Offline/Online Marketing Ideas for Restaurant?

If it is a fun place, have them come up with an event or angle and send out a press release to the local media.

Have them sponsor a contest - have people create a new, never-before-seen pizza and celebrate the New Year with a new pizza creation.

Winner gets free pizza for a year.

Announce the upcoming contest and then announce the winner - complete with photos.

I have a portal site for a local city listing all the major services; restaurants, auto repair, hotels, real estate, moving companies, attorneys, insurance, chiropractors, accountants, etc. I charge $75 a month per listing. What I do is contact local businesses, and show the website on my laptop computer, and propose to build their 5 page website for $2,000 and $75 a month for maintenance and promotion. Ironically, this is much easier than marketing online because what IMers take for granted is often new to brick and mortar business owners. The website is promoted by members themselves and through my own newspaper, billboard, and media (cable TV is surprisingly cheap) advertising.

Good idea. Let all their agents give both buyers and sellers a cupon for a free large pizza (dine in only) at closing. You're going to have to explain customer aquisition cost and lifetime customer value to them (as well as bumps/upsells).

When the customers come in to redeem their cupons, chances are they'll get more than just a large pizza. And you can give them another cupon to get them to come back again. Perhaps a buy one get one free (or 1/2 off). Or free sodas or a free pitcher of beer or something like that. Anything to get them back for a second experience.

Also, hold a free pizza party at the RE office to announce the program.

I love the ideas you've gotten so far.

I'm not sure if their/your area is similar, but in my area (downtown NYC) there are some restaurants to which families with younger children flock at around 6pm or so because their serving hours are suitably early. These excellent artisan restaurants have special accommodations for strollers and plenty of high chairs and booster seats. In my neighborhood, these places are packed from 5:30 - closing. The families with young children provide an extra "seating" before the serious dinner crowd gets there.

Perhaps developing a list of those sorts of local families and sending out offers appropriate to their needs might also be an option.

Hi Paul,

About the part on tying up with charity, I can share with you about my experience.

I do work in Non-profit organisation and we had a Christmas function. The sponsor roped in a restuarant which offer food catering.

The food was delicious and what is my point here.

The connection is between the sponsor and the charity. Normally such events have many people participating and if the food is really delicious, people do talk about it and will visit it again.

So again, it is seeking where there is alot of potential crowd (high traffic) and letting people talk about it (another viral mechanism = word of mouth)

My 2 cents,
John

You don't say what the layout of the restaurant is, but what about bringing live music? Musicians are always looking for new places to play, and it could be a draw on slow nights.

Being a Former Restaurant owner AND internet marketer, I can tell you first hand the card idea for sign ups simply is too much of a disconnect to work.

The ONE exception is if the card is stapled to the receipt.

But still not the best option for restaurants.

Here is what worked for ME.

I could care less about how FEW people sign up initially, that's not were the power is.

The Type of restaurant is vitally important for this to work effectively.

If this is the kind of place that you ONLY go for special occasions, (Typically Higher end places) Price incentives are not all the big of deal, you plan on something special and price isn't going to get you to choose one place over another.

For High priced places, its what goes along with the meal that counts, Dinner including Roses and VIP instant seating that is ONLY available to the VIPs, is important, the only way to be a VIP ? That's right sign up on the web.

For Premium dining its the experience that your web promotes.
Example:

Only Available to our VIP Guests
There is a limited supply of our special Veal medallions, on a bed of rice with our own special secret seasonings, with baby snow peas and a garnish of our chefs special cream sauce or rare white mushrooms ala-glaze.

Complete with our Tiffany cream cake, topped with hand selected black walnuts rolled in imported dark cocoa.

This is NOT available on our menu and we only can prepare a limited number of these exqusite items, please set your reservations for next wednesday, so you can enjoy this special limited delight.


