Restaurant Marketing Strategies

Going Back to Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 16:16:00 -0800

Many restauranteurs spend an incredible amount of money in marketing, trying to fill in their restaurants with customers.

However, often they forget the basics: Their food is just OK and their service could be improved.

Customers are smart. They might go to a restaurant once or twice attracted by a clever marketing campaign, but everything will be wasted if their experience is less than stelar.

Many times I recommend restaurant owners and managers to focus on the essentials. Deliver the best food that you can make at fair prices, have a nice and clean restaurant, and give an impeccable service.

That's all.

If they do this, customers will love the restaurant and will become the best marketing and sales force by telling their friends (in person or via Social Media), leaving great reviews in Yelp and other review sites and coming back for more.

There is not better restaurant marketing that over-delivering.

If you want to spend some marketing budget, do it by surprising your customers giving them freebies that they don't expect. A free appetizer (it doesn't have to be big or expensive), a complimentary artisan bread, perhaps a liqueur at the end of a really good meal, these go a long way to surprise and delight your customers. Yes, it will cost you a bit (if you are smart, you can come up with creative and inexpensive treats) but consider this as a marketing investment. Instead of doing the old tiring ads, invest money directly on your clients. You will be rewarded a thousand times.

Try it and let me know how it goes.

How to Get Your Restaurant Noticed

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:48:00 -0700

NOTE: This is a collaboration blog created by Brandon Serna, on behalf of FASTSIGNS. I am not associated with Brandon or FastSigns but I think that this blog contains useful information so I wanted to share it with my readers.

Restaurants need customers to survive. Whether you’re preparing to open a new establishment, hoping to revitalize business at an older restaurant, or simply trying to survive difficult economic times, chances are you’ve been thinking about ways to get your restaurant noticed. There are many helpful possibilities out there. Here are a few to get you started.

Well-designed Menu Boards

An attractive menu board, with appealing meal possibilities and easy-to-read descriptions of them, will attract a customer’s attention quickly. Make a board too confusing, and chances are you’ll lose customers rapidly. By keeping everything easy and quick to understand, you’ll help customers make fast decisions, and hopefully encourage them to come back time and again.

Work with a Charity

Charitable work gives you a chance to help a cause that’s important to you, and get your business noticed as you become more involved with members of your community. You might offer restaurant space for meetings or fundraising activities, encourage your employees to participate in community walk-a-thons, help answer phones at pledge drives, or organize clothing drives. It’s important to choose your causes wisely; if no one notices that members of your company are out helping with a particular cause, it won’t help draw business back to your restaurant. Make sure your employees are enthusiastic about the cause, too, so they will be excited about helping out any way they can.

Make Days Special

Depending on the atmosphere you already have—or hope to create—in your restaurant, you could implement a variety of ideas to make certain days of the week special at your establishment. Perhaps a family discount day is in order, or you’d prefer to offer certain dishes at a better rate on a certain day. Capitalize on sporting events that may be happening in town or on television and invite the public to come enjoy some refreshment at your restaurant. Sometimes, drawing a larger crowd takes a little ingenuity and a willingness to be creative. You may need to work with the media to get the momentum going.

Custom Banners

Custom banners tell your potential customers what you want them to know about your restaurant that’s special. You might want to let people know when Happy Hour is, when you have a special event coming up, where you’re going if you’re planning to move to a new location, whether you are holding a grand opening, or much more. Banners can add a look of professionalism to an outdoor event, or simply draw attention to your business when customers might have passed you by countless times before.

Hire the Right Wait Staff

Wait staff must not only be capable of being good servers, but it is essential that they have solid sales skills as well. Find servers who are good listeners, friendly, and able to relate well to customers. Your employees will also need to be trained in aspects of selling the dishes you offer. Ensure they know the items on the menu, including how they are prepared, and what ingredients they contain. Allow your new staff members to taste the menu items you offer.

Customer Loyalty

By implementing the right strategies at your business, you should be able to draw customers back to your restaurant again and again. The important thing is paying strong attention to what appears to be working and what isn’t. Keep your prices as reasonable as possible. Customers are focused on value and having a simple, positive experience. The job isn’t always easy, but in the long run, it will be worthwhile.

Why Most Restaurant Websites Are So Bad?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 10:51:00 -0700

I've just read a great article in Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2301228/pagenum/all/#p2) that talks about how bad (in general) restaurant websites are.

Basically, there are two kings of restaurant webistes:

The amateurish ones made, for free or for a meal by the cousin or a friend of the owner with some basic knowledge of HTML and zero skills with design. You know the ones that I mean, when you open the site, they look terrible and they are seldom if ever updated.

The super-expensive ones, made by a "Web master" full of Flash animation and created to self-please the webmaster or the restaurant owner or Chef but not to provide with useful information to the potential customers.

When users to go to a restaurant website, they are looking for an easy way to navigate and find one or more of the following information items:

* Menus (with the following elements):
- Descriptions
- Prices
- Photos to see what they are going to get
* Wine list with prices
* A way to make a reservation (online, phone number, etc.)
* Contact Information (email, phone, etc.)
* Address and directions to the restaurant
* Some photos of the restaurant so that they know how the place looks before they step into the restaurant
* A form to leave comments or feedback (instead of going straight to Yelp, Restaurants.com or CitySearch
* Events or specials (updated, please)

The rest (flash animations, annoying music, photos of the SuperChef with a big smile… are superfluous, annoying and self-congratulatory exercises in futility. Customers hate them (I know I do!), restaurateurs pay extra for frills that they don't need, and web masters get to practice their Flash skills and charge their customers high fees.

I would recommend that you read my free article: Ten Basic Rules to Have An Effective Restaurant Website. It contains a lot of good information to have a useful and practical website.

Good luck!
Jose L Riesco

Simplify Your Restaurant Business

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 1 Jul 2011 11:26:00 -0700

The older I grow, the more I like simple things.

