick-service establishments, which are also sure to see a rise in numbers in the coming years.

With so many restaurants competing for customers, it’s essential to have a solid marketing strategy to stand out from the crowd. Modern marketing tools, such as social media marketing, can be incredibly useful for restaurants, helping to build brand awareness and making it easier for customers to find and access your establishment.

Other strategies, such as loyalty programs, special discounts and promotions, and creative content marketing, can also be great ways to ensure your restaurant stays competitive. It’s essential to keep up with trends and experiment with new ideas to see what works best for your business.

An effective social media marketing strategy starts with setting goals and attaching metrics to them. It is essential to research your target audience and conduct competitor research to determine the best channels to focus on. Unique and engaging content should be created to capture the attention of your target audience, and a content calendar should be designed to track your strategy’s performance.

Social media marketing can be challenging for small restaurant operations due to the time, resources, and effort it takes to do it well. However, the right tools can make the process much easier. Data analytics tools can help track the performance of your strategy, market research software can make researching your target audience simpler, social listening tools can help you research your competitors, and AI-powered content creation tools can assist with generating new content. All restaurants should build an online presence using social media and other digital marketing channels. By understanding the resources available and viewing it as a long-term project, the process can be achieved.

woman holding set of liquor drinks
Photo by ELEVATE on Pexels.com

Filed Under: Business, Food and Drink Tagged With: restaurant marketing, restaurant promotion, small business marketing, social media marketing

An Online Marketing Argument for Non-Believers

Spiro Pappadopoulos

I am writing today to those of you who don’t think your business would benefit, or those who are not taking part in your companies inevitable involvement in online marketing. So if this is you, take a few moments and read on.

Online Marketing Relies on the Interconnections between People Online

The following explanation has its roots in the study of Stanley Milgram, who was an American social psychologist who was fascinated by all aspects of social order. For more details on his studies you can see this recent article on PSYBLOG.

I intend to focus on his studies of the interconnectedness of human societies.

In 1969 he conducted an experiment which sent letters to random people in Nebraska or Boston and asking them to forward it to someone who might be more likely to know the target person, who lived in Massachusetts (Travers & Milgram, 1969).

He found that on average it would take 5.2 intermediaries for his letter to go from the first person to its destination, via each person’s social network.

This was 1969 and the experiment required the subjects to overcome the relatively high obstacle of physically mailing something, and to rely on their social network which (without the online networking tools of today) was significantly smaller, yet it still only took 5.2 intermediaries to find its mark.

This Number is Surely Lower Today

With the average number of online connections reaching the thousands the ability to sort and direct information today is much higher than when this study was conducted.

Here is a Facebook insight Statistic from a recently launched real estate company Facebook Page:

Notice two stunning statistics here: 87 people have liked the page, and if they all shared the page’s next post, it would reach 24,885 people. Amazing isn’t it? That is 286 friends per person who liked the page, and what this does not tell us is how many connections those friends of fans would bring to the table.

[Read more…] about An Online Marketing Argument for Non-Believers

Filed Under: Make Local Sell Local, Realty Marketing Tagged With: employee participation in social media, Online Marketing, Realtor Marketing, social media marketing

Social Networks (Share on Them) But Host Your Own Website

Spiro Pappadopoulos

Why Host Your Own Website, Social Networks Host a Page for You for Free? 

Today Posterous got bought by Twitter, and likely will fade away and be shut down in the not too distant future. It follows a long line of other social networks, some alive but irrelevant like MySpace, and others that have been shut down completely.

The image above is from The Next Web delivering the news today, and those who have built their web presence around a Posterous space are now left to either try and move it or start anew. I am here to explain why you cshould choose a wordpress sefl hosted site over other social networks.

This moving around could all be avoided, and should be avoided at all costs, by any business who wants an online presence. You need to create and host your own content, on your own website, and it is easy and not that much money either.

I host all my sites (15+) on one Bluehost account which runs about $5.95 a month, then I build them on wordpress using the genesis framework of amazing WordPress themes. You can check them out here: StudioPress Themes for WordPress, by using wordpress I can log in from any browser and post/edit/manage my website without needing any software on whichever computer or device I am using. I can also use the wordpress app on any iOS or Android device to make the edits. It truly is as simple as can be imagined for a self hosted website. I am an affiliate of both of these companies and you can see them in action here on spirocks.com, I love using them.

But You Want to Be on these Social Networks

You can be, in fact you will get more out of social networks this way. Here is how the workflow goes:

  1. Create Content for your blog. Video, Text, Photos, etc.
  2. Share the link to that post on your Facebook, Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr, Pinterest, Etc…
  3. When people click on those posts they are led back to your website/blog and you get a chance to show them more.

