“Just Because There’s A Recession Doesn’t Mean Your Restaurant Has To Participate.” Rory Fatt

The reality is, your restaurant is not going to get a bailout from Washington. The only thing that matters to you is what’s happening in your economy. And that you can have a great deal of influence on it. Here are some specific things you can do to start receiving Restaurant Riches from Your Restaurant.

1. Don’t let all the media negativity affect your actions, thoughts or performance. Yes, you need to be aware if the sky is falling (it isn’t by the way) but as my good friend Lee Milteer says “Whatever you focus on Expands.” If you focus on declining sales and customer counts you’ll get exactly that – more sales declines. If however you decide to focus on what actions you CAN take to increase your sales and profits then that’s what you’ll get. MORE SALES MORE PROFITS. So don’t spend much time listening to the media negativity. 92% of America who wants to work is still working. The Parking Lots at Best Buy are still full with people buying stuff. Get over it.

2. Stop Hiding Your Head In The Sand and take some action! Running away from or ignoring what’s happening only makes matters worse and things won’t get better on their own.

3. Once you recognize what’s going to help you turn things around and INCREASE your sales focus on doing those activities. If you want MASSIVE RESULTS you need MASSIVE ACTION on your goals. Don’t be distracted by other people’s agenda’s and problems. Commit to every day advancing your key projects forward. Start with 15 minutes then 30 minutes each day on the project that’s going to have the biggest and most immediate impact on your sales. Eventually you’ll start to see the results of your actions and there will be no stopping you.

4. Recognize what actions are going to make a difference. Once you learn a few basic marketing skills you’ll recognize that marketing your restaurant are the kind of activities that generate $100 or more an hour. Dicing Carrots is an $8 an hour activity. Doesn’t matter how much time you spend doing it you aren’t going to generate $100,000 a year in income. At my $2,197 per person seminars I often ask the rhetorical question “How many carrots do you have to dice to make $20,000?” . Think about it.

5. Start Capturing Your Customers Contact Information. Market Research says it’s 7 to 10 times more cost effective to market to your existing customers than it is to get a new customer. Yet contrary to all information to the contrary most restaurant owners are infatuated with getting new guests. It’s infinitely easier to get the customers you already have, who are already familiar with you, coming in more often and spending more money. This can be done easily with a comment card with a monthly prize of $50 in gift certificates or a simple contest like ‘Guess The Weight of a Pumpkin’, ‘Who is going to Win The Academy Awards’. Once you have your customers contact information follow up with regular communication strengthening the bond with them and keep them coming back.

6. Have Systems For Automating Their Marketing And Moving Them Up The Restaurant Profit Pyramid. Once you’ve got the marketing going out to your existing customers have one of your staff, a mailing house, automate the process and just monitor the results.

7. Plug The Holes In Your Marketing Bucket. Most restaurant Owners recognize they need to promote themselves to get new customers. However since they rely on the people that sell them advertising space to design their advertisement they end up very frustrated as there is a huge conflict of interest. This is because advertising sales reps aren’t experts in Restaurant Marketing. They are just selling space. Relying on your advertising rep to create the marketing for your restaurant is like asking your mechanic for financial advice.

8. Make All Your Marketing Measurable And Accountable. Stop wasting money on advertising that you can’t measure the results from. Either make it measurable or stop doing it.

9. Use Proven Restaurant Marketing That Follows Direct Marketing Principles. The majority of restaurants copy other restaurants unsuccessful advertisements. This is like Marketing Incest. There are lots of Proven Examples of Restaurant Marketing that do work. Seek it out and implement it. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

10. There are two kinds of restaurant marketing. One for your Existing Customers and another for New Potential Customers. They are totally different groups of people and the way you communicate and reach these two groups is totally different.

11. Be sure your marketing dollars are targeted at those that are most likely to become good clients of yours. I often see restaurant owners spend huge sums of money on TV, Radio or Daily newspapers that reach people that live or work 100’s of miles away. This doesn’t stand a chance of getting people to come to your restaurant. You might as well burn hundred dollar bills if you are going to spend money on marketing your restaurant that has no chance of success.