Simple doesn't mean dumb or easy, or idiotic. Simple means stripping down the superfluous, the unnecessary, the complicated, the redundant to focus on the core, on what it is really important, on the essence.

This could be applied to anything: to your personal life and also to your restaurant business. A complicated menu with lots of ingredients, complicated operations, complicated rules and regulations, complicated schedules for your staff, etc. give your business an extra overhead and weight that you could do without.

How can you simplify your restaurant business, you may be wondering? Here are some suggestions:

1.- Simplify your menus.

I can't stress enough how important this item is. Many restaurateurs think that a large menu is an asset. In reality, it is not. Not only you get confused customers but you need to train your kitchen staff in the preparation of many items, keep track of which ones sell well and which ones don't, enter all the items in your Point of Sale, train your waiters in the ingredients that each dish have, keep a large inventory of ingredients, etc. On top of everything, I can guarantee you that most customers order 20% of your items all the time. It is much better to have a very simple menu with really good dishes than a large menu with average dishes. People will remember your restaurant because of a few well executed dishes, not because your menu has 20 pages.

What should you do to simplify your menu? First, if you have the information, look at the sales of dishes for the last 6 months to 1 year. Eliminate dishes starting from the bottom of sales. Don't be afraid to cut the menu down to just a handful of good dishes. You can always add some specials. The important thing is that you leave those special dishes that make your restaurant famous or for which people will come to eat at your place.

Once you simplify your menu, you can also reduce the number of your ingredients (saving thus money and preparation time), your staff (kitchen and floor) would be able to learn the new dishes much quicker and either prepare them or explain them to your customers way easier.

You will also be able to keep track of sales much easier than before.

2.- Simplify your operations.

Do you have complicated schedules and/or rules? (tipping rules, employee rotation, what to do with unsatisfied customers, food ordering, number of providers, etc. If so, you should think about simplifying them.

Look at all your operations with an objective perspective. If you see that you have anything that can be made simpler, do it. Not only your employees will be happier having to follow less procedures and understanding the basic rules but you will save many headaches and lots of time.

3.- Simplify your marketing.

Are you investing a lot of money or time in marketing? If so, you should consider simplifying your investments. The best marketing for a restaurant is the simplest and often the most inexpensive one. Here you have a few ideas of simple marketing that just works:

Create a Formalized Referral System (very effective. For a very inexpensive and effective system, you can check my Referral System in a Box
Invest some time and/or money in Online Marketing. Don't get crazy about it. A nice and clean website, some investment in mobile marketing (many smart phone users don't use a computer anymore), a Facebook Page and perhaps some time in Tweeter should have you covered.

4.- Simplify your decor.

Sometimes less is more. Lots of ornaments and things in your restaurant means more time to clean, more maintenance and an impression of clutter. Look around your place. Do you really need to have that deer head hanging from the wall? I don't mean that a restaurant should be barren, after all, people need to feel comfortable. If you don't have the eye for interior decoration, I would suggest to invest some money and hire a professional to help you. It doesn't need to be very expensive. Sometimes eliminating clutter and freshly painting the walls with nice neutral colors is all you need. Think about it.

5- Simplify your schedule.

Do you have a complicated business opening and closing schedule? Does it vary by the day of the week? Many times customers get annoyed when they go to your place just to find out that you open at 4pm each day except for the day when they visit. Same thing with weekends, etc.

Same thing with your workers. Do you have an easy to understand and logical rotation schedule? If not, you should. People like to know when they are working and when they rest so that they can plan accordingly. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't be flexible when they ask you for changes. But these should be the exceptions, not the rule.

Try to make a simple and predictable schedule so that your employees and customers know what's going on.

These are just 5 simple rules to simplify your business. I'm sure that you can find many more on your own. The point that I am trying to make is that simple is often better. Better for your customers, better for you, better for your business, and better for your employees.

Everyone wins.

Happy simplification,
Jose L Riesco

The Power of Restaurant Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:28:00 -0700

I’ve just read an interesting article in BusinessWeek about the Yelp Elite reviewers and their power to make or break a restaurant. It is kind of scary to think that these people, mysteriously selected by Yelp (they don’t say the criteria) have so much power and feel entitled to review a restaurant based on their experience of one visit. If one waiter has a bad day, tough luck, the restaurant will go down in infamy because of the review of the Yelp Elite Member.

You can read the complete article here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232083260194.htm

Although this seems like a very unfair practice (and it is), you have always to remember everything that I told you: your main marketing expenses should be always focused on your existing customers. It is useless to spend money trying to bring new customers to your restaurant (at least that you just opened it) while neglecting the ones that you already have sitting at your table.

In the past, there were a few prestigious food critics. Only big newspapers and magazines could afford to have foodies in their staff eating at fashionable places and writing a review about them. Because of the scarcity of the critics, 90% of the restaurants never got reviewed and therefore could afford to keep on doing business as usual, even if business as usual meant getting several customers unhappy or even blatantly angry. After all, the maximum damage that they could do is to tell their friends and family, a relatively reduced crowd.

In these days of the Internet and Social Media, everything has changed. All the sudden, the critics could be anyone and their opinions are read by hundreds if not thousands of potential customers. If you already know the place, you make your own opinions based on your own experience, but if you don’t, you probably go online (I know I do) and read the opinions of other people who had eaten there.

With all the restaurant offerings guess which one people will choose? The one with high ratings and reviews or the one with low ratings and nasty comments?

The fact that the opinions can be read by so many people means that each customer counts. Never underestimate the lonely customer that you sit in the crappiest table because you think that s/he will spend little money. S/he could be an Elite member of Yelp or just some foodie blogger with influence over hundreds or even thousands (depending where your place is located) potential customers.

Just that one meal could cost you dearly in future revenues.

If you always follow the model that I preach: bend backwards to please your customers and think that your clients are your number one priority, you will be heads and shoulders above your competitors who think short term profits versus lifelong clients.

