The answer is simple. You’ve been out-marketed. I know what you’re thinking — of
course, they have a much bigger marketing budget than I could ever have. While
this may be true, it is easier than it ever has been to compete and win against the big brand marketing
wave. The internet and social media have equalized the playing field. The real
question is, are you taking advantage of it? 

The key to winning the marketing battle is to have a balanced marketing plan &
calendar. If you’re like most independent restaurants your current marketing
plan looks mostly like this:

Don’t fret – we’re here to
help. Today, I am going to show you how to make some simple adjustments to
create a winning marketing calendar within 6 weeks. The goal – have your
marketing planned out 60 days in advance.

Week 1: Carve out an hour in
your schedule to get your marketing calendar set three weeks out.

Week 2-5: Take ½ hour to add 2
more weeks to your marketing calendar

Week 6 (and beyond): Add 1 week
to your marketing calendar

Sounds simple enough…but what
exactly do you include on that marketing calendar? Here’s some tips:

·
Start with email. Best practice is 1 email per week. Best things to
email? Glad you asked. Let your customers know about LTOs, coupons, menu
launches, and upcoming events.

·
Next, add some Facebook and Twitter posts. Best practice for Facebook
is 3-4 posts weekly. We recommend the rule of thirds: 1/3 promotions, 1/3
stories, and 1/3 creative posts; pictures of food, pictures of things happening
in your restaurant, staff highlights, upcoming events, community happenings.  For Twitter? We recommend daily posting. These
posts should include your daily specials, pictures of food, weather-related
posts, holiday-related posts (national burger day, etc..)

If you’re looking for a
template to use for your marketing, you could look into building your calendar
on a google doc, an excel spreadsheet, or even by using Google Calendar. If you’re
looking for an even simpler option (that doesn’t force you to waste time
copying and pasting), we highly recommend the use of our marketing calendar on
Restaurant Logic’s dashboard. By using our Restaurant Logic marketing calendar,
you can visualize your marketing strategy in way in advance. And guess what? It
even offers recommended content and ideas so all you have to do is schedule
them out. If you’ve been searching for a simpler option…we found it.

By following the outline above,
you can make a significant impact on your marketing success. If you feel you’re
not able to make time for it quite yet, we believe adding even 10 minutes a day
to work on your marketing schedule can make a huge difference to your bottom
line.  Focus on some small goals to start
off. Transparently speaking, we don’t believe writing a lengthy marketing
strategy isn’t nearly as important as simply sitting down and planning some
real content.

Here’s hoping these bite size
action items will realistically help you gain a better grasp on your marketing
concept.  Your marketing might not start
out perfect, it will probably need some tweaking and adjusting along the way,
but if you start planning now we know that it will become a valued resource
that will not only make advertising your restaurant easier, but more successful
too.

The post How To Create An Effective Marketing Calendar for Your Restaurant Today appeared first on Restaurant Logic.

 1.] Trade Social Media Action for
Free Stuff

 Incentivizing customers to share your
posts means more eyeballs on your name which equals more customers in your
door. Be sure to include an awesome picture of your food so people are
associating that delicious eye candy with your restaurants name and
initiative. 

 Here’s what I mean:

     a.) Facebook
Post: “Help us help others in this season of giving! For every share this post
gets, we will serve a hot meal to a member of our community who is without a
home.“

-Coordinate
with a local Food Pantry or Shelter to provide (x) meals for one of the nights
their kitchen is open

  -That event is also something that can be shared on social
media

     b.) Facebook
Post: “Every person that likes this post will be entered to win a 3-course dinner
for 4 people. Shares count as 3 entries!” 

2.] Gift Card Bonus Programs

 As much as this is the season of
giving, we all know humans enjoy treating themselves well too. There seems to always
seen massive success when running the deal, “Buy one $50 gift card, and get an
additional $20 gift card for free!” (or really any amount free). People know
they have to buy a few gift cards as gifts every year anyways, they may as well
get a $20 gift card as a bonus for themselves to use! Or, of course, they can always
sweeten the gift they’re giving away.