12. Target Your Marketing With Laser Like Precision. Target customers just like your own best customers. Once you can describe them in terms of demographics, age, sex income, where they live etc. then it becomes a relatively easy task to get them to come to your restaurant.

There you have it 12 steps to Restaurant Marketing Success.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants. To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurant’s Profits in 119 days Or Less – Even In A Tough Economy” click here.

I had a degree in marketing but the “image” advertising I learned about in university didn’t work for my business. Maybe it would have worked if I had a $2 Million to blow on launching a new toothpaste or shampoo. Maybe. But I wasn’t selling toothpaste. That textbook stuff didn’t work in my business.

I began to study a different type of marketing, and realized that this image advertising coupled with manual marketing was not suited to a small business owner. I discovered a more effective marketing method ideally suited for our industry – direct response marketing.

Direct response marketing is emotionally charged copy that speaks directly to the targeted prospect. It preaches benefits, and is highlighted with a powerful eye-catching headline that answers the question: Why should I choose your restaurant above all others?

Direct response marketing also uses a “call to action” which is a tool to motivate the reader to take action NOW. Direct response is tracked easily so you know how much money is made through the investment.
Other marketing methods require you to throw enormous time or money into an empty well, and spend months or years before the money starts coming back. Direct response marketing works immediately.

Direct response is not fool-proof, however. Study and talent are required to make it work. The best direct response copywriters are paid significant dollars to write a single sales letter. You either need industry specific, proven marketing strategies you plug your name and phone number into, or you need to invest time and money into your marketing education.

But what better way for business owners to increase personal net worth. Every moment spent learning will yield money. Every book read, every course taken and every seminar attended will return many times the investment. And, it’s fun.
Trade magazines are filled with direct response ads as well as marketing ads promoting marketing information. This is because direct response works; it has changed our industry and those who use it have an advantage over the competition. Learn direct response marketing and prosper.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants. To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.

The sentence above has a lot of insight into the marketing of a restaurant. When fully understood, it describes the difference between owning a mediocre job or owning a thriving restaurant. Simply put, it means that marketing is everything your business does, every day.

Many restaurant owners make an attempt at marketing and, when it doesn’t produce immediate results, make the mistake of concluding that marketing doesn’t work. Perhaps they assume all they need is one big, mind-blowing marketing idea, and – bam! – it will send them over the top.

To truly realize success in your restaurant, you must get past this kind of thinking and really grasp the process of marketing. When you realize the simple truth of what it truly takes to hurl you into the realms of success, you will find your bank account flooded with cash faster than you can say, “Show me the money.”

The “Wow” experience

The process of marketing should create what I call the “Wow” experience. This experience is what customers get when they come into your restaurant to eat.

What exactly are they getting when they frequent your restaurant? Do they get a menu, a meal and a bill? Or do they get a friendly, smartly dressed waitstaff, attending to their needs and desires, a spotless washroom, clean and pleasant surroundings leaving enchanted with your restaurant, followed by a thank you and or a birthday card and even a little entertaining, monthly newsletter?

The first restaurant did everything right and provided a great meal.

The second restaurant did everything right, provided a great meal, wowed the customer, and established a lasting relationship that pretty much guarantees loads of repeat business and referrals. The second restaurant also charges twice as much as the first restaurant to provide the same meal and the customers are happy to pay the difference. However, note that the experience wasn’t created from one event, it was a process.

Train your staff to be always thinking:

“What can I possibly do for this customer to make sure they will come back and more importantly tell all their friends and relatives about us?”

It has been said that Walt Disney so valued this “Wow” experience that he considered the cleaning of Disneyland a marketing expense. That is because he did such a great job keeping everything clean that he knew his customers would tell other people about Disneyland. Therefore, it was marketing, not cleaning. He was right.

Decide what kind of experience you want to give your customers and work toward creating it. Start by writing down your ideas on paper. This makes your goals realistic. Decide what kind of restaurant you want and then start playing the part.

Apply the process of marketing to everything you do in your business.

The tool that makes it all work

In the process of marketing, remember that none of your goals can be realized without this vital tool; consistent implementation.