For LOW END Resturants,

Its about price and speed,

HELP WE GOOFED, Our order agent messed up our order but it works out to benefit YOU. You see we ordered a case of our tenderloins, these are the same plate sized tenderloins that are on our menu, but WE GOOFED, you see they couldn't read the writting on the pad so we have 10 cases~!

So Take advantage of this goof up and come in now through wednesday with a copy of this email and you can have our tenderloin meal, grilled or breaded and deep fried for 1/2 off. PLEASE don't spread this around, just come in an show us this email and you get you meal 1/2 off no matter if one or 100, this special will run through wednesday.


Now in both cases, do you really think anyone is going to keep the secret?

Nope not at all, they are going to tell everyone they know to sign up for the notices and get in on the deals too.

The key is the business sees a traffic increase, NOT THE WEBSITE SEES A TRAFFIC INCREASE.

Read the above line again, its VERY important.


Mark

There is a course by a student of Dan Kennedy designed for restaurant owners and consultants. It could be a big help and make you look good...It's by Rory Fatt - Restaurant Marketing Systems

Get their email address IMMEDIATELY and give them an immediate reason to WANT to sign up for the ezine. Otherwise, if you give them a card or something asking them to go online and sign up for the ezine later, you've put the ball in their court and given control to them. You might end up with a lot of people who never sign up.

Give them something RIGHT THEN in exchange for their email address.

"... and if you sign up for our ezine tonight, your drinks are on us."

Something like that.

Take a laptop in, set it up by the register with their new web site on display to brag about it. As people pay, tell them, "Here's our new web site. Isn't it great? And if you click right here to sign up for our free ezine, I'll give you a coupon for __% off next time you come in."

One of the Dan Kennedy event sets that I have talks about a Kennedy client with a pizza restaurant.

They've had lots of luck with a fabulous idea.

They sell sort of a VIP membership.

The members are automatically charged $__ at the beginning of each month, so the restaurant starts off each month with a significant profit without having ever served a single pizza.

For that membership fee, the customer gets certificates for a certain dollar amount of pizza.

When they come in, of course they'll get other stuff to go with it, like drinks, salads, desserts.

The membership makes them more likely to come in because they've already paid for it and don't want to waste it.

With the membership, there were other perks these customers received like special VIP seating. If the clients come in and the restaurant is busy, the owners always have a few of their best tables in reserve so the VIPs can walk in and be taken care of quickly.

The VIPs also got some other perks that I can't remember, but the point is that the VIPs got even better customer service than the regular customers.

And the beauty of the whole thing is being able to ding their credit card at the beginning of each month and knowing you've got that guaranteed sale. Plus you've got regular customers coming in and you're keeping them happy.

Read Dan Kennedy's "No B.S. Direct Marketing For Non
Direct Marketing Businesses" - and the master of restaurant
promotion is Rory Fatt - Restaurant Marketing Systems

Check out his stuff. You can be a marketing magician for
your clients just copping his stuff.

you could also find accomodation places in your area & cross promote.

If you're in a touristy kinda area you could hook up accomodation, weddings, restaurants, hair & beauty etc etc

I looked into specializing in the restaurant niche, focusing on
list building, and offering incentives to that list to go out and
eat more often.

Some thing about it put me off for now. But while I was chewing
it over, I came up with the following loose plan for capturing
customers. The focus was on a system that could be implemented
quickly and without fuss.

1. Provide opt-in forms which can be placed on tables. A simple
but attractively laid-out design can be done easily. I made a sample
which had space for 4 customers details to be entered, laid out on
A5 paper. Have a headline, provide clear instructions with space for
the details you want. I included "month of birthday" on my sample,
for possibility of sending birthday-themed specials. I also had a tick
box that clearly stated that this person gives permission to receive
emails from the restaurant. No tick, no sign up.