Now in this scenario if Posterous is gone, all you lose is the links from your blog that you shared there, not the actual content that you spent time, effort, and money creating.

It is clearly the way to go, and sooner or later there is always a new popular site, and a fading older one, so why not be a part of them while they are vibrant and not lose anything when they fade away?

What are your thoughts?

Find me on Twitter and say HI here: @Spirocks and be sure to subscribe to my updates above.

Your Blog is Your Online Foundation

 

Filed Under: Just Think, Tools Tagged With: Realtor Marketing, restaurant marketing, small business marketing, social media marketing, social media sharing

The Only Way to Put Your Business in the Center of Attention

Spiro Pappadopoulos

The time to deny it, IS OVER, mobile internet rules the day.

If you question this, do the following:

  •  Look at any child with your iPhone or iPad.
  • Look at your spouse across the table from you.
  • See what people are doing on the train.
  • Check out what gets the attention of people in line at Starbucks.
  • what was the driver of that car that swerved at you on the highway today doing?

Ignore it at your own peril, the future is in the pockets of all of your customers. Is your marketing online? Do you give it the credit it deserves? Is your website usable on mobile devices?

If you are using flash, do not have a mobile ready site, or spend your time and dollars on offline marketing only, the answer is no, and you are losing out regardless of whether you feel it or not.

Mobile is an Opportunity not a Threat.

Can you deliver more than your competitors via online content, mobile access, and social integration? Are you ready to allow your customer to know you, the real you? If you are you will be the new king of your market before long, as the customers you seek will be found here.

Where is Here?

Here is everywhere now. Here is where ever they are when they think they need what you sell. Here is on the toilet. Here is on top of the Empire State Building. Here is in an airplane. Here is in a Doctor’s Office waiting room.

People buy diapers on Amazon from a bar at 1Am, and you don’t think they are going to search for an eyeglass shop while they wait for their coffee in the morning?

Ask yourself if you have done enough to put your business where people are looking for you. THEN DO MORE.

Find Me @spirocks on Twitter, I hope you enjoyed this pep talk.

Filed Under: Just Think, Make Local Sell Local, Mobile, Tools Tagged With: marketing, small business marketing, social media for business, social media marketing

Social Proof helps Launch a Restaurant

Spiro Pappadopoulos

Social Proof (noun) – The impact that an individual’s friends and acquaintances have on their likely hood to buy a product or service from a brand, derived from the commentary and activity the friends and acquaintances have with the brand on social networks and in social settings.

Ok so like I said in the video, Andolini’s has been open to the public for less than two full nights as I write this and I wanted to give examples of many kinds of social proof that have happened already. Its a motivator to be out there and get involved, and to ask for help if need be. This results in sales as you will see right now.

Open Announcement and Reactions Social Proof

Spirocks.com - Social Proof Example

Here you can see a post on my personal facebook page where I announced that Andolini’s was open. You can see that in the hours since it was posted 10 people have liked it and three more have commented. What this means is a few things:

  1. A high level of engagement will likely push this post into the ‘Top News’ feed, which will result in just about all of my friends and all of these people’s friends seeing the post and comments.
  2. By commenting on this, each of these people have brought it to the attention of all their friends via their Wall, where facebook places a notification that Dental Bright ‘likes’ the post.

Interaction and Testimonial Social Proof

As you can see here we have posted several photos of the food that we are serving at Andolini’s which a customer who had been waiting for us to open saw. The restaurant being responsive and answering him in a timely fashion is key here, and I think it is clear that he will be in soon. Down at the bottom Mr. Newman had been in the night before and posted a comment that serves as a quick review and endorsement. This post is a great example of social proof for a couple of reasons:
  1. Interaction via the posts comments led to Mat letting us know he was coming soon, any of his friends who see his post will take that as an endorsement and be more inclined to try the restaurant.
  2. A customer that has already come in raves and encourages people to try it. You don’t need me to explain why that is social proof I hope!

Third Party Generated Social Proof

This example differs from the previous two because in this case neither I nor the restaurant initiated any of the posting, it was purely the result of these people being inspired by something they saw or heard about Andolini’s. This is the best kind of social proof, because their friends will see that they were inspired to post and the friends will have a natural curiosity as to why.

The Social Proof of a Champion

Social Proof of a Champion

Champion (noun) – An individual who is devoted to your brand and is passionate about promoting it for you.
As I have been writing what you have been reading, the above dialogue has been going on on facebook. The social proof of a Champion is a nice thing to nurture and enjoy. In this case the role of Champion is played well by Meah, who starts by praising the restaurant after her first visit tonight. When a friend of her refers to another Italian restaurant in a neighboring town she quickly re-iterates her preference and strong endorsement for our new place. You can see from the rest of the comments that having a champion is a great source of social proof.