Of course, I am partial, but if you haven’t done so, I would recommend that you buy my Restaurant Marketing Strategies book or ebook (just click on the link for more info, it is a VERY inexpensive marketing investment that can bring you thousands in revenue). Read very carefully chapter one and try to apply the learnings to your business.

Your customers will be grateful that you did and your business will get great online reviews.

Happy customers,
Jose L Riesco

Sitting is killing you

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 9 May 2011 17:41:00 -0700

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, there is one thing nearly all modern Americans have in common: we sit all the time. Though our great shift towards computer-based work has done great things for productivity, it has, unfortunately, done terrible things for our health. From increased risk of heart disease and obesity in the long term, to sharply hampered cholesterol maintenance in the short term, the negative health effects of sitting are starting to weigh heavily against the benefits. Even the medical field – the greatest advocates and reducing sitting time – is plagued by this new health issue. Though doctors and nurses get plenty of walking time, it usually falls to the secretaries, billers, and coders to do all the sitting. And, as we can see, something has to change.

This is a great graphic that shows the perils of spending a lot of time sitting...

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Why You Shouldn't Use Groupon

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:42:00 -0700

I often get this question from restaurant owners and managers about Groupon.

Should I use Groupon to attract hundreds of people to my place?

My answer is simple. No, you shouldn't. And the reason is very simple.

It is true that Groupon could bring many customers to your business but the question that you should ask yourself is: Are these the kind of customers that you want?

Not only your profit margin will be minuscule (if any) after all the fees that you must pay to Groupon and all the (big) discounts that you must give to these customers but, by definition, you will bring people who are addicted to bargains. If your hope is to capture these customers so that they will love your place and come back to your restaurant, I have bad news for you: They won't. Instead, they will go to the next restaurant that gives them a new Groupon offer.

If you read my book Restaurant Marketing Strategies or some of the content in this site, you know how much I don't like spending money to attract new customers. Instead, try something different: Spend your marketing budget in your existing customers.

Yes, that's right. Treat your regular customers like kings and queens. Surprise them with something extra that they don't expect. Woo them with impeccable service and excellent food. Give them some free dishes or gift certificates so that they come back another time. Make your best effort to convince them (with facts, no words) that your restaurant is their favorite restaurant in the city.

Not only you will expend less money than trying to bring hundreds of cheap customers to your place, but these customers who you already have in your restaurant will come back and bring their friends and family members with them. They will become your best salesforce because people trust their friends and family members more than any fancy advertising. And, as an added bonus, they will be so happy with your business that they will express their opinions in blogs and forums all over the place.

When somebody is looking to try a new restaurant, they go to the Internet and look for reviews. If yours scores very high in customer satisfaction, this is the best advertisement that you can buy at any price.

Good luck,

Jose L Riesco

The Super Clients

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:55:00 -0700

Every small business has these special customers, you know who I mean, the regulars who come often to your place and spend nice money. They love your restaurant and are happy to enjoy a good meal at your place.

But these customers are not just good clients, they are also very powerful influencers and if you do the right thing, they can become your best sales force. Let me explain what I mean.

Whenever you have very happy clients, you can "leverage" them to spread the word about your restaurant. If you are familiar with my Formalized Referral System in a Box, you know that you can pamper these customers by offering them gift certificates for them (and this is VERY important) for their friends and family members to come again to your restaurant and get a nice discount.

Why would you like to give something to clients who come regularly anyway? Because by giving them a free meal or a discount you prove three things directly to them:

That you care about them. There is not just about the money but you genuinely want them to be happy and have a great experience dinning at your place.
That you appreciate their patronage and are willing to demonstrate it not just with words but with a gift.
You pamper their ego since you, as the owner or manager of the restaurant, acknowledge their presence and reward their company. Everybody likes that.

But there is another very important benefit that although it may be not obvious to them, it will happen anyway:

By surprising your best clients with a gift, you will exceed their expectations.

This will translate in them telling all their family and friends how great your place is and how nice you are. This is sales at its best. Genuine, spontaneous praise of a business by a person you trust and like. The amount of potential customers and sales that this initiative will bring to your restaurant is priceless.

I recommend you that you take a hard look at your regular customers and make a conscious decision to approach them and give them a reason to be really happy that they visited your place.

Just one word of advice: don't be cheap here. If you just give them a free dessert or glass of wine, it is a nice gesture but it won't woo your customers. If you do this, make it stand out. Complement their whole meal, bring them a bottle of a complementary good wine, give them a gift certificate that they can use in their next visit... you get the point.

Think about this as a proven marketing investment that will bring you good reputation and many new customers. It is way better to spend money with your best clients than to waste it in newspapers or yellow pages ads trying to bring new customers all the time.

Good luck and happy meals,

Jose L Riesco

The impossible customers

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Thu, 3 Mar 2011 14:52:00 -0800

You all know who they are. Angry people who are looking for an excuse to blame everybody around for their unhappiness.

I met a few of these when I was managing my own restaurant. Actually, we had several who were regular clients and keep on complaining all the time: about the temperature of the food (too hot or too cold), about the service (too slow or they didn't spend enough time chatting with them), about the music (too loud or they just didn't like it, could we please turn it off?)... you get the point.

Now, if you have read my book or just my blogs and articles, you'll know that I always advocate to bend backwards to please your customers. But what if the customers are impossible to please? What can you do to please those customers who no matter what you do will always complain?

First I will tell you what no to do. You don't want to confront them or to argue with them. This is exactly what they are looking for. They have rage inside and a good fight with a waiter, manager or restaurant owner will give them satisfaction and perhaps an excuse for a free meal.

What you need to do is to diffuse the situation. Try to no take their criticism personal (it is not) and give them alternatives to their complain. For example, when they asked me to turn off the music, I explained to them that I understood that they wanted to talk but most people were enjoying the music so I lowered the music a bit and relocated them to sit on a different table farther away from the speakers. That didn't make them happy but they complied and I took the arguments for them to complain about.

Try to work a solution with them and if everything else fails, offer them a free meal and let them know that perhaps next time they should look for a different restaurant. If they appreciate your place, they will come back and hopefully behave next time. If this doesn't happen and you see that they come over and over and always complain, well, there is a point to cut your loses. Let them know that this is the last time that you serve them and invite them to visit a different restaurant next time.

I still remember the case of a couple, the guy quite introverted and his wife always complaining about every single thing. They used to come to my restaurant and although, they spent good money, no server wanted to wait their table because they were impossible to please. At one point, I had them with them so I approached their table and I told them that since they never seemed happy with our food or service, I will complement them their dinner that night and invite them never to come back to my place. The impact was immediate. The always quiet husband looked at her wife and told her in a quite angry tone that he really liked my restaurant and wanted to stay so she better be quiet.

After that day, things changed for the better. Although she still complained here and there, her attitude was very different and she behaved almost normal.

The point that I am trying to make is that you must always please your customers but also you can select the customers that you want. After all, if you can't make some customers happy, no matter what you try, what's the point? It is not good for either of you. Besides, they will have a negative influence on the rest of your clients.

Treat your customers the best you can and eliminate the ones that cause you problems or disruptions. In this way, your restaurant will be always full of happy people and that's what you want.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco

Playing safe or the dead of originality

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:27:00 -0800

I was listening on the radio today how most of Hollywood new movies are sequels. 27 of them for 2011! Marketers and corporate suits are killing any original or non-mass market directed movies.

Audiences are mainly preteens and teens and more and more adults are staying home creating thus a vicious circle, after all, who wants to spend a small fortune to watch a movie that has more special effects than plot?

When you think about it, the same happens to restaurants. When you travel, more and more restaurants are chains or franchises. People like to go to places that are familiar with and feel comfortable ordering and eating.

Personally, I prefer independent films and independent restaurants with substance. I like the discovery of nice, unique places where the owners great you and the food is a surprise. Perhaps I am more open than most Americans to all kinds of food, perhaps I like the uniqueness of a family (or boutique) restaurant.

If you own a franchise, I guess you are in luck since people seems to love chains; however, if you own a small independent restaurant, don't despair, some people still love their neighborhood independent restaurants.

I would suggest that you maximize the difference with the large chains. Here are some things you can do to that effect:

Create a unique ambiance that reflects your food and style, different from the chain restaurants.
Offer unique dishes, not the typical fare that franchises offer.
Greet the customers, learn the names of the regulars and talk to them. People loved to be recognized and acknowledged.
Change menus or at least offer different specials often. It is very difficult for franchises and big chains to modify their menus since standardization is part of their game.
Suggest or even cook dishes out of the menu for special customers. Big chains can't do this.
Treat each customer differently. If you make a mistake, compensate the customers. Big chains have policies and procedures and often they can't complement a failed service, just offer some freebies.
Don't spend money in advertising and PR. Leave this for the big chains. Instead, use referrals as your preferred way to bring new customers. I would suggest that you download my free Restaurant Referral System in a Box and setup a formalized referral system for your restaurant.

And here you have it. The good news is that you have a lot of control over each aspect of your restaurant so you need to maximize this strength.

Good luck and happy meals.
Jose L Riesc

Sliced bread and other marketing delights

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:46:00 -0800

This is an interesting video from Seth Godin. If you don't know Seth, you should. He is a marketing genius with tremendous creativity. Worth a few minutes of your time to get inspired.

When Your Clients Are Not Your Number One Priority...

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 7 Jun 2010 16:27:00 -0700

If you have been reading the news lately, you are probably familiar with the AT&T mistreatment of one of its customers. If not, you can read the article here: http://www.examiner.com/x-39728-Tech-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m6d3-Cease-and-desist-threatened-over-emails-to-ATT-CEO.

Of course, after the damage was done, the company responded trying to mitigate all the bad press, but it was already too late. The reputation of a company already vilified by many of its customers because of network failures suffered a terrible blow.

If you read my book or just many of my articles or blogs, you'll realize the importance that I give to putting your clients as your number one priority. No other part of your business is as important as having and keeping your clients happy. Nothing else matters, if there are not clients, there is no business. Period.

In this times where bad news spread at the speed of light, there is incomprehensible to me that a large corporation such as AT&T (which, by the way is my phone carrier, but only because of the iPod) still affords to make these mistakes. One disgrunted customer is all it takes to have the blogosphere fuming with negative comments that only help to tarnish the company's reputation.

Your business is not as visible or large as AT&T's but the same principles apply to you. Treat your customers ALWAYS as your number one priority and you will create a loyal base of fans who will promote your business, giving you the best possible advertising (and free on top of everything).

If you forget this simple rule, you will pay the price by having your place trashed in blogs, social media networks and forums all over the place. It is not a good investment and it is not, definitely, a good philosophy to run any business.

Have a great day,

Jose

Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:50:00 -0700

A friend sent me this video today and I want to share it with you.

If you are still questioning if you should use Social Media to market and/or promote your restaurant, I'm sure that this video will be a big eye opener.

Enjoy it...

PS: By the way, speaking of Social Media, please don't forget to follow me in Twitter at www.twitter.com/jlriesco and my Restaurant Marketing Strategies Facebook page

The Trouble with Yelp

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Tue, 6 Apr 2010 17:29:00 -0700

The food service industry as a whole has had decidedly mixed feelings about Yelp, the San Francisco-based internet company that provides user-generated reviews about a variety of businesses, including restaurants.

As I wrote last year, Yelp had many owners suspicious because it seemed like the only way to get good reviews to display at the top of a restaurant’s profile was to shell out a monthly “advertising” fee. The fee has been pushed hard by Yelp sales reps and can run anywhere from $300 to $1,000 a month.

Paying the fee allowed owners to choose the top five reviews for their restaurant to display. It seemed most restaurant owners had one of two reactions: resignation at having to pay the fee to avoid bad reviews or outraged, stubborn resistance to being forced to pay to make bad reviews go away.