2. Educate the staff. Tell them to point out the form(s) on the table
and give the compelling reason-why for joining their VIP membership,
or whatever they want to call it. For this, I felt they should make it
as much a no-brainer as they could. For example, the waiter could
inform them that IF they sign up NOW, they will get 10% off the
very meal they are about to order. Then, when they take the order,
they can add "...and did Sir wish to receive our VIP join-up discount
today?" and then confirm that they have filled in the form. They can
simply mark that order as such, and include the discount as promised.

3. Get the customers details entered into the system. For this, I would
personally not use a double opt-in system. This is why I include a tick
box in step 1 along with relevant wording which states that person
understands what they are signing up for. Just ensure the "welcome"
email they receive reconfirms what they are getting, and gives clear
instructions on how to remove themselves if they wish. Naturally, you
might wish to retain the original forms in case you ever needed to
provide proof.

The restaurant could do this themselves with an opt-in form you
provide on-line. Or they could fax it to you. Or they could post it,
or you could collect it... this part might be the most arkward part
of the process. Just charge accordingly for any involvement from
you on this part. The sooner the sign-ups are entered into the
system, the better. This is partly why I wouldn't go double opt-
in for this, as the next time they check their email it may well
have slipped their mind.

I had a geek inspired moment while thinking about this. An option
that may work, though not too convinced... is to charge enough
that you can easily throw in a "net book" style laptop, like an Asus
Eee pc, which are small, and then they can simply let the customers
sign-up on their site while they wait for the food to arrive...

Just some thoughts.

Also, be sure to keep track of birthdays of the family members so you can send a postcard and/or email so he or she can come in for their free dessert. (Or reserve this for your VIP members.)

Another thing that I just remembered about the pizza restaurant client/student of Dan Kennedy's (the one with the VIP program for customers to have a membership where they pay each month) --

Sit down with a calculator and pencil to figure out a strategy like, "If you join our VIP program, it's $25 per month, and you receive $35 worth of cerrificates to spend with us each month. Plus you get freebies like..." (and then throw in the stuff like free dessert for the birthday boy/girl/man/woman, and any other specials you can think of to bring them in and make them feel so special that they'll want to keep coming back).

Depending on how your client's regular prices on their menu, even if their VIPs are spending $25/month and getting certificates for $35/month in food and drink, don't look at it like they're getting $10 in free stuff each month. Look at it like they're getting extra value and they're still going to spend $__ on top of that most months (based on your prices, the average amount people spend when they're in, etc.).

Ideas from my own offline business :

- Google Maps : change the name of your business to include the keywords you are targeting. this way google might just feature you, and you alone on the first quarter of the page.

- Run Adwords ads. If you're clever about it you can target a lot of keywords that no one is bidding on.

- Use video (I use Traffic geyser and it has been bringing a lot of traffic my way)

- pick all of the "competing" restaurants one by one, look for them on the web, and get listed on EVERY place they are mentioned.

Tony

Yeah I aree with ShayRockHold on throwing a contest. Contests are a great way to build exposure for your business and give your customers a chance to win something while collecting a list to market to at the same time.

Good luck with the restaurant marketing!

I know you asked for ideas.
But please allow me to stray.

It seems like you are offering to many services at one fixed price.
A better way to do it (IMHO) will be to categorise your services.
for eg 1. Gather Leads 2. SEO etc

Gives you to get everything organized and upsell step by step.

cheers
hari

Hi Paul,

I too have segmented my offline offerings (email marketing, website design, seo, etc). Recently I held my first offline seminar. Afterwards my buddy (who attended) told me I should have started off with a chart showing the following:

SEO Email Social Media Video Marketing (etc.)

and then highlight the segment I was planning on discussing (email marketing along the lines of David Preston's Stupidly Simple Cash Cow method). By doing this, it opens the attendees eyes to other services I provide without me making a blatant sales pitch.

Well, I was getting ready to create the above slide to my Offline powerpoint seminar presentation, when I came across Maria Gudelis' recent WSO "How the HECK did Maria Gudelis generate $50,000 her FIRST WEEK in Offline Consulting?!?".