Social to Sales – Social Proof

This is actually a husband and wife, and as you can see a post leads to them coming in for dinner immediately. Which is nice as that is the end goal, that in itself is not the social proof. Though it is proof that social media leads to sales. 🙂 Anyway the proof is in the fact that these messages were broadcast to all their followers on twitter, who may very well be influenced just by that, and or ask them how it was today. Anytime a customer shares the fact that she/he is spending money at your place with all their social contacts, repeat after me: THAT IS SOCIAL PROOF.
I have ton more screenshots to share, but I think you get the point by now. If you want to see more just check out the gallery at the bottom of this post.

If you like updates like this, please consider getting them delivered to your email for free:

Thanks!

If you are interested in what me and my team at GuestFeed can do for you at your business or in your professional practice, you can contact me here, on twitter @spirocks, at spiro@guestfeed.com, or at 617-379-3015.

Spirocks.com - Social Proof Example
Spirocks.com Social Proof Example
Social Proof of a Champion

Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, Just Think, Realty Marketing, Twitter Tagged With: marketing, restaurant marketing, restaurant promotion, social media marketing, social proof

Trust Points

Spiro Pappadopoulos

flowers
Photo by spirocks

I would like to introduce you to Ryan Critchett, an enthusiastic and active participant in the thought and process of social media integration in businesses. His energy is infectious and I quickly thought it would be nice to share his thoughts with all of you, so without further ado here is what he wrote for you:

Social Business Trust Points – Strategy Or Integration?

What are you moving toward? More specifically, when you’re tweeting out, Facebooking and blogging up a storm, what are your objectives? I’ve thought about this at length and I keep coming up with, you’re trying to create trust points.

Trust points: Points at which people trust you, as a brand or organization, that lead to actions that directly benefit that brand or organization.

Actions: Links to your website, writing about your brand, talking you up over breakfast with friends, direct referrals and actual buys of your product or service.

The question really becomes, how do I create content and interaction that naturally leads to those trust points, which get people to take the kinds of actions that benefit my company?

This becomes the game.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Ryan Critchett, I’m a blogger and an entrepreneur, I love people and am fascinated by the social revolution, but most importantly, as it relates to this, I’m really into doing things the right way, when it comes to human interaction.

Let’s talk marketing. Traditional marketing is about strategy right? Even social media is about strategy but what has been making its way into our world is the growing need to actually become something that naturally attracts people, leads and if you can convert, sales as well.

Let’s talk social media integration. Social media integration is the act of integrating a permanent social business operation into your organization, becoming a social company, and as a result, attracting great customer interaction, leads, solving problems, putting fires out and a whole group of other beneficial business elements.

But coming from a traditional media marketing standpoint, a lot of people just want to execute on a strategy, and let it all fly. They go “let’s design a campaign.” They say “how many impressions can we get,” and their sole mission in social is to push and make dollars as a result.

Sadly, to their dismay, the results are sub-par to say the least: the customer (or potential customer) tunes them out.

So what is the answer? How do we really “do” this social thing and get real results?

Well if you know anything about people, and more importantly as it relates to this, the shift in the collective business mindset taking place right now as a result of social technology, you’d know that more and more, what we’re really seeking, is authentic, natural human interaction mixed with a lot of excitement.

Well what happens if you have a company that is not human? That doesn’t really like communicating with the public? That’s only into whatever will get people whipping out their credit cards and doesn’t believe they have to be exciting, or social?

They fall behind. Times are changing. People are changing. Media is changing and an alignment is necessary.

Social business alignment really demands that business organizations change themselves psychological and systemically to align with the increasingly social consumer. Moving forward into 2012, that’s going to be the big win.

Let’s bring it all together. Trust points are what you’re moving toward. To naturally create trust points that create lead generation, sales, and whatever else your social media goals are, you need an actual social integration as opposed to a “campaign,” which implies a kind of one shot deal.

People from your organization have to change their behavior to become more social. You have to begin to consider hiring charismatic, naturally social people in the selection process for positions in your company.

Leadership in your business needs to learn how to create content and engagement that actually hits people’s emotional centers, as opposed to just their buying triggers.

And you have to have an ongoing integral strategy of creating content that excites people, builds trust points with them and naturally pulls them in.

Social media is not a strategy, it’s something that works best when fully woven into the fabric of an organization and building solid trust points with your target market, that lead to the kinds of actions that benefit your company, is an ongoing, time consuming, but well worth it, reality.

Thanks Ryan for a great well thought out idea and explanation, if you want to see more about Ryan remember the link in the intro and you can always click here to see what’s new on Spirocks.com

Filed Under: Just Think Tagged With: social media marketing

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