Awesome Restaurant Marketing Ideas!

BSshool.com selected the best 60 blogs in the restaurant industry.  Bschool.com is a business school directory and a leading online resource for MBA information and resources. If you are interested in continuing education and receiving your MBA, you can browse their directories. 

A high impact restaurant marketing campaign must have the restaurant team not only cooperative but also enthusiastic.

Direct mail marketing for restaurants with new technology and online printing appears to be easy and potentially rewarding.  Marketing is a little art and a little science. Using an online marketing tool that only requires the click of a mouse does not ensure a successful campaign.

Bypassing experts who have been doing graphics, printing and mailings for years is a risk.  Very careful consideration is needed before you click the "buy now" button when using an online printing company.  There is a good chance what you see is not what you expect and it may not arrive when you expect it.  This will leave you reordering and any potential cost savings can go out the window.  Testing a service with a small print job is a must to eliminate human error while you learn the ropes.

I like using the online tools for guerrilla marketing campaigns.  The goal is to create unique personal invitations to a specific group of people with a relevant message.

Perplexities begin when a restaurant marketing planning session begins.  This is because too many restaurant owners and managers have forgotten to pause and watch people eat their bacon.

If morale is low in your restaurant and if getting people to smile a rare occurrence, this garbage challenge may be just what you need.   The garbage can challenge was something I learned in the 70's.  I used it for the next 30 years with great success.  

Here is the garbage challenge:

If you are a dishwasher... and I am an assistant, manager, district manager or restaurant owner, you should hope to hear the following challenge:

"I am going to DUMP everything from your dish station garbage can onto the floor.  If I find any silverware in the garbage on the floor, you clean up the garbage off the floor.  If I don't find a single piece of silverware in the garbage, I will clean it up."

A restaurant marketing plan can easily fail due to inaction or resistance of the restaurant manager.  No alarm bells will ring and no flashing lights will tell you the restaurant manager may be a problem.  Visiting a restaurant during peak times will many times reflect success... or failure.

Open your mind to the next restaurant marketing idea.  This marketing idea uses video.  The video can be of the exterior area of your community (with your restaurant included).  If you prefer, it might be for a dinner plate which starts empty and then becomes a masterpiece from your menu.

How will your video be remarkable in such a way that your guests will share it? Can you educate, inform and make them SMink = Smile and think at the same time?  

A marketer's wish:  "How can I get someone to say the name of my restaurant?"

Function food restaurant marketing requires high local traffic, big signs, speedy service and the basics in place for execution.  Large portions doesn't hurt for customers who worry more about volume than flavor.  (Sad but true.)

Function food is for people who eat simply to refuel the body and think very little about what they are spooning into their mouths.

Just make sure it's not terrible"

"As long as you aren't rude"

"Short lines are better because I am in a hurry"

... are thoughts that hurry-up guests may have rambling around in their heads. 

Excuses.  You hear them daily. Excuses can become a habit, an instant response or a "profound reason" as to why there is no time, no money or no understanding for how to do restaurant marketing.

Here is a prediction, one of two scenarios will occur:

• Next month restaurant sales will be up. There will be reasons.
• Next month restaurant sales will be down.  Excuses will be heard.

Both are a symptom of restaurant marketing activities. Both can be influenced.

A restaurant marketing strategy will consider opportunities for the short term while laying a foundation for long term growth. 

For example...

This true story should help you understand why the dishwashers in your restaurant do such a bad job. 

The restaurant business seems like a circus to an outsider.  To a rookie manager, the restaurant is an obstacle course with no easy answers.

To understand reality and get better results, here are example questions to ask in a daily restaurant checklist: