Awesome Restaurant Marketing Ideas!

Guerrilla marketers see big opportunities every year when it is time for neighborhoods to celebrate with fireworks.

American Express has formed a partnership with Foursquare and others to change coupon offers from traditional to digital.  Eliminating the scissors and envelope to automation will speed the transactions and improve data collection.  (and reduce employee fraud?)  

American Express and the social networking service Foursquare have launched a partnership that enables American Express card members who link their Foursquare profiles to their cards to "load" to mobile devices and redeem merchant specials without the need for coupons or special codes.

There are rumors about restaurant marketing tactics which are spread around the Internet.  The message is very clear that restaurants are trying to "pull one over" on their guests.

If your restaurant strategy is to create marketing messages that misdirect and minimize information, then over time you will become untrustworthy.

A successful business owner who relies on guerrilla marketing listens first.  Restaurants are no exception.  If your restaurant is in New Hampshire, pay attention to the Beer Institute's Brewer Almanac.  In this special report (which is in essence a spreadsheet) you will learn that the highest consumption of beer per capita is in New Hampshire at about 32 gallons annually and is twice that of the lowest in Utah.

Guests who come and go from a restaurant continue to be forgotten before the food is even served. To change this reality, my preference is to think beyond "restaurant marketing" and instead turn to guerrilla marketing.

 The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks. 

The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget.

Guerrilla marketing is about using time, energy and imagination. This applies to the touch points in a restaurant. Let's look at the many touch points a restaurant has.

Zillow is a free tool online that almost anyone can use to create a quick and simple restaurant marketing campaign in their local community. You may think of this tool as a real estate website but a guerrilla marketing expert sees opportunities for restaurant marketing in the most unexpected places.

Below you will see maps from Zillow.com.  Each map will show yellow dots showing which house have been sold recently.  There is an option to choose how recently the homes were sold.  This guerrilla marketing tactics for restaurants will come in handy because in essence there is a very targeted market to folks who may not have boxes unpacked, who don't know the area and may have literally no friends yet.

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.