I teach restaurant owners across the country proven marketing methods and systems. A lot of them listen, and a lot of them buy my material. Some take the information and turn a dying company into an overnight sensation, and some take the identical information and set it on a shelf to collect dust.

There is a simple difference between my clients who have extraordinary success and those who don’t: implementation. Consistent implementation means the difference between struggling to make a buck and having the money flow to you. Consistent implementation establishes systems in your business that generate revenue, maintain customer relationships, and produce efficient and profitable work from you and your employees.

Consistent implementation is not going to happen overnight. Start applying it today and tomorrow and the day after that.

In this process, you will find that consistent implementation will systematize your business.

The process is everything: the way you answer the telephone, the way the waitstaff greets the customer and brings the coffee, how and when the washroom is cleaned, how the customer is maintained in the database. Everything.

The process is really a simple matter of plugging a few simple, proven, marketing strategies into your business that will set you apart from your competitors.

Remember, “Marketing is a process, not an event.” Don’t make the mistake of thinking of marketing in terms of putting out one ad, letter or flyer. It is so much bigger than that. This process of marketing, when implemented consistently, will create a snowball effect that will give you the kind of restaurant and income that you only dreamed off, and will turn a so-so even struggling restaurant into an exciting and profitable restaurant.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants. To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.

Of course you wouldn’t! If all you need is a tenderloin then that is all that you would buy. Right?

Yet just like the above example I see restaurants throwing their advertising dollars away every single day with the money they spend on advertising. So much time and effort goes into operations, food preparation, getting staff to do their jobs. Leftover time is allocated for getting new customers in the door.

Typically, restaurant marketing decisions are made when some advertising sales rep walks in the door and seems to give the restaurant owner a good pitch on why they should use his paper or coupon book. Since most restaurant owners are already overworked they rely on the sales rep to come up with the advertisement and the restaurant owner makes sure it “looks good”. However, advertising sales representatives are selling space not results. What you bought is advertising space and what you want is results. You need a different kind of advertising.

There are two types of advertising. One is image or institutional advertising the other is direct response. Image advertising is what very large companies do. IBM, McDonald’s and General Motors. Their advertising is designed to make you aware of their business and HOPE that eventually that awareness will translate into you purchasing their products. It’s a very indirect method of getting results. With it comes lots of waste.

It is estimated that McDonald’s spent some $823 billion on advertising in 2008. They have over 13,000 restaurants in the United States alone. With those kinds of numbers, they can afford image advertising. However, most restaurant owners don’t have the bankroll or the number of outlets to last long enough to see any benefits from image advertising. For the single or several unit operator, this kind of marketing is a recipe for disaster. It is similar to going after a mosquito with a nuclear bomb.

Despite this fact, many restaurant owners continue to use image advertising. What restaurants need is direct response advertising. That is, marketing that is designed to produce measurable results every time. Marketing that pays its own way and targeted to reach only people that are similar to your best customers that you already have. That is target marketing. Focusing your marketing resources where it has the best chance of success.

If you can’t measure the amount of business you get from some form of advertising then don’t do it. You need to get hard nosed about this. This should save you thousands of dollars a year. Next, you need to reinvest the marketing dollars that were previously wasted into direct response marketing.

Find out everything about who your best customers are. Match this information with the media that closely resembles this group of people or businesses. Monitor the results. Remember you are paying for all the circulation or coverage of the media you choose. The less waste the better. The people that your advertisement reaches that are not likely to come to your restaurant is wasted money. Shouldn’t you stop throwing away your hard earned marketing dollars?

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants. To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.

Mistake 17:  Delaying your marketing program until you need it.  Often, the time you need marketing most is the time you can least afford it.  Most restaurants are busy in the summer and before holidays.  But they often forget the beginning of the year when times are lean.  The restaurant business is either feast or famine.  So, make sure you keep your marketing program in place and working year ‘round’.  This will help keep your business in a 12 month feast, and famine will be a thing of the past.