Over and over again Yelp has denied manipulating bad reviews in order to generate sales of their advertising packages to small businesses. And still to this day the suspicion remains among many inside the restaurant industry and out that Yelp just isn’t squaring with the subjects of their reviews on how the process really works.

Yelp’s decision to walk away from a $550 million dollar offer from Google late last year didn’t help the company’s image any either. The inherent trust most people place in the Google brand could have gone a long way towards clearing the air with Yelp’s small business customers.

The public relations problems that continue to dog Yelp seem to be a fix of their own making. This is what you get for tangling with the strongest tradition on the internet: fostering the free flow of ideas a
nd information. Companies like Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook have succeeded because they opened up access to information and placed few filters on how that access was used and digested.
Yelp’s business model seems brilliant, even revolutionary on paper: collect user-generated reviews about local small businesses and then sell the opportunity to manage those reviews back to the businesses being reviewed. But the approach flies in the face of what the internet has been all about since its inception. It would be like Google selling celebrities “advertising” memberships to have bad stories about them pushed down in the rankings on search results pages.

Yelp’s leadership probably thought they were just following a Google-esque model: get businesses to pay for top search results. After all, Google’s pay-per-click advertising is what has transformed that company into a multi-billion dollar operation.

But there is a key distinction here: Google’s paid listings come from a positive motivation – businesses wanting to sell products or be seen for specific keywords. Yelp’s model comes from an inherently negative motivation: get people to stop saying bad things about you on Yelp. No wonder they have an image problem.

The class action lawsuit against Yelp everyone’s buzzing about these days seems to be the natural culmination of a long-term problem the company has had dealing with its customers. Regardless of how the suit turns out, the basic flaws of the Yelp model will remain. And that is a lesson any business can benefit from.

Greg McGuire blogs about the foodservice industry at The Back Burner, which is written by the employees of Tundra Specialties, a company specializing in restaurant equipment and food service supplies.

Please send me the byline you'd like me to use with your article and I will post it today.

Restaurant Marketing: Do you trust your employees? Do they trust you?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:32:00 -0700

Trust is one of these difficult concepts that takes forever to build and just a second to destroy. So what's trust? In simple words, trust is confidence. The opposite of trust is, therefore, suspicion.

When you trust your employees, you feel confident that they will do the right thing, even if you are not there all the time to supervise them or monitor them. On the other hand, if you don't trust them, you are always suspicious that they will slack, or even worse, steal from you, so you need to watch them all the time.

Trust has therefore many advantages, not only you will sleep better if you trust your employees (or if you employ trusted people), but your business will run smoother and you'll feel happier knowing that you can leave on vacation or just get sick and relax at home versus having to spend all your waking hours in your restaurant double-checking every single step that your employees take.

When you trust your employees, you have confidence in them, in their abilities and in their integrity. You can rely on them and be confident that even if you are not present in your restaurant, they will have your best interests in mind and run the business as if it was theirs.

Now, I've been in the business myself so I can tell you that total trust is almost utopia. Unfortunately, in the restaurant industry, trust is often lacking. Employee turnaround is common and this means that people don't have time to build the necessary trust that long time relationships bring to the table.

The other side of the coin is that also the employees distrust the restaurant owners (and/or managers) and they take any opportunity to get back to them; either by slacking when they should be working (cleaning, organizing or just taking care of their customers), or even worse, by blatantly stealing cash and/or food or beverages.

This is a lose-lose situation where employers and employees must watch one another and nobody wins. The time and effort that takes to mistrust people could be put to a better use by improving the business and taking care of the customers.

So what can you do to create trust?

To start with, you must hire reliable employees. Having mediocre employees is not an excuse, specially in these times of abundant supply of skillful and experienced employees. If this economic crisis is good for anything, it is to find great people to work for you. Honesty should be at the to of your list for hiring employees and lack of it, should be an immediate reason for letting people go.

You must empower your employees with your trust, but you also must let them know that trust is your most valuable asset and if they break it, they lose their jobs immediately. Honesty is not negotiable.

Only by creating a working environment where trust is placed at the highest level you will be able to relax and improve your business exponentially.

I will now leave you with a quote from Jim Burke, a former Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson that talks about trust:

You can't have success without trust. The word trust embodies almost everything you can strive for that will help you to succeed. You tell me any human relationship that works without trust, whether it is a marriage or a friendship or a social interaction; in the long run, the same thing is true about business, especially businesses that deal with the public.

Jim Burke

Johnson & Johnson Former CEO

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco

Think of Different Ways to Promote Your Restaurant

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:26:00 -0800

There are so many different ways to promote your restaurant, what are you waiting for? Engaging in a public relations campaign, an advertising campaign or a direct marketing campaign can all be fun if you remember that the concept of eating out is supposed to be a great social occasion. Don't look at this as a chore, but rather as one of the most pleasant jobs associated with running your business.

If you have a good reputation and some loyal customers who you may also be on rather friendly terms with, why not engage them to help you promote your restaurant? Recruit customers to write reviews, contribute blog posts, "tweet" or place posts on their Facebook pages from time to time. This is a very effective way of getting the word out on the street and can be cost effective for you - just give them free appetizers or desserts.

You should go out of your way to get the e-mail address of your customer. This may mean that you have to give away something valuable, a two for one or something to entice them to give you the address. E-mail marketing is surely one of the best ways to promote your restaurant as once they have agreed to receive information from you this opens up a whole world of possibilities.

When you are in the possession of e-mail addresses for your clients, remember to find out their birth dates or any other special occasions. Set up a system to automatically fire out an e-mail a few days before these occasions and offer a freebie to get them to come in on the special day. The chances are they will be celebrating with friends and this could represent a nice little party for you.

Think about themes. Do a little research online and you will find out that there are special occasions, holidays, "gimmick" days, religious days - some special occasion every week. If you are creative, you will come up with ideas to link your restaurant, a menu item or some co-promotion to create interest in the neighborhood.

