Created by Diana Khusniyarova

The post Infographic: Why You Should Add Email Marketing To Your Mix appeared first on Restaurant Logic.

If you’ve ever thought about opening a new restaurant, it might feel a little like assembling Ikea furniture – daunting. New restaurants can be a big venture with long hours included, and many steps and confusing tasks to walk through. Design a new menu, choose a location, hire staff; It takes time, patience, will most likely cause aggravation, but the important part is to not settle for ‘close enough.’ Because, when you put all the pieces in place, the reward is great and you will be so satisfied when it is finally done.

Unlike the traumatizingly laborious Ikea instructions, we’ve created a noninclusive list of items you’ll want to make sure to check off for your restaurant’s opening.

1. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

You’ve got a great menu planned. Hospitable staff hired. Unique concept in place. Well, unfortunately, none of that matters if no one knows about your restaurant. Marketing is a very important part of your business plan.

Opening a restaurant requires a marketing plan that will help you connect to potential customers in the community. In your plan, you’ll want to include everything from opening day incentives, to your specials, to your social media plan.

2. Create/Claim profiles on Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, and Google My Business.

Our previous blog How to Claim Your Business Profiles will guide you through how to do this the simplest way possible, but you’ll also want to make sure to set up notifications for any new reviews. The opening days of your restaurant are vital, and any customers you get will be ‘new’ customers so first impressions are everything – and that includes how they’re responded to online.

3. Get Your Online Presence Ready

If potential customers see or hear about a new restaurant in the community, they’ll google it. It’s a fact. Be one step ahead by having a landing page live online at least 30 days before opening day. This landing page should include your social media feeds, a spot to collect job applications, information about opening day, and MOST importantly, a place to allow customers to sign up for your E-club. In addition to a landing page that represents your style, start posting on social media regularly. By regularly, we’re talking 3-4x/week. You’ll also want to start utilizing those emails you’ve been collecting, so start sending weekly emails. These posts and emails should include updates about the status of your opening, any news stories covering your opening, and even offers and incentives to get people in the door early on.

4. Share the Good News

A new restaurant opening is always exciting news in a community. There’s nothing worse than a silent grand opening because that puts you at risk of deflating morale in the community and with your staff. One important tip to prevent this from happening is to create a press release to send to local media once you’ve chosen a date and time for your opening. Talk up your new restaurant – this is your chance to share about everything you’ve worked so hard for. Make this an event no one wants to miss.

5. Start Thinking About How to Keep the Customers Coming

In a competitive industry like the restaurant business, word of mouth isn’t always enough to sustain a busy restaurant. Unfortunately, many restaurants fail in months 18-24, so you’re definitely not going to want to rely on your “honeymoon” traffic when you first open to guarantee your longevity and success. Now is the time to make sure you have systems in place to collect guest information. This should include things like handout cards/contests, table tents, or posters. It takes multiple visits to create habits, so you’ll also want to consider handing out some kind of “Bounce Back” offer during your launch window. This can be a coupon valid after your opening ends, and even extends another couple weeks.

Typically, the “honeymoon” phase wears off after about 6 months, and unfortunately many restaurants don’t think about marketing until that point, then regret not having a customer list to reach out to.

6. Online Reputation

We’ve already hinted at it, but that just goes to show how important it is. Having an interactive and intentional online engagement during the first six months of being open is the most important time. Unfortunately, this is also the most difficult time operationally speaking as you hire new staff, create new recipes, etc. The first 5000 guests that walk through your door will make or break your restaurant. Be sure that a single customer doesn’t leave the building without knowing how to give feedback on their experience. This is a great opportunity to utilize review cards, and an online survey platform. Take a peek at our Combating Online Negative Reviews blog to gain some insight on handling reviews you may not love.

Looking for more tips for your new restaurant business plan?  

The post Insider Tips for Opening a Brand New Restaurant appeared first on Restaurant Logic.

Almost every week, you hear about the latest marketing trends on social media — we’re constantly seeing usage stats on sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. That can be great news for you as restaurant who needs to get the word out & get more butts in seats, BUT there’s a major risk to consider.

Just as fast as social media sites become a relevant marketing tool, they can quickly change and put a big dent in your marketing & communication strategy.

We all remember when Facebook started changing the news feed algorithm that dropped organic reach for businesses on Facebook 50–90%. Today, Facebook has become less of a social media platform and more of an ad platform (while Facebook reviews are becoming a force to be reckoned with — more on that in a different post).

We have seen many restaurants focus their entire web strategy around Facebook — utilizing resources to create a social media following just to have the content you post not visible to the majority of the people who like your page.

Whoever owns the platform owns the data.

There’s no doubt that organic social media content & engagement is an important part of your marketing, but it’s not foremost, it’s too fickle for that. When you’re using social media to market your restaurant, you’re the tenant renting space (and instead of paying with your wallet, you pay with your data).

When your primary marketing medium can make a quick, seemingly overnight algorithm change and drop your visibility by close to 90%, you may want to rethink your marketing priorities.

After Facebook made the change to their algorithm, it affected every business page- and social media industry insiders reeled. John McDermott of Digiday said it represented “one expensive and frustrating lesson that’s better to own than rent.”

Owners make the rules, not tenants. 

Better to own than rent.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big advocate and promoter of social media. But I encourage every restaurant operator interested in growing sales to begin with a home base that you can control. Use social media to support your message, get reach, & connect with your customers, but build your house on your own lot. 

Few things in business and life are stable, but some things are more stable than others. When it comes to the internet, the only thing you can truly control is your own website and your own customer list.