Mistake 18:  Assuming your prospective customers understand the restaurant business.  You live, eat, sleep and breathe your restaurant, so it’s easy for you to assume that your customers understand your business as well as you do.  They don’t.  In fact, most customers don’t know a hill of beans what goes on in a restaurant other than what your waiter tells him when he arrives.  And what about your prospective customer?  He has never been to your restaurant.  So he may know absolutely nothing at all.  Make sure your marketing message is simple and direct.  Don’t use big words.  If you do, you risk your prospect not understanding what you’re saying.  And people don’t buy what they don’t understand.  Use your marketing message to educate your prospective customer.  And remember, keep everything simple.

Mistake 19:  Making your advertising look the same as all other restaurants.  It looks like a glorified business card.  The name of your restaurant, your logo and your address.  Boring.  You never get anyone’s attention by being the same.  People are overwhelmed with marketing messages today.  You need to stand out to get noticed.

Mistake 20:  When competition moves in do nothing.  Recognize the impact competition will have on your customer base and take action that emphasizes your strengths.  If you decide to make changes to your menu, to your restaurant or how you do business let your customers know!  Give them a reason to come in again.

Mistake 21:  Recognizing a good idea but failing to act on it.  Many of us recognize a trend happening in what customers are wanting.  The successful restaurant operators act on these changes.  If you see something work in another area then implement it in your restaurant.  Heck, the drive through in the food business was stolen from banking – one of the least innovative of all industries.  It now accounts for a substantial proportion of all fast food revenue.  Successful restaurant operators act on good ideas when they see them.  Their restaurants are constantly changing and improving to meet the demands of the marketplace.  These changes give you something new to tell your customers and get them coming in more frequently to see what’s happening.

Mistake 22:  Not changing with the times.  What was popular 40 years ago is not today.  We are facing an ever more demanding customer.  Now we have an abundance of two income families and we are facing ever-increasing demands on our time.  People are making fewer meals at home, they want to eat on the run.  The most valuable commodity now is not gold, silver or diamonds, but time.  If you can give people time, you can make a fortune.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants.  To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.

Mistake 11: Failing to have a system to generate word of mouth advertising. If you want your customers to tell their friends and relatives about your restaurant, you need to encourage them by rewarding the customers who send them. To encourage referrals, you might offer current customers a cash award, discount, free food or other incentive.

Mistake 12: Changing methods when your current marketing method still works well. When restaurant operators grow tired of their ads, they usually change them. This is a terrible mistake. The only time you should change an ad or a marketing method is when it quits working. When you see your response dropping, then you test a new ad, not before. Remember, your customers don’t see you’re ad as often as you do. And, when they’re looking for a new restaurant to try, you want to be sure your most powerful ad is there waiting for them.

It makes good sense to test a new ad to see how it compares with your current ad. If it works well, you can add it to your advertising program. But don’t replace any ad or marketing method because you’re tired of looking at it. Replace your ad or change methods only if it stops working, or if the new ad brings better results.

Mistake 13: Failing to test new marketing methods. Never stop trying to out-do your current methods of promotion for two reasons: 1) your competitors are probably testing similar methods and you want to stay ahead of your competitors; and 2) once you find a more profitable method you make your promotions even more cost effective.

Mistake 14: Expecting your ads to convey your entire marketing message. Because of their high cost, ads are no longer a cost effective way to deliver a complete marketing message. You can use ads to generate inquiries from interested prospects. Then you can provide complete information over the telephone or by mail.

Mistake 15: Assuming your prospect believes what you say. Prospects are skeptical. They won’t do business with someone they don’t trust. To establish your credibility, present facts that are positive and specific. Use language your prospect understands. Explain what you do, how you do it, and how the customer will benefit from your services. In addition, show letters of recommendation from current and past customers.

Mistake 16: Relying on only one method of promotion. Advertising, yellow pages, door hangers, publicity, direct mail, entertainment books, they all work to some degree. But they are more effective when they’re used together. When one method supports and reinforces another, the results are greater than any one method working alone.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants. To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.

Mistake 1:  Advertising to the wrong market.  If you advertise low price, you’ll attract people who want low price.  And the problem with price buyers is that they’re never loyal to you.  They’re loyal only to low price.  As soon as your competitor offers a price lower than you, these price shopper’s go to your competitor and you’ve lost a customer.  If you want to attract low price shopper’s, then, by all means advertise low price.  But if you want to attract people who are willing to pay for the service they receive so you can make money, don’t advertise price.  Advertise value.