Promote your restaurant with a PR campaign, especially if you are launching a new menu, welcoming a new master chef or engaging in a charitable affair of some kind. Press release distribution is relatively straightforward and cost effective these days and will invariably result in exposure for you if well presented.

Consider how many local newspapers, radio stations or other media outlets you have in your location. Pick up a copy of the publication or tune into the radio station as appropriate. If you cannot see any evidence of a food critic or a restaurant expert, it is time for you to really promote your restaurant by getting in touch with the editor and offering your services for free. Take time to show him or her that you are an expert in your field and they will turn to you for any food related questions or news items that they have.

Social media is the buzzword these days and anyone who has a business should be involved. Promote your restaurant by creating a Facebook page in the name of your business. Start a blog and keep it maintained with regular menu items ideas, articles about types of food and so on. The secret here is to make sure the program is maintained regularly.

Happy Meals,
Jose L Riesco
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Your Restaurant Struggles Are Not Unique!

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 5 Feb 2010 16:26:00 -0800

Dear restaurateur,

Do you sometimes feel like you have unique problems running your restaurant?

Do you see other restaurants fuller than yours and you are wondering what are you doing wrong or what are they doing right that you could do as well?

Do you feel like your restaurant is unique and you have unique problems that nobody else in the industry has?

You'll be surprised if I tell you that your problems, desires, wishes, aspirations, setbacks, losses and issues are not unique.

Most restaurateurs share the same problems and issues; this is what it makes us, makes you special and, at the same time, part of a larger community. Sometimes the issues that seem or feel more personal, are the ones that are the most generic.

You see? Running a successful restaurant is not easy. You struggle every day with a million things that could (and would) get wrong: machines break, your employees get sick... or leave you when you need them the most, sometimes they slack or are not nice to your customers, some days are almost empty and some totally full for no reason, you work hard and then receive criticism from ungrateful customers, you spend money in marketing but it doesn't seem to bring you many people...

You see? Running a successful restaurant is not easy. You struggle every day with a million things that could (and would) get wrong: machines break, your employees get sick... or leave you when you need them the most, sometimes they slack or are not nice to your customers, some days are almost empty and some totally full for no reason, you work hard and then receive criticism from ungrateful customers, you spend money in marketing but it doesn't seem to bring you many people...

Do you recognize any of these issues? You should, because they are common to most restaurants. Yes, it is true that there are some very successful restaurants that people love and are always full, but these are a minority in the general dinning landscape, and their fortunes are sometimes volatile since often their success brings complacency... Customers are very picky and soon they will look for something better (or more fashionable) to try.

So what can you do to be more profitable? To be more successful? To have your restaurant full of happy customers?

Actually the answer is very simple:

YOU MUST INCREASE YOUR EMPATHY FOR YOUR CLIENTS

Greater Empathy = Greater Profits!

There is a direct correlation between empathy and profits. But before I get to this again, let me clarify for you the difference between marketing and sales. Although this may be obvious for many of you, I know that sometimes both concepts get mixed.

Marketing is the activity aimed to bring people to your restaurant. Sales is the act of bringing your food and drinks to your costumers so they can consume them and pay for them. It is that simple.

Remember always that the goal of marketing is to make selling superfluous, or at least as easy as it can. Marketing always precedes selling. If your marketing if effective, your sales are easier and more profitable since your customers are already in the mood to consume your food and drinks.

On the other hand, if your marketing is ineffective, not matter how good your food and service is, nobody will go to your place to try it out. This is where many restaurateurs fail. They offer excellent sales, but they don't have the appropriate marketing vehicles to bring people to their place.

So what do marketing and sales have to do with empathy? Actually a lot! You need to use empathy in your marketing and in your sales.

Your marketing must appeal to your prospects emotions. They must feel like going to your place is special, and you and your employees will make them have a great time.

Your sales must also try to make your customers experience at your restaurant a unique and emotional journey.

I know that many of you are thinking that I am being too metaphysical and food is just food, but most of the people going to a restaurant are looking forward to have a great time, not just to satisfy their bellies.

Always try to be empathic with your customers and anticipate their needs and uniqueness. You will make them feel special and in return, they will come back to your place and will tell everybody how wonderful your restaurant is.

It is that simple.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

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

Ways To Increase Restaurant Sales In a Down Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Sat, 9 Jan 2010 13:13:00 -0800

Just a quick note to announce that WeeklyInterview has posted an interview with me that they made a few days ago. The title of the Interview is "Ways To Increase Restaurant Sales In a Down Economy"

You can read it here: http://weeklyinterview.com/?p=145

By the way, the price of the Restaurant Birthday Cub will go up from $49.99 to $69.99 in January 15th. so if you didn't take advantage of this opportunity you are missing a GREAT marketing investment. It works like charm.

I would suggest that you read the article "Make Your Customers Feel Special on Their Birthdays" that I published in my site. You can find it here: http://myrestaurantmarketing.com/articles/restaurant_birthday_marketing.html

Also, you can get more information about the Restaurant Birthday Club and MVP program here: http://myrestaurantmarketing.com/products/restaurant_birthday.html

Happy Meals,
Jose L Riesco

New Year's Restaurant Marketing Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Tue, 5 Jan 2010 10:47:00 -0800

First of all, Happy 2010 to all of you.

As the new year starts, many of you are making resolutions. Perhaps your restaurant is not very full, business is slow and you could do with many more customers, or perhaps you just want to improve your business: streamline operations, reduce expenses and improve your marketing.

Here are some ideas for your new year's resolutions:

√ Do you have a restaurant website? If not, this is the time to create one. More than 70% of your potential customers are looking for restaurants online and they will miss yours if you are not there.

√ If you have a website, this is a good time to check that all your information is updated. Do all your links work? (You'll be surprised how many times I wanted to get in touch with a restaurant via the Contact Us menu just to find that it does't work.) Do you accept online reservations? Do you capture your client's email to follow up with your list? Is your site easy to navigate and without annoying music and flash animations? Are your menus and prices up to date? Are you still promoting last year's events?

