Restaurant Marketing Blog – Innovative Tips & Advice for Increasing Sales – BlueskyLocal

Local Restaurant Marketing + Google Adwords = Waste of Money?

In order to grow one’s business, the amount of money one invests in any marketing effort must be less than the total amount of money returned from that effort. We can all agree on that. If you own a local restaurant, are a restaurant marketing agency, or a consultant you are most likely pitched on various marketing products & services everyday.

Companies like Reach Local may have called or pitched you with their offering. Reach Local claims to help small businesses so that whenever someone searches for something related to your business in your local area, say, “Italian restaurants,” an ad for your business will appear alongside the results. If the searcher clicks on the ad they will be taken to a branded landing page or directly to your website.

This is fine, but ONLY if you have some way to quantify how many of those clicks turn in to customers. Otherwise it’s a flat out waste of money. With local search engine marketing companies, you will usually be required to set a monthly budget–and you can guarantee that they will spend every penny of it regardless of whether or not it results in a positive ROI for your business.

Here are a few suggested solutions to avoid this issue:

• Hire an search engine marketing professional, someone who you can speak with over the phone or meet in person from time to time to measure results and discuss optimization strategies.
• Require weekly reports, including ad-spend and estimated ROI projections (use Google Analytics for this).
• Setup a web-based online ordering system on your website or if you’re are a higher-end dine-in restaurant, set up an online reservation system (OpenTable is the biggest in the space right now).
• If the visitors coming to your website aren’t ready to place an order or reservation, consider offering to send them coupons via text messages or email. This will also allow you to capture their contact information which can be used for gaining and retaining them as customers for the long run. In addition, the ROI for this is quantifiable.

When it comes to online restaurant marketing, the web is still relatively new and there are numerous players rushing into the space, aggressively working to grow sales. To avoid flushing money down the drain, do your homework, and always watch the numbers!

Tags: adwords, google, restaurant marketing, search engine marketing, small business marketing

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Groupon Advertising Can Ruin a Restaurant’s Business

Everyone would agree that if you always give something away for free (or at cost), it’s impossible to make a profit. So why are advertisers, including many restaurants, lining up to advertise more than once with Groupon and similar sites?

The truth is that group coupons work well, but can serverely damage a restaurant’s business if over-used.

To be fair, here are a list of pros and cons:

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How to Save Money By Turning Your Restaurant Blog Into an Email Newsletter

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A Simple But Unrealized Truth About Marketing Your Local Business

If you’re an entrepreneur / marketer like me, you tend to think a lot about your business. You might even wake up thinking about it, pondering about how best to go about growing it. What is the one thing that many of us fail to realize about this line of thinking? It’s that no one cares about your business like you do.

No one else, not even your most loyal customers, will wake up thinking about your business’s brand.

This is normal though. Instead what you want is for customers to care enough where they are willing to refer you to other potential customers or mention your business in regular conversation.

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Restaurant Marketing Toolkit: 5 Essential Tools & 1 to Stay Away From

As we all know, many businesses have found success in using the internet as a marketing platform. If you are a local restaurant entrepreneur or marketer, the question of where to start may be daunting. Here are five recommended tools (some cost money while others are free if you do it yourself) that can help you to begin establishing your online presence.

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3 Simple Ways to Increase Word-of-Mouth Referrals for Your Restaurant

If you’re like me then the dream of owning your own business probably includes customers being so satisfied with your offering that they talk about it with other potential customers. Thus your business grows via word-of-mouth.

But how do we get to this point is the real question? Some marketers, like Seth Godin, argue that it’s all about being “remarkable” or creating a product that’s worth talking about.

This is true, but being remarkable can also mean simply creating a product that works well for the customer’s purpose and offers a “smooth” customer experience.

That said, here are 3 simple ways to increase word-of-mouth referrals for your restaurant:

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Exposed! The Biggest Myth in Local Coupon Marketing

The Myth

What do you think of when you think of coupons? If you’re like most people you think along the lines of discounts, saving money, etc. etc. From the perspective of restaurant entrepreneurs, however, many tend to associate the coupon marketing tactic with “lost revenue,” as if it were a “necessary evil.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth–just because you are offering a coupon discount does not mean you will lose money! In fact, if well-planned and executed I emphatically believe that you will see an increase in restaurant sales, more abundant profit, AND attract new customers.

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1 Smart Way for Restaurants to Increase their Facebook Fans

To many local restaurant marketers, me included, promoting your business through social media and other online channels may still seem a bit challenging. Specifically you may be wondering how to grow your Facebook fan-base. Well, here is one simple, cost effective method for doing so:

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Twitter for Restaurants: 3 Reasons You Need it & 3 Reasons You Don’t

In all likelihood if you’re a restaurant owner you’ve heard of Twitter.com by now. Your friends may have recommended it or maybe they have some of the same questions you have: what is it and why do I need it?

If you read most websites related to restaurant or local marketing, you may become convinced by all the propaganda that Twitter is now essential for growing your business and expanding your customer-base in this age of “New Media.” That’s a myth of course and while I agree that Twitter IS valuable and useful, I will list a few reasons why you do not need to manage a Twitter account to promote your business along with a three reasons why, regardless of the downside, you should.

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Will Offering Coupons Hurt My Restaurant’s Brand Image?

We’re all aware of the concept of a coupon offer and how businesses use it to drive more customers to their store or restaurant. Many restaurant owners will wonder though, is the coupon marketing tactic right for my business? Whether or not coupon marketing makes sense for your business depends on how you want your brand image to be perceived by your customer. The type of brand image you intend to convey is commonly defined by the type of restaurant you operate.

Coupon Marketing for Quick Serve Restaurants (QSR’s) is A-OKAY!

Coupons are perfect if you operate this kind of restaurant. The Average purchase size per customer is between $5 to $15. In this type of restaurant one typically invests in preparing and serving each food order as fast and as efficiently as possible to meet the customer’s desire. Coupon marketing is natural to this type of business because your profits margins are usually higher and because the purchase price per customer is lower that other types of restaurants. QSR’s are more likely to see an immediate and short term impact as a results of offering coupon.

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