The restaurant business is one of the most competitive on the planet. There are so many great restaurants with fantastic service and food that are languishing, and on the verge of closing because they do not know how to effectively market their business. The smart owners and managers understand that they need to seek out restaurant marketing ideas to avoid the fate of their less informed competitors.
Marketing a restaurant is not that complicated once you understand some basic concepts that will work well for just about any eating establishment. It seems that a lot of owners and managers get so caught up in the day-to-day management, that they forget about the importance of implementing a simple marketing strategy.
Without some type of marketing, a restaurant will die a quick death. So, most management invest money into a Yellow Page ad and maybe some coupon mailers. They mistakenly believe that this will be enough to keep a steady flow of customer coming in the door. But, what happens when they do not come?
Often there is much hand ringing and waiting around for things to get better. This is a passive approach that can put a restaurant in danger of being overlooked by potential patrons. It's much better to be proactive and come up with, at least, a basic plan of action.
There are several good restaurant marketing books that give the best recommendation of marketing strategies in restaurant management. Here are some of the ideas you could easily implement:
Email Newsletter
Collect the names, email and birthday of your customers and get them onto an email list. From there, you can send them updates on special menu items, special events you're holding, give them a free meal on their birthday, share interesting information about yourself and your staff, etc.
Special Event Days
People enjoy getting out of the house to go to a special event that promises to be fun and enjoyable. To get more customers coming in on your slow days and nights, you can hold some sort of special event. You can use a holiday, or make up any type of reason for the event. Your event could feature, comedy, music, magic, a day for moms, dads or kids, etc.
Contest
Put a fishbowl in the front area and have a big sign that let's customers know that they can win a free meal, special food item or t-shirt if they put a contest card, or business card, into the bowl. Hold a weekly drawing and announce the winner via email, and by posting a notice in the restaurant.
Source by AJ Freeman