√ Are you using Social Media to promote your business? Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are free to use and can keep your place fresh in your customer's and potential customer's minds.

√ Do you have a way to capture your customers birthdays and anniversaries? If you don't, you should. Birthdays are very special for most people and they usually never celebrate them alone. If you do, are you doing your homework and sending them a special invitation to celebrate these special occasions with their friends and families at your restaurant?

√ Are you tracking the results of all your marketing investments? If not, this is a great time to start doing this. If you can't track the result of a marketing investment, then cancel it. You don't want to be wasting money in something that you don't know even if it works. Typical examples of wasted marketing investments are ads in newspapers and magazines (at least that you can track how many customers do they bring to your place), Yellow Pages (who uses the Yellow Pages anymore?, and specially who uses them to decide the restaurants where they should go?, Yes, that's right, nobody. People are searching online nonadays), radio ads, etc.

√ Do you have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Something that identifies your restaurant and differentiates it from any other restaurant. If you don't, you should think about creating one. If you do, are you using it in all your marketing materials? Is your staff aware of your USP?

√ Are you training your staff to be client-centric? Your clients are your most important asset. Not you, not your place, not even your delicious food. If you don't have clients coming to your place, nothing else matters. Make sure that your staff is fully trained to deal with all kinds of customers so that they become clients, love your place and write rave reviews about your restaurant in all the restaurant directories and social media places. Happy clients are the best marketing that you can have. Unhappy clients will be very willing to talk bad about your place and will have an impact on hundreds, perhaps thousands of people reading their reviews. Never argue with your clients and think of any complementary food to make them happy as a marketing investment, not a loss.

√ Are you reading what people say about your restaurant in directories like Yelp.com, UrbanSpoon.com, CitySearch.com, etc.? Even if sometimes it is difficult to swallow all the negative reviews (and most people only bother to write when they are angry or they had a bad experience), they can help you identify areas for improvement. For example, if you have many people complaining about your service, then obviously you have a problem with your servers; same thing with your food, ambience, music, etc. Try to be positive and use the feedback as a way to improve your restaurant business. A continuos improvement process will gradually eliminate the bad reviews and bring the good ones. This will bring more people to your place.

There are many other resolutions that you can set for this year, but the most important resolution of all is to take some action. Many times, restaurateurs know that they need to change or improve things but they are so caught up in the daily operations that they don't have the time to change anything.

Remember, if you keep on working the same way, you will get the same results. Only changing and improving your marketing and operations will bring more customers to your place. Complaining about the economy could make you feel better but, believe me, even in this poor market conditions many restaurants are thriving. Is yours one of them?

You can find many free ideas and information about marketing restaurant in my website.

Happy 2010.

Jose L Riesco

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

The Gift of Restaurant Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 16:06:00 -0800

Getting feedback about your restaurant is, perhaps, one of the best ways to improve your business. After all, the people bringing you the money are telling you what they like and what they don't about your restaurant.

Giving feedback requires time and energy so most of your dinners won't bother telling you about your food, your service and/or your ambience. Only when clients have very strong opinions (positive or negative) they will take the time to give you their feedback so you better pay attention to what they have to say.

It is true that most of the feedback that you'll receive will be negative. People are mostly moved by emotions and nothing motivates a person to act more than expressing their feelings about why their dinning experience was ruined by your food, service, ambience, or some combination of them...

I've just published a new article in my website that talks about this issue. You can read the full article at my website: The Gift Of Restaurant Feedback

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco

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

80/20 vs. 4: Restaurant Marketing By The Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:55:00 -0800

By Greg McGuire

The Pareto Principle has long been hailed as the Holy Grail of marketing, the one rule by which all marketing efforts succeed or fail. The principle itself is pretty simple: 20% of your customers drive 80% of your sales. There’s always a core group of loyal customers who not only spend money in your restaurant, they bring their friends, give glowing reviews at dinner parties, and otherwise provide a vital linchpin in your money making machine.

Figuring out who those 20% are can be a full time job, and the logic has long held that if you find them, and target them effectively, you’ll be well on your way. But as the Information Age has matured, so has the wealth of tools available to marketers, and therefore the size of the groups you can target has gotten much smaller. Some marketers have even begun to parse groups of customers down to what some are calling the 4% factor, or specific offers that have a high conversion rate among 4% of your customers.

So how does this apply to restaurants? Well, for starters, restaurants are a business, just like any other. And as a business, restaurants have products that need to be sold to the right customer. Every day your restaurant has the opportunity to learn more about your customers: how often they come in, how much they spend, what they order, etc.

The more you know, the better you can target your promotions and marketing. Too often restaurants take a shotgun approach to their marketing campaigns – blanket advertising in local media outlets and generalized coupons (20% off your order, etc.). That strategy used to be enough. But as more restaurants compete for the same customers, aging marketing approaches are simply not going to work anymore.

Here are some tips to bring your restaurant marketing strategy into the 21st century:

Know thy customer. You’ve probably heard this one before, but it has never been more true. The main difference is that you have many more ways to get to know your customer today that simply didn’t exist before. For restaurants specifically, consider some strategies to learn more about your customers:

Hold a raffle/door prize event.Customers who enter must fill out a card with their email address, favorite menu item, really anything you want to know about them.
Use an email marketing campaign to engage customers and collect information about them.
Conduct surveys, either electronically or on paper in your restaurant.

Use coupons to learn more about your customers – if you can collect an email when a customer redeems a coupon for a specific menu item, then you can use that information to target them for specific types of future promotions

Leverage thy knowledge. Now that you’ve put some effort into collecting information about your customers, you need to leverage that information to your advantage. Use the 4% factor to separate customers into specific groups with particular tastes. Then hit those groups with specially tailored promotions made just for them. The goal is to get your response rate (i.e. conversion rate) through the roof.

Engage thy followers. Targeting small groups of loyal customers should generate an enthusiastic response. And when customers respond, you should be poised to engage them and solidify your rightful place as one of their favorite brands. The tools you have available to you today make customer engagement even easier. Experiment with different avenues until you find the social media that works for you.

