Get The Most from Your Business

The most recent statistics state that new restaurants will fail within the first year after opening. This is a discouraging statistic for those who are interested in going into the restaurant business. To beat the odds and have a successful restaurant, one must develop marketing tactics for his/her particular restaurant. The first step in the process is to determine the skill level of the restaurant owner or manager.

How much training and experience does he/she bring to the table. For the sake of this article, let us assume that this will be a new restaurant rather than a part of a chain. Let us also assume that the owner has an extensive knowledge of restaurant operations.

It would be wise to take a walking tour of a ten block radius around the restaurant and make notes of what other restaurants are in the vicinity: the hours of operation, how busy they are, what type of restaurant each one is, what is the surrounding community like, etc.

You can see what consumers will and will not buy, what will bring them to buy an item more than once and what recommendations the consumers can give you about your product that will help improve the product and get other people to buy the product again and recommend the product to a friend.

Have you done demographic studies of the location of your restaurant? If you have used these marketing tactics it would reveal to you that it is not be wise to open a rib house in the middle of a Jewish community that remains Kosher.

Once a campaign is started it is critical to do some split testing. The most common split test is to simultaneously test two different versions of an ad. It doesn’t matter if you are using a post card, email, or a webpage; create two versions and determine which one produces the best results. Split testing is absolutely essential in order to improve a campaign’s performance.

For long term success, create value for your customers after the sale. Spend as much time and energy after the sale as you do before the sale and you will build lasting relationships with your clients. It takes a great deal of effort to get a new customer, so it makes sense to do everything in your power to keep them. Keep in contact with them and learn what their needs are. Once you know more about your customers you can offer products and services that will fit their needs.

Therefore it would probably be wise to consider in your start up costs using a portion of the monies to hire a public relations or advertising firm to help you get your feet off the ground. Certainly local newspapers, TV, Radio and other media are the routes you would want to utilize. Only a specialist would know what works best in your particular area. Good luck in your first year and beyond.