Restaurants need to encompass considerable marketing avenues for the sake of success. Without publicity and marketing, there are chances that the restaurant may not survive in the market. But with thorough planning and enactment, the restaurant’s promotion can grab the customer’s attention just like that.

The restaurant business is quite tough. It is difficult for the owners to flourish in this thrift and with very low profits. Restaurant owners are enthusiastic about food because not much profit is left after paying all the mandatory expenses like produce, wages, upkeep, and maintenance. Better so than eternally, restaurants publicity and marketing are necessary.

Some restaurant owners thoroughly expand their profit margin by contracting their business prototype and resemblance to others, assembling a franchise, spreading their reputation, and cultivating a future passive income. While others choose to concentrate on their flagship eatery, trusting that quality over quality is vital for drumming up future business.

Smart advertising encourages the restaurant owner to create a good reputation in the market and reach customers who might not even have heard about the restaurants near them. It also promotes the restaurants with discounts, offers, special occasions, and new items to the menu.

For marketing purposes, the best way is social media. Whether people are seeking someplace to dine in safely or looking for the best takeaway service, they turn on the social media app. The more the traffic drives to your specific website or page, the more you will succeed in this business.

What the advertising brings to the restaurants

It helps to target customers, as if the customers like the taste of the food at a specific restaurant, they will start recommending that place to their colleagues and friends. Advertising helps target particular types of customers and proves to be more effective.
Advertising certainly helps to stay competitive in the business. The competitors will be advertising their specific establishment to the customers. They will assume that the establishment has lacked publicity, is less thriving, and offers less than the other competitors.
Publicity and advertisement are thoroughly an investment. If the restaurant owner is investing wisely, they will surely profit from that. But the amount to be spent on publicity depends upon the area and type of restaurant. Usually, casual and family-specific restaurants do not spend more on advertising, while fine-dining restaurants spend more because they must create a lavish image.
Publicizing can certainly help to develop crucial aspects of the restaurant’s reputation. Advertising fetches the customers by creating the business’s reputation in the community.
Hiring a marketing agency can reduce almost all of the burden regarding advertisement. A good social media marketing agency can maintain whatsoever the name’s niche and aesthetics through social media. Great brand recognition can lead to more followers, leading to more traffic to the site and a boost in orders.

Planning for the year ahead is never an easy task. Lack of resources (people, time, budget), keeping up to date on what’s going on in your market, obtaining quality leads and improving brand awareness and reputation have become increasingly difficult for all organizations – for profit companies as well as nonprofits. This has become especially true among US CEO’s who are concerned with not just domestic but also international uncertainties.

Developing A Marketing And Marketing Communications Strategy Is Critical

This should be your priority. Without a strategy for a plan there are way too many opportunities to get off track and chew up your investment. Your ROI will suffer. Consider the following to focus your efforts when developing your strategy and plan:

1. Determining, understanding and verifying your target customers and prospects should be at the top of your agenda. To improve profitability and ROI you must know what your audience wants and needs, how they perceive your brand and how it stands up to competition.

Be sure to avoid industry and company “myths” and internal “opinions”. Employ primary and secondary research to understand your audience. With so much information available about companies and brands, it is truly the Age Of The Consumer and will be for a very long time.

2. Additionally, as part of your knowledge of your audience, determine the size and scope of various sub-segments that exist today and will tomorrow. For example, does your audience include women, or Asians, or Hispanics? If so, look at the dramatic growth of these segments of the populations and determine if your brand needs to pay particular attention to them.

Also, recognize that millennials (23% of the US population) are not a homogenous group. At the younger end (20 – 28 years), 40 percent t are currently living rent free with family, while at the older end (29 – 35 years), 43 percent have already purchased a home. With that in mind, how should your strategy differ if you’re targeting adults 55 years and older (21% of US population)?

3. Once you clearly understand your audience, develop your unique brand position. To do this, create a brand positioning statement. The statement is a succinct description of the core target audience to whom the brand is directed and a compelling picture of how you want your audience to view the brand. Sound simple? Take a few minutes and try to answer the four components of your positioning:

· The target audience, in very specific detail

· The category in which you complete and its relevance to customers

· The brand’s benefit and point of difference

· A reason for the customer to believe – the most compelling proof

All marketing and marketing communications should flow from this positioning, and it should be fully understood and embraced by all employees, sales reps, partners and management.

4. Improving brand awareness is very important but only the first step. You also need to create great customer experiences with each touch point of your brand. And that means creating brand advocacy at all levels of contact. Develop brand champions at every level of purchase and repurchase to improve ROI.

Be sure these influencers completely understand, believe and can articulate your brand premise. And provide them with the training and tools to convey their trust-worthiness in a believable manner.

Developing A Focused Marketing And Marketing Communications Plan And Budget

After the hard work of developing a meaningful strategy, recognize it’s equally important to develop a specific plan and budget. The following should be taken into consideration:

1. You must be media neutral and open minded in developing your plan and budget. It is extremely important to understand the difference between “efficiency” and “effectiveness”, and not get caught up with the latest trendy new tactic.