(Gift cards also make terrific last
minute gifts, so this is a program you can run until the very last minute!)

 3.] Empowering Employees 

 As part of a Christmas gift to your
employees, here’s another great option: A “Friends & Family” coupon, VIP
LTO, or $5 gift card to your restaurant for them to give to their, you guessed
it, friends and family. This can help employees feel good about working for a
place that gives them perks they can pass along. Hopefully, it also encourages
their kin to come have an extra meal or two in your establishment. 

 4.] "Customers Nominating Other
Customers” Contests

 People love interacting with other
people on social media. (Obviously that’s why the whole Facebook idea worked in
the first place. Good thinking Mark Zucherberg!) Challenge people to highlight
other people doing things in the community; whether it’s a single mother
working overtime for her kids, a local youth worker going the extra mile, or
that guy in the neighborhood who always plows everyone’s driveway before they
can get to it, let people honor other people. 

 Here’s one idea we love: 

  ‘Pie From the
Sky’ Campaign (that name is obviously designed for a pizza place)

   -Facebook Post: “We want to hear about some folks who are spreading joy this
holiday season — Nominate a person who deserves a free pizza! Create a post of
your own, write out why this person is awesome, and tag us along with that
person. We’ll select a winner in 5 days!“

 5.] Employee Bonus Night

 We have one Restaurant Logic customer
in particular that has massive success with this every year. Basically, they
dedicate one night in which all of the profit from that night goes right back
to the employees. The community absolutely eats it up (in more ways than one).  There is always a great turn out and it’s
fantastic for employee morale. Utilize this idea for your own restaurant
and show your employees the love!

 6.] Free Holiday
Appetizer

 The slight tweaking or renaming of
crowd favorites is always a great strategy to create more perceived value for
one of your LTO’s. The holidays are a great excuse to take that concept to the
next level!

 Work with your food rep and your chef
to think of a low cost special appetizer (or dessert) that you can advertise
and give away for free to every table. This might only be for one night of each
week, or it could be every night for the whole month of December; either way,
it’s a great tactic to stay top-of-mind and get people excited about coming
into your restaurant. It’s like a seasonal version of what many Mexican
restaurants do every day with the free chips and salsa. You can always choose
to include a caveat where they’re required to spend $25 or more to deter the
free-loaders. 

 Here’s some examples of “Special
Appetizers” ideas:

     -5 Golden Rings…
of Onion (Obviously, onion rings)

     -Christmas Dip
(Spinach Artichoke Dip w/ tomato or peppers diced on the top for festive
coloring)

     -Reindeer
Droppings (Pretzel Bites piled on a plate) 

     -Santa’s Cookies
(Yes… just bake some cookies and toss them on a plate)

  This is a really underutilized
resource to restaurants — You can really do this with any cause or
organization. Lots of restaurants do it once or twice a year, but it can really
be done much more than that and end up being truly mutually beneficial! Whether
it’s your area’s United Way office, a local school program, or a national
foundation, it’s a perfect way to get people eating at your restaurant all
while supporting a great cause that both you and your customers care about. Select
a percentage that you’re comfortable with and it might just be enough to tip
the decision your way when customers are looking around for a bite to eat that
night.

 One last thing. Its not necessarily a marketing tactic, but keeping
your overall goal in mind, make sure you have enough staff to work through the
entire busy season. It seems a little counter productive to get customers in
the door, then not have enough staff to keep them all happy!

 The Christmas season is a time when even the savviest penny
pinchers are willing to spend a little more to honor the spirit of giving.
Hopefully this list will serve as a useful resource for you through these busy
times, and allow you to find some time to enjoy the holidays with your own
friends and family!

 Let us know what you think of our list, or if you have had
success with our tactics you’ve incorporated in the past.

The post 7 Ways to Spread Holiday Cheer and Drive-in More Traffic this Season appeared first on Restaurant Logic.