MARKETING: The 3 Best Ways to Use a Content Strategy to Promote Your Restaurant
As a restaurant owner, you’re always searching for some additional strategies to attract more attention to your business. Let us introduce you to the content strategy. By using a strategic content marketing approach, you will be able to create and distribute valuable and consistent content that will attract guests and earn you their loyalty. If you’re not quite sure how to make the most out of it, the following advice will clear your doubts.
DID YOU KNOWS…
Super Wendy’s World
Thanks to Super Mario Maker 2, gamers can create their own Super Mario levels and world maps. Fast-food chain Wendy’s jumped in on the action, creating Super Wendy’s World where you play as Wendy. There are Wendy references abound in the levels, such as the Frosty ice level and the lava of hot grease. This is a great marketing effort by Wendy’s that’s connecting its brand to a popular video game and, as such, the gaming community. You can see the Wendy’s level codes here.
Congress’s Immigration Connection
In January, Pew Research conducted an analysis of where members of Congress claim heritage, finding that at least 13% are immigrants and the children of immigrants. In total there are 52 immigrants and children of immigrants serving in the 116th Congress and they have connections to nearly 40 countries. The vast majority of them are Democrats and the following infographic provides an overview of where their roots are, with lawmakers whose parents were born in different countries added to the respective country totals.
Show Me the Money!
A NJ-man is suing TGI Fridays for not listing drink prices on the menu. He was “shocked” that his Stella Artois was $5 and his soda was $3 and is claiming that he would’ve skipped the expensive soda for a cheap beer TGI Fridays printed the prices on the menu (which is kinda the point of leaving them off). Anyways, the dissatisfied customer is suing the franchise for violating consumer fraud laws – and it could turn into a class action lawsuit. Oof. This is a lawsuit worthy of keeping an eye on.
CHUCK DELIVERY
Why it matters to you: Third-party delivery remains under fire. How are you managing it?
The goal of every business is to control as much of their market as possible. For restaurant operators in a single location, that’s accomplished by marketing to target audiences and to highlight what differentiates them from their competitors. Well, what if there weren’t any competitors? What would the prices look like if they were the only restaurant in town? That’s the dilemma being faced by our industry as pertains to third-party delivery services. In fact, this issue has grown in import sufficiently that it became a subject addressed by US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. This past Sunday, Schumer held a press conference -- presumably to address the impact of the weekend’s power outage -- and he took the time to call for further investigation into the business practices of third-party delivery apps. Schumer was likely referring to the flap surrounding GrubHub’s control over 70% of the delivery marketing in NYC, but his weighing in represents a significant development.
Nobody that is running a business wants to have Congress investigating them and it looks like GrubHub, et al are facing the possibility of that as we well as a potential state anti-trust case by the NY State Attorney General. This all stems from a class action suit filed in Philadelphia that claims GrubHub and Seamless (now the same company) charged fees for guest calls made via their app even if they didn’t result in an order. The truth of the suit’s claim notwithstanding, many folks are asking the question, “Is 30% of my sales worth the service that is being delivered?”
This is why our multi-post blogs about delivery reviewed seriously the possibility of doing your own delivery. It’s a simple numbers game. Either you are serious about delivery and wish to build it to a point where it’s a viable revenue stream or aren’t fully committed to its success. If you are the former, then why wouldn’t you delivery for yourself? However, if you only appreciate delivery as an incremental approach, then you’ll likely not complain because you simply couldn’t do it cheaper yourself. Either way, off-premise dining is a reality, the only real question is which version is your reality?
[Source: Restaurant Hospitality]
MAKE SUMMER TRAVEL A PART OF YOUR MARKETING
Why it matters to you: Summers can be slow, so don’t miss out on any tourist dollars you can capture.
Summer is the time that folks hit the road to enjoy some well-deserved time off. If you occupy a market where tourism happens, how you approach marketing to visitors REALLY matters. That’s why this primer from Modern Restaurant Management is a terrific reminder of the basic steps needed to attract those weary travelers to your location. The blog begins with the obvious need to claim your presence on the various travel sites. If you want to attract guests that are visiting from “away” then you have to give them sufficient reason. Consequently, any first step begins with TripAdvisor or Yelp, at minimum, to make your listing as enticing as possible. However, it certainly doesn’t end with that step as most operators think.
The best part of marketing to tourists is that you actually have help in your local community. If you haven’t already, start by making friends with your local hotel concierges. In a prior life, I hosted an annual concierge appreciation party to solidify those relationships and always keep my restaurant top of mind. Also, reach out to your local Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB); it’s their full-time job to promote your area and they can help highlight your restaurant in their own efforts. In the end, your restaurant has to be an appealing aspect of your local community. Presumably that’s why people are visiting, so it just makes sense to highlight your part that local appeal. Sure, tourist money is a one off, but with enough of it you can truly add to the slower season that is summer for many restaurants. So, make your place the one that visitors remember when enjoying their sweet summer vacation.
[Source: Modern Restaurant Management]