Regardless of the specific marketing tactic, or type of digital or traditional media, you’re evaluating, keep in mind that cost efficiency does not necessarily lead to effective results. Also, and most importantly, the best source of marketing communications leverage is the quality of the message, not the marketing tactic.

2. The scope and diversity of marketing and marketing communications tactics has grown faster than the ability to measure some of them. Marketers now are actually spending money without knowing how it impacts their profitability and ROI! Consider the variety of ways in which nearly $450 billion is expected to be spent in the US in 2018:

· Sales promotion ($83 billion), telemarketing ($60 billion), direct mail (($46 billion) and events ($40 billion) highlight projected 2018 US Marketing Services expenditures;

· The internet ($78 billion), television ($68 billion) and the combination of radio, newspapers and magazines ($47 billion) are projected to be at the top of the 2018 US Major Media spending categories.

Source: Zenith Total US Spending

And while it may surprise you, 90 percent of consumers (and 94 percent of millennials) still use coupons. The coupons come from a variety of on-line and traditional mediums, but mail is most popular. Why do marketers still use coupons? The simple answer is because they’re effective in guiding purchase. In developing your own plan and budget, determine and recognize the effectiveness of all marketing tactics, not just their efficiency.

ROI Focused Marketing And Marketing Communications Consultants

If you’re like most small and midsized companies, you and your team may not have the expertise or time to develop an ROI focused marketing and marketing communications strategy, plan or budget.

Even major global brands are seeking outside advisors. In my May article, I discussed the dramatic growth of management and accounting consulting practices (33% increase in US revenue) at the expense of traditional global advertising agencies (0.3% increase in US revenue). One reason for this 2017 growth of consultants is their focus – not on trends or what’s in the news – but on marketing and marketing communications effectiveness, profitably and ROI.

While you may not be able to afford the large global consultants, you should consider hiring a marketing and/or marketing communications consultant. The type of people you should hire should:

· Have a focus on ROI, with significant experience across industries, b2b and b2c brands, both large and small, as well as for profit and nonprofit organizations

· Be media neutral, apolitical, down to earth, be willing to be part of a team and “tell it like it is” so candor will flourish

· Have flexibility to bring in other professional specialists when and as needed so that overhead isn’t an ongoing expense

· Have strong convictions to measure what has been done and measure what will be done to improve ROI, perhaps including a marketing communications audit

In today’s challenging environment, a greater focus on strategy, planning and budgeting can go a long way toward leapfrogging competition and improving brand profitability. And the fresh eyes of a consultant can go a long way to building a meaningful future for your brand.

So… how have you been building your brand lately?Now, I’m writing this in my best Barry White voice… “How’s
your Brand Lo-o-o-o-o-ve, baby?”It may sound obvious, but increase Brand Love by branding better.Branding your business better will help you increase awareness,
attractiveness, and affection of your prospects (so they become
customers), current customers (some people call them clients),
and employees (yup, they need to be sold on you, too).”Huh? I’ve heard of brand awareness, and brand attractiveness I
understand, but affection? Brand Love? Is this guy smoking
banana peels?”OK, I admit, that term may be hard to take– at first. But,
haven’t you expressed to someone that you love something? “I
love that soda.” “I love their pizza.” “I love that store.”See? You’ve been enamored with a brand before. And there’s a
very good chance you still are. So are other people.Why would you say you “love” soda, pizza, or a store? Because an
important nerve of yours has been hit. Some might call it “the
Sweet Spot.” And it may not be all that obvious what that Sweet
Spot is.A soda tastes best to you over all others by iteself. Or it may
go better with certain types of food you enjoy. Perhaps your
favorite pizza place makes the best tasting pizza. Maybe you
enjoy the surroundings and atmosphere as much as the food.When you think about your favorite shop, maybe you think they
always have just what you really want. Maybe you get treated
like royalty. Or you feel good you can afford what they have, or
because you can get a lot without spending much.Thankfully, somebody has probably said, “I love that…” about
your business. If they haven’t, you probably haven’t been open
very long– or will be open for much longer. Think of the last
referral that came in. They probably did so because someone had
high praise for you.Now… the trick is to find out what was so praiseworthy, and
effectively comunicate it to similar prospects.How to do it? Just ask for feedback.Talk to your clients/customers about their experiences. Usually,
they will have good things to say. Or at least they may buffet
some less-than-glowing reviews with some good stuff. Speaking of
“less than glowing,” when asking for feedback, be prepared for
“warts and all.”In fact, ask for it.When it’s really bad, you’ll hear it right away. But when there
are minor slip-ups, or things your business may NOT be doing,
those can easily fall through the cracks. Always stress you want
candid, HONEST answers. If you’re not willing to search out the
“bad stuff,” it will only get worse, and small problems can grow
exponentially.Or somebody realizes how you’re underserving the market and
takes advantage before you do.So, ask your clients questions casually. Or even print up 100 or
so quick response cards with three to five questions. With only
a couple of well-worded questions and space for their own
additional thoughts, you may not only get good feedback, you
might gain insight about your market, operation, or clientele
that takes business to the next level.Watch for more from me on this topic.