Mistake 2:  Advertising percentage off rather than dollars off or free.  Many potential customers don’t know the restaurant’s regular prices so they can’t tell how much money they’ll save.  Instead, introductory offers should be made in terms your potential customers can relate to.  I recommend you advertise in dollars, such as “$7.50 off your first dinner” or “Free appetizer or specially made dessert valued to $7.99 with dinner”.   “We know you are going to love our food, our restaurant and our service.  We know you’ll be back – that’s why the first dinner is on us!”

Mistake 3:  Failing to advertise your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).  The purpose of marketing is to tell your prospective customers how you’re unique.  Your USP is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors.  Start by identifying what you do that’s different from everyone else.  For example, your USP might be exceptional customer service, complete dinners including bread, dessert, coffee and salad, or takeout/home delivery within 30 minutes.  Then feature your unique selling proposition in the headline of your ads.

Mistake 4:  Failing to point out how you’re different.  People come to your restaurant because they think you’re different from other restaurants.  So it’s your job to point out to prospective customers how you’re different.  In your ads, if you say, “Italian food,” you’re saying the same thing as every other Italian Restaurant.  Instead, tell your prospective customer why customers choose you instead of your competitors.  Identify different services you provide, home delivery, takeout, catering, free hall rental with groups over 50 people.  Reassure your potential customers that their food and dining experience has a satisfaction guarantee.

Mistake 5:  Failing to overcome phone call fear when prospective customers call about booking a large special event like a wedding or business function.  Consumers are tired of selling and sales pressure.  In fact, many consumers hate pressure so much that they don’t call because they’re afraid you might try to pressure them into making a decision.  The hesitation that keeps them from calling is called phone call fear.  It’s the fear of how they think you might treat them over the telephone.  To overcome phone call fear, reassure callers that you don’t use sales pressure.  Offer free information that you’ll send to anyone who calls.  Offer a free consumer awareness message on voice mail to help educate consumers about what to consider when catering to a special event.  This allows prospects to get information in a non-threatening way, and it allows you to establish a high level of credibility.

Mistake 6:  Using dishonest or misleading advertising.  This seems obvious but many restaurants use misleading advertising to attract people into their restaurant.  Then when they get there the staff doesn’t give them the special advertised or they don’t get the same service your regular customers get.  When you mislead consumers, you lower yourself to the same level as bait-and-switch con artists.  Over the long term, you won’t benefit because once customers discover they’ve been misled, they’ll never do business with you again.  You gain nothing by misleading consumers.  In marketing, a straightforward honest approach is the only method that works.

Mistake 7:  Failing to explain how your prospect benefits.  Your prospective customers want your service for only one reason:  “What it will do for me?”  Don’t concentrate on the features of your service; instead, identify each feature and then explain how that feature benefits your prospect in terms of what he needs, wants and feels.

Mistake 8: Failing to promote benefits other than good food. No question about it, people want good food. You gotta eat. But your customers want other things too. A pleasant dining experience, good service, variety, to feel special, save time and convenience. In addition, they want to avoid dishes, preparing meals, food going bad in their fridge and supermarket lineups. Make sure you promote other benefits as well.

Mistake 9:   Failing to stay in touch with your customer base.  Customers are the source of your current business and future referrals.  The moment they feel you don’t care about their business, they’ll go somewhere else.  I urge you to stay in touch with customers by publishing a regular newsletter that provides them with relevant information about your restaurant’s services, what’s going on in the community and some funny stories or inspirational quotes.

Mistake 10:  Advertising in the yellow pages when you don’t offer catering or delivery.  I’ve learned that the only time yellow page directory ads work is when you cater to tourists, deliver or catering.  Now, I’m not saying a yellow page ad won’t bring in new business:  it will if it is part of a well researched marketing program.  But the cost is so high that you’ll get a better return on your investment by using the money for other types of marketing and advertising.

Rory Fatt is President of Restaurant Marketing Systems and the Controversial Critic of Normal Ways Owner’s Promote Their Restaurants.  To get a copy of his FREE REPORT “How To Double Your Restaurants Profits in 119 days Or Less” click here.