She's done it already AND expanded on the idea! She's only charging $5.00 for it which is ridiculously cheap. Frankly, I don't care if she's using the low price as an inducement to get me on her email list...it's great information, and it's easy enough to unsubscribe, if I so choose.

What she provides is a Mindmap which outlines all the ways an offline business can be helped with online marketing. It's a great tool to show Offline clients. It can also be adopted for my Offline seminar as a starting slide.

With the stong interest in Offline Consulting lately there has been a deluge of subpar WSOs on the subject. It's nice to see a quality Offline consulting product among the many mediocre, to outright scam offerings. WSO link below if you're interested.

How the HECK did Maria Gudelis generate $50,000 her FIRST WEEK in Offline Consulting?!?

Hi Paul,

Fun, laid back, free WiFi... sounds like an enjoyable gig!

San Diego is a travel center. How can you get hip, young, WiFi enthusiast travellers to check out the pizza place? Something at the airport, train station, youth hostel? Do Lonely Planet or Rough Guides have web sites where you can run ads?

Also, how about the local college market?

The single best pizza place invention I've seen is TV's at each booth playing cartoons to keep the kiddies entertained.

Regards,
Allen

How about letting them try out mobile marketing? You mentioned building a list of customers - they can do the same thing by letting their current customers optin to a mobile subscriber list. Rather than sending out emails or snail mail - they can send out lunch specials and happy specials to their customers mobile phones. All double optin - all CAN-spam compliant.

Send me a PM - I would be happy to give you a free account for your customer to test for 90 days - and yes, there is ongoing residual if they decide to sign on

Melody

Identify their U.S.P. and see if it qualifies for interviews with local TV and radio media.

I'd try something not as costly.

"give us your card for free extra cheese on your slice"

IF I'd be convinced that the card idea would work.

as a general pizza place things, you might consider offering "free curbside delivery", "call in your order and it'll be ready when you arrive" and "we accept credit cards" as things which can have a positive impact without costing any money.

here is a website of a Rory client

Wendt's Pork Palace | Wendts Pork Palace

see what you can get out of it...... see the guarantee too!

here is some more for you to study:

Treasure Map to Restaurant Riches Seminar – LIVE in Chicago with Rory Fatt

Foodservice Forums - Rory Fatt - Anyone buy his marketing package?

and see this google result:

roryfatt-client.com - Google Search

Capture the email addressses of people who eat there and follow up with special offers.

If you capture their birthdays too you can send them a special gift on the month of their birthday...no one eats alone on their birthday.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Paul, I'm curious what your strategy is for sharing all of these techniques with the pizza place. Are you going to give them a huge menu of a hundred different options? Put them into your idea of the week club? Or something different?

Regards,
Allen

Hi Paul,

Just a quick post, and forgive me if its already been talked about, its such a long thread I may have missed it.

One thing that works very effectively for an upmarket restaurant near mine is that when I first went there they had me fill out a 'review' card with my bill and promised competitions and stuff.

I went home and hadn't heard a thing from them for months. However on my birthday they sent me a card through the post and a £10 off voucher.

They also send me details of events like a valentines day set menu they did with live band and gave me a voucher for £5 and did the same for their new years eve party.

I think the vouchers were valid for about a month as well which I guess enables them to recoup the spend on the mail shot fairly quickly.

Jack

I hadn't seen that one before. That sounds like a brilliant technique. I should try it with some offline businesses near me!

Regards,
Allen

I don't know if this has been suggested to you yet, but getting customers on an email list can be painless!

Create a flyer, handout or coupon that instructs people to send a BLANK email to the client's autoresponder addy, e.g. pizzasandiego@getresponse.com. Then walk them through the next step -- opting in.

They do this at home, so no IP address problems should crop up...

another addition:

Restaurant Marketing Systems: Bootcamp in a box

some nuggets here!