Gauge and repeat. The idea is that these small groups you find through your marketing campaign will respond at much higher rates than a traditional (and usually more expensive) marketing campaign. You’ll only know for sure if you gauge response. Use coupon codes and other ways to measure who’s biting on what, and then modify and improve your campaign until you have it honed down to a high performance machine.

The good news is that running a 4% campaign will probably be much cheaper than a traditional shotgun blitz. The bad news is that it takes some significant time investments and more than a little trial and error. For those willing to put the time in however, the gains can be huge.

Greg McGuire blogs about the foodservice industry at The Back Burner, which is written by the employees of Tundra Specialties, a company specializing in restaurant equipment and food service supplies.

Restaurant Email Marketing or Restaurant Social Media?

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:17:00 -0800

Last week I've posted a blog in FohBoh titled Restaurant Email Marketing and to be honest, I was surprised about how many heated comments it got.

You can read it here:

http://www.fohboh.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1411008:BlogPost:338824&page=1

Obviously restaurant Email marketing obviously strikes a chord equally with marketing experts and restaurateurs. One of the comments was very interesting. Brett mentioned that "True interaction and exchanges of information happen on social networks."

His point is that email is intrusive while in social network media people chose to follow other people (or a business) and therefore the information is shared voluntarily.

This is not totally right since people can also unsubscribe easily from email lists if the content is not to their liking.

The difference between email marketing and social media marketing is that email marketing is a push marketing (people receive your communication) while social media is a pull marketing (people need to connect and check what's going on).

So which one is best? The answer is both:

Email marketing is really appropriated to send a message to your customers that you want to make sure they receive (like an important event or announcement).

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is better for posting general news, photos of your restaurant, staff or dishes, etc. and in general for keeping your restaurant fresh in your customers' memory.

Use both with moderation and always post interesting information and you will accomplish to keep your customers happy and informed.

Happy meals,

Jose L Riesco

www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

PD: I've updated my website with a ton of free marketing information, resources and ideas. Check it out!

The Best Restaurant Marketing In the World

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:03:00 -0700

Restaurant owners and managers often spend quite a lot of money in marketing, trying to bring new customers to their restaurant with mixed results.

However, that obsession with bringing new customers often diverts the attention from their core business.

Let’s face it; before you start spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars a month trying to bring new customers to your restaurant, you should focus on your core competences, making sure that you can deliver an excellent dining experience to your clients.

Restaurants should show their commitment to excellence in four basic parameters:

√ Quality of their food

√ Excellence of their service

√ Cleanliness of their place

√ Agreeable, beautiful, unique, and/or attractive ambience

If you can’t deliver in all these categories, then perhaps you can still bring new customers to your restaurant using smart and targeted marketing. However, many of these people won’t come back to eat at your place, so you will have to keep on investing over and over in new marketing vehicles to always attract new customers.

Instead, try to take a hard look at your current offering. Do you deliver great food with excellent customer service in a clean and attractive place? If so, great, you are ready now to promote your business.

However, if you think that you are missing in one or more of the four categories, you should focus your energies on improving them.

These are some basic things you can do to improve your core business:

√ Changing or simplifying your menus. Sometimes less is more and your kitchen staff can focus all their energies on your signature dishes and your servers will know better the menus. If your cooks can deliver great quality food, then it’s time to hire new more skilled cooks.

√ Training your staff by switching all the emphases to customer service and satisfaction. Setup clear guidelines about how to deal with unhappy clients.

√ Making sure that your restaurant is spotless. There is not excuse for less than a clean place where people go to eat. If your place is not clean enough, change your cleaning service (if you hire one), or ask your in-house people to clean better and review thoroughly after they clean to make sure that the place is spotless.

√ Creating a nice ambiance. Sometimes, a fresh coat of paint and some accessories is all you need to give your place a fresh and pleasant look.

But the most important aspect of all, is a total commitment from the management to deliver to your clients a great dining experience. This is what separates the great restaurants from the mediocre ones.

I encourage you now to go to the main restaurant review sites (www.yelp.com, www.citysearch.com www.metaflavor.com, www.menusnearu.com, etc.) and read the reviews that people wrote about your restaurant.

Sometimes this is a revelation because as the proud owner, you think that everything is fine with your place, and then you read some nasty reviews from disgruntled customers. I know that these reviews are hard to swallow but you must think about these reviews as a great opportunity for you to know your weak spots and improve your business.

Do they mainly complain about your food? Your service? Do you have tables that people really don’t like (perhaps no very well located…)?

These should be clues for you about what are your restaurant’s weaknesses and try to improve upon them.

Many times, the problems are related to consistency. A great review from one day becomes a horrible review the next because the dish was wrong, or the service poor. This is also a clue that you must set up processes that everybody should follow to make sure that things work as expected.

Of course, all the processes and safeguards in the world won’t assure you that mistakes won’t be made; after all, the restaurant business is a people’s business and people will make mistakes, count on it. So, what can you do to make your clients happy? You should make sure that people are adequately compensated for any wrongdoing that spoils their dining experience.

Having a compensation plan for your clients is the best marketing strategy that you can implement in your restaurant. After all, happy clients will write enthusiastic reviews about your place. These glowing reviews will be read by many prospects in the many restaurant review sites, and they will bring you many more happy clients.

Also, once you have solid systems in place to assure your customer's satisfaction, you can implement a formalized restaurant referral systems to bring back over and over your increasingly happy crowd.

If you focus on your core business and you always exceed your customers’ expectations, you won’t have to worry about marketing anymore.

Your clients will become your best marketing and sales force. Their testimonials will have ten times more credibility and power than any fancy advertisement or marketing campaign that your restaurant can run.

Happy meals,
Jose L Riesco
www.myrestaurantmarketing.com

People Are Searching Online to Find Restaurants

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:41:00 -0700

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...

...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:

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Jose L Riesco) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:33:00 -0700

This 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

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