Effective Marketing for Restaurants & Chefs. (part 1 of 3)
Today’s consumers are searching for new experiences to create memories, and for many food is the way to achieve that. Restaurant and chefs are our gateway us to explore local culture and support the communities we visit.
The game has changed in the ways businesses promote their value to the world. Today, we’re globally connected, easily influenced, and the digital landscape is where all the opportunities are discovered. Unfortunately, most service businesses aren’t even on the web, limiting their opportunity of growth and success. It’s estimated that only 7% of the global services industry have their businesses on the internet; a large opportunity for one million restaurants and independent chefs in the United States.
In the US, independently owned restaurants recorded $188 billion in sales in 2017. But at the same time, 60% of restaurants are failing within the three years of opening [IBIS World, 2018]. With high restaurant failure rates and global food spend increasing, it’s evident restaurants and chefs are missing a prime opportunity to connect with the digital consumer.
The goal is to get new customers to obtain a human experience with you.
Here’s a guide to put your business on a path of organic growth and learning. Understand that results don’t show up overnight, but there are one-off methods to accelerate specific goals as we’ll share here. Be ready to offer complimentary meals, understand the concept of “turnkey”, collaborate with driven entrepreneurs, and bootstrap your way to new cash flow.
The guide will come in three parts focusing on the following…
a. Brand Identity — The User Persona
b. Digital Activation — Traffic
c. Customer Relations — Convert
d. Hospitable Experiences — Engage
e. Branded Storytelling — Nurture
f. Appreciate Loyalty — Retain
Let’s start.
Brand Identity (User Persona)
Why do your current customers love you?
What do they enjoy most about your business?
What are common customers complaints you need to address?
What story does your brand tell?
These are questions you must ask yourself in order to understand your target audience. Below you will find Komeeda’s user persona, this identifies what the pain points, interests, and attributes associated with our core users. For you as the business owner, reflect on your customers from the past year, can you identify common traits among them. If not, begin to pay attention to that for a few weeks. You can also analyze your POS, delivery, and other itemized revenue streams, even with the most basic data you can learn enough to get you started and excited about marketing again.
When you understand where the customers are coming from (traffic) and how much money those customers are bringing to the business, you make better business decisions to limit risk and support growth.
For example, Komeeda has two unique user personas, Foodservice Provider (restaurant & chef) and Food Explorer (Fictional Person — Lillian, below).
Upon identifying your user persona(s), create a strategy on how to reach them. For example, with Lillian, we will…
- post our restaurant events on Facebook and MeetUp…
- post welcoming food content and stories on IG & Facebook
- assure our YELP profile maintains high ratings and reviews
Now that you have a clearer idea of identifying your user persona, getting their attention is easier than before.
To learn more about developing your user persona, click here.
Digitally Activate — Marketing Channels
Whether you have a basic presence, getting started, or haven’t even considered digital marketing, it’s time to get moving. Every consumer business MUST dedicate time and resource to digital marketing.
Do not look for shortcuts to this, if you dedicate 5 hours a week, it’s a fair start. With time you will better allocate time to marketing as you see fit. Be aware that there are a lot of business tools out there selling promises to help with needs like ours, but they’re useless if you don’t have a sound strategy with concrete goals. So to cut all the noise, below we illustrate the five touch points restaurants, chefs, and other food & beverage entrepreneurs must apply in order to survive today’s noisy marketplace.
Start with identifying new traffic channels, prove your value to those audiences and receive strong testimonials. Word of mouth is as old school as it comes, and is the most valuable marketing channel for two reasons…
- low/no cost to acquire the referred customer and,
- referral backed by a past customers’ measured value of your brand
A perfect example is Brooklyn’s iconic pizza destinations, Roberta’s in Bushwick and Grimaldi’s in DUMBO. If you know about them, try to recall how you learned about them.
Everybody talks about those two pizza brands. That’s word of mouth 101.
There are several platforms where you share, engage, and promote your work. Where you dedicate your efforts is determined by where your user persona spends their time. It is critical to know how your target user will discover your business.
This may be ready for many readers, but we like to start with the basics. We recommend you start with the following channels to support the touchpoints illustrated above.
a. YELP — to get discovered and for guests reviews
b. Website — your digital storefront (Squarespace)
b. Instagram & Facebook — bring awareness of your brand
d. Email — communicate with existing and new customers (MailChimp)
e. Google Maps — to get discovered and for reviews.
Once these platforms are established, now you can leverage the most common business discovery platforms. Illustrated below are the steps with which a customer reacts to positive content shared on social media. By distributing valuable content, businesses enable themselves to capture their own customers. Above all, the ability to assess and refine the business’ user persona(s) through this activity helps them prepare for future campaigns.
These are the mass market platforms where you can get discovered essentially for free if you engage in a calculated manner. Your job on these networks is to contribute value to the network you’re engaging in and those followers will become your core promoters.
And we stop here for this post.
The next post will discuss converting digital audiences into paying consumers eating at your table. We will cover Customer Relations to develop a trusted relationship between you and your patrons & Hospitable Experiences to create strong and engaging memories for your guests.
Please note, if you have identified stronger channels to support either of these touch points, feel free to share them by commenting on this post. The purpose here is to provide a start point for those who want to start effectively marketing without investing an arm and a leg into marketing. Any valuable and constructive insight is greatly welcomed.
About Komeeda: A destination for restaurants and chefs to connect with food lovers seeking local food and beverage experiences. In a globalized world where people explore, discover, and connect through food, Komeeda is aimed to showcase the unheard stories of the communities we visit through cuisine. Food travelers and locals trust Komeeda to taste local food culture through uniquely authentic experiences hosted by chefs, restaurants, culinary ambassadors, and more. Experiences including cultural food tours, artisan cooking classes, chef competitions, communal restaurant tastings, and creative pop-up feasts. Want to be a part of our community? Sign up for our relaunch by clicking here.