Do a quick check — go visit your website on a mobile device and check the following things:

1. Is it mobile friendly? The test for this is if you can view the entire site (especially the menu) without pinching and zooming.
2. Is your menu up to date and accurate?
3. Do you have current specials, & events posted?
4. Do you have a way (and compelling reason) for your customers to sign up for your email/ text list?

If the answer to any of the above is no, unfortunately you may be missing the point. You may be making a common mistake of maintaining and improving property you don’t own (social media) while letting the property you own fall into disrepair. If you find that you’re in that place, don’t dispair- almost half of independent restaurants today are in the same place. The good news is you can absolutely take steps to remedy that today and stand out from the competition.

Once you have your website up to date, I recommend you focus on building your own customer database — it may not be as trendy as social media, but email is truly one of the strongest assets you have to turn one-time customers into loyal followers.

Why? Because it’s yours.

The post Don’t Build Your House On A Rented Lot appeared first on Restaurant Logic.

What Are Customized Mobile Websites?

These days, consumers in the USA spend about thirty-four hours per week using mobile websites! They often make spending decisions based on the information that they gather while using apps. When you make a site that is customized for your restaurant, you’ll give prospective and returning customers easy access to so much useful information about your business. For example, you may let them know what’s new on the menu, keep them abreast of special promotions, such as contests or sale-priced entrees and give them the inside scoop on special events at your eatery.

There is software out there that will allow you to make an app of your own. These are usually fairly basic, we recommend using an expert to handle mobile websites development for you. Mobile website development from a good provider is often more affordable than restaurant owners realize and it’s an investment in the profitability and longevity of their restaurants.

A great mobile website development company will be able to deliver development that is custom and designed to work on a variety of operating systems, or your preferred operating system, such as iOS or Android.

How to Create Curated Promotions

Use your restaurant’s social media profiles in order to make a splash with customers. For example, you may create a curated promotion by posting a new dish to Instagram, asking followers to name the dish and then rewarding the person who comes up with the best name, by offering her or him a prize, such as a free meal.

When you create excitement at Instagram or another popular social media platform, you’ll build a buzz. People may share your curated promotion, which means that you’ll widen your audience. The cost of giving the winner a free meal will be so much less than what you’d need to spend on conventional advertising to win a new customer.

Curated content is cared for by someone who knows the target audience very well. You may curate your social media profiles. One approach to creating curated content is linking to third-party content which is relevant to your audience. For example, you may share an article about the history of the type of food that you serve at your restaurant. If you serve Italian fare from the North of Italy, find an authority article about the history of this form of cuisine. Then, share it on your social media accounts.

Let your fans and followers know that the cuisine you feature at your eatery has a rich and colorful history. Wrap up your insight into the curated content by sharing a special promotion that relates to the curated content. For example, offer a limited-time special offer, such as fifty percent off of a dish that is mentioned in the curated content.

When you share curated content and add a special promotion, you’ll achieve two goals. You’ll impress followers by offering them content which is related to your restaurant and you’ll also encourage them to enjoy your eatery, via the related special promotion.

The goal is interaction that sparks interest and builds a big buzz. Social media promotion is free. Mix your own content with curated content from third parties in order to create eclectic and interesting social media profiles.

Use Our Helpful Tips Today

We believe that offering a customized mobile website and doing curated promotions is the best way to draw in new clients and retain the loyalty of customers that you already have. So, why not try our tips today?

The post Bring More Customers to Your Restaurant With Responsive Websites and Curated Promotions appeared first on Restaurant Logic.

One of the best parts of working in the restaurant business is that every night is a different experience. The chances that you will ever have the exact same group of people in your establishment on two separate evenings is low enough to consider impossible. Because of this, you might be tempted not to think much about the people who walk into your establishment on a regular basis, but that would be a huge mistake because each and every one of those customers has the potential to be a regular customer. This is important to note because all of those regular customers are key to the success of your restaurant even if you do not know it now.

Regular customers keep your income steady.

Although your business can’t stand alone on the patronage of your regular customers, just knowing that you have certain people that will come eat on a regular basis lets you know that you have some income that you can depend on. Again, it will not be enough to keep your entire company afloat, but it will make sure that you have some dependable income. Make sure that your regular customers know that you are aware that they are there on a regular basis, and give them the respect and kind treatment that they deserve so that they have a reason to keep coming back. When you make that connection, it will go a long way.

Regular customers tell others about your restaurant.

If you love to go out to a restaurant, then chances are that you will tell other people about it. The same is true for your regular customers. As they talk about your establishment, you will be getting some of the best free advertising that you could possibly hope for. If you know that your regular customers are talking about your business and inviting others to check your place out, then ask them to have them talk to you in particular so that you can build some new positive relationships and grow that regular customer base even more. Making those new connections will only make your company that much stronger.

Regular customers are more willing to be honest about your business.

if you are looking to learn how to improve your business, you should talk with the people that are there on a regular basis rather than trying to get feedback from someone that has only been there once or twice. Your regular customers will be the ones who will be honest with you about how your new waitress is managing or what they really thought about the mashed potatoes that the kitchen sent them to go with their steak. Regular customers have certain expectations about service and the menu that they will usually be open and honest about.

Keep your customers loyal and you will reap the benefits.

If you do not know if you have regular customers, then you need to take some time to examine your business closer because without a regular customer base, you are missing out on some of the most important people your restaurant will ever serve. Remember that repeat customers are the ones that are going to give you the best feedback as well as free advertising to keep your company in the red on a regular basis. Be aware of who visits to eat at your establishment and make sure that you are making connections with people who come back another time so that they know how much you appreciate them. They might just appreciate you back.

The post Importance of retaining Restaurant Customer Loyalty appeared first on Restaurant Logic.