The Marketing Whole

What marketing works best? Is it advertising on the Internet? Emailing your customers about your restaurant? Your Facebook page? Distributing your menu in the neighbourhood? Your shopfront? Your website? Your loyalty club? And don’t forget the menu itself?

The answer is all of these things. And that’s because marketing never works in isolation. Every thing you do supports everything else. A customer might see some of your Facebook pagebut not intend to straight away. But when the office starts discussing where to go for their meal out, your restaurant goesto the top of the list. If a customer comes once to your restaurant, make sure to capture their details because there’s a high chance they will come back again. There are few instant successes in marketing but doing a bit of a lot of things in a consistent way will pay dividends.  Let’s take a moment to discuss how.

Your brand

I can’t stress enough how important your brand is to your marketing. Your brand is the reason why customers come to you, and not the Golden Wok next door. Your brand is your promise to your customers and potential customers so they know what to expect when they come to your restaurant. If your marketing gives customers a consistent impression of what your restaurant is like, they will hopefully want to come to you some day. Wanting to come is the essential first step towards getting a real customer. All, and I mean all, of your marketing should support your brand.

Several companies offer marketing services of variable usefulness. See that your marketing budget and effort goes into promoting you.  Always mention what’s good and what’s different about your restaurant, so customers have reasons to come to you and not just any old restaurant.

Integrate your marketing

Make sure your promotions are on your Facebook page, your menu points to your website, your website points to your Facebook page and adopts the best customer comments. Your online table booking and takeaway ordering recruits customers to your loyalty database. All the time you are reinforcing your marketing message

This obviously could be difficult to achieve unless you have a complete marketing system that does this kind of integration seamlessly behind the scenes. You just need to ensure that other aspects of your marketing – for example your menu, which is one of your most powerful marketing tools – integrates in the same way.

Good luck and get out there and market your takeaway!

Barry