Let me start by telling you a story. Two new restaurants open in your neighborhood. Restaurant A puts a flyer in the mail for 10% off the purchase of an entree. Restaurant B sends you an invitation to attend a neighborhood free h’orderves & cocktail party. Now which one would you go to first?
I can tell you from experience that people will go to Restaurant B first for a few reasons: 1) It’s a personalized invitation to come in, 2) It’s free and no cost to the guest, 3) It’s genuine and not a marketing gimmick. Guests can see right through that and sometimes are turned off by flyers, and 4) It’s different. Good marketing needs to stand out from the normal techniques to be effective.
Now which marketing plan is cheaper? I’m sure all you restaurant skeptics are saying the flyer! I can hear you now. “I’m not giving away free food and drinks. I’ll go out of business!” The biggest marketing tool you have in your restaurant is food and beverage. I can throw a party for a 100 people for a buck a person. To do flyers you have to pay for graphics, postage, buying of zip codes and when it’s all said and done your marketing looks like every other restaurant marketing program. I have been doing this type of low cost guerrilla marketing for years and it is the most effective marketing from a cost and return on investment perspective.
So when marketing in 2013 utilize your food and beverage. Get out there and hit the streets or a simpler way is to hire ROCinc to do it for you. Thanks for reading everyone. Stay tuned for more tips!
Rocky
P.S. Do you know how much you spent on marketing in 2012? You should!
