Restaurant Marketing Copywriting: Testing “Starting At”, “As Low As”
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Words mean a lot when marketing your restaurant. What you say will affect how people feel, think and act — even the little phrases that seem insignificant can greatly affect the success (or failure) of a marketing campaign.
I have a friend that tests E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G when it comes to marketing. He figures that if he’s spending the money, he might as well know if it’s working. That is, afterall, the key to becoming successful at it: testing. Don’t make too many assumptions when it comes to advertising and marketing… test, test test!
Take, for example, the phrases “starting at” and “as low as”.
What phrase do you think caused more people to come into my friend’s business? He wouldn’t have known until he tracked the results of two consecutive marketing campaigns. The short of it: “As Low As” pulled roughly 20% more business, and he continues to use that phrase when doing any specials from now on.
We can reason why that might have occurred: “Starting At” leaves nowhere to go but up! “As Low As” says you can get something at a low price, but there are other low-priced options too.
This is just a small example of how a seemingly-insignificant change in words on a sign can affect the amount of business we do. It shows that we need to think twice about everything that’s widely distributed, really considering what’s being said and whether it can be said better.
Restaurant Internet Marketing: Five Must-Do’s
Five Web Must Do’s: Making The Most of an Internet Web Site for Restaurants
Your restaurant’s web site should be an ultra-effective 24 hour/7 day a week sales person and marketing tool for your restaurant business. Here are five must-do’s for independent restaurateurs to help make the most of their Internet program.
Real People
One key differentiating opportunity for independent restaurants on the web is to highlight the people that make your restaurant happen. Your restaurant is filled with vibrant, colorful, exciting real people-show them off. The ownership team, executive chef and general manager should certainly have pictures and brief bios on the site. Don’t stop there though-include the whole team. Post a group picture of your kitchen team and service staff. Have a photo taken of the entire staff under your main restaurant signage out front. It’s a small thing, yet it helps shows the personality and flavor or your restaurant to folks visiting your web site. In addition, it gives pride to everyone on your staff to know that they are included on the web site.
One Thousand Words - Restaurant Photography
Great photography on a website jumps out and makes an impression. Surprisingly, many restaurant websites have no pictures whatsoever, or just a few low quality photos. Don’t make this mistake. The web is a beautiful four-color world with no real space limitations like a print ad or brochure would have. This is especially important for upscale restaurants. Show your décor, showcase key menu items, highlight the size of private event rooms. The bottom line here is to ensure that visuals on the web site effectively convey the brand image of your restaurant.
www.WhatsThatSite.com - Showcase The Restaurant Web Address
The goal, of course, in building a web site is to have customers visit it. Make sure to cover the basics like including your web site address on menus, business cards, match books and print ads. If you custom print bar napkins or other materials make sure your address is included there as well. Special print a postcard size piece for take-out and leftover bags that includes a special thank you note and includes your web site address and other contact information. Staple it right to the bag.
Do a Google search for your restaurant. This is how many folks will try to find your restaurant on the web. Hopefully your restaurant’s web site will appear towards the top of the search results. Many times, however, what you will tend to find is your restaurant’s listing in various online restaurant guides. These online directory listings often tend to drown out your real web site in the search results. Don’t fret–take a proactive step. Visit each of the restaurant guide pages in the search results. Investigate each for factual information, but beyond that make an effort to contact each relevant guide and ask them about including your web site address along with your online listing. Some will do it for free, others may look to charge.
Either way, do it. Again, this is how the majority of people find your restaurant on the web. If they see your web site link on the restaurant directory page then they will likely click through to your site–if in fact they are truly interested in your restaurant. That is the goal because now your site can sell them on why to choose your restaurant.
Stay in Touch - Email Your Restaurant Customers
E-mail offers several great ways to effectively and affordably communicate with past and potential customers. Hopefully, you are already collecting customer email addresses in your restaurant through comment forms, business cards or other means. You should also be capturing information from prospects that visit your web site by offering an email sign-up form online. Some ideas on what to send them include a monthly e-mail newsletter with tips from the chef, a recipe, event listings, menu changes, perhaps even a customer spotlight. Another email option is the reminder email.
For example, a local bar/restaurant frequently sends me a short e-mail on Thursday or Friday with happy hour and event information for the next few days. Of course it is important not to send spam email so make sure that you have permission to email these folks.
Get Committed - Maintain Your Website and Email Campaigns
Is the Mother’s Day special still listed on your website in September? Do all e-mail queries that come in get answered? Many restaurant web sites are guilty of not regularly updating their web sites or responding to emails. This is crazy and lazy. First, content on a web site is incredibly easy to change so there is no excuse here. Secondly, an email from a customer is like a phone call. That person is interested in doing business with your restaurant. Don’t ignore them, for you do so at your own peril.
This hits on a broader point and that is that many restaurants underutilize their web sites. A marketing or design firm builds the site and that is the end of it. No updates, no new content, no nothing. Avoid the pitfall of the “dead” site by dedicating someone on your team as the “web” guy or gal. Maybe it’s the owner or the GM or even a key server. The important thing is that someone is responsible on a day-to-day basis for making necessary web site updates and responding to incoming customer e-mails. At the end of the day, you’ve got to work your web site to have it work for you.
Who’s Doing It
One restaurant website that gets high marks on the must do’s is The Blue Room in Cambridge, MA - . Stylized photography is the centerpiece of the user experience and very successfully captures the feeling of the restaurant. A unique slideshow presentation contains 20 full screen photos. Five members of the restaurant team have pictures and background info including the chef, sous chef, managers, and head barkeep. Contact information is easy to find and review and includes an e-mail newsletter signup form. Full food and wine menus are available. Although music on a website can sometimes distract from the visit, the background music at the Blue Door site complements the overall experience extraordinarily well and matches up perfectly with the brand image of the restaurant. It’s just a pleasure to visit this site.
Having a website is a great thing. Having an effective website that sells for you and an Internet program that communicates with your customers is smart marketing - and will help you successfully drive new and repeat business to your restaurant. Make sure you’re implementing these five must-do’s so as to not sabotage the efforts of your Internet program. Beyond these areas get creative and have fun with the web as an important part of your marketing and sales toolbox.
Jaime Oikle is the Owner of Restaurant Report, LLC, which runs a web site and e-newsletter for owners, chefs, managers and staff of the restaurant community. You can visit the site at http://www.RunningRestaurants.com.
Video: Restaurant Website Marketing Strategy - Tracking Traffic
We’re putting together a new series on the latest Internet technologies used to promote restaurants. Obviously, one of the key components of online advertising is having a website.
After you have a website… what next?
Many people do absolutely NOTHING with their website except hope that other people look for it. Hopefully you’re doing more than that. For example, have your web address on all business cards. Consider putting a decal with the web address in your front window or on your door. Is your restaurant website address on your menu?
Promoting your website on the Internet is also an excellent strategy to introduce yourself to new people by enticing them with photos of your restaurant and food, and a full menu listing. And there are a number of websites on the Internet that will let you have a link to your own site…
But do you KNOW how people are finding your website? Do you KNOW what websites host reviews of your restaurants? Do you KNOW what people are saying about you on the Internet?
WHY NOT?
The most basic aspect of doing anything in marketing is TRACKING. That holds true to promoting your restaurant, and restaurant’s website, on the Internet.
How do you KNOW that people are looking at your website? How do you know where they are finding links to your website? After they get to the website, are you aware of what pages they’re looking at?
To answer these questions you need additional software. Most servers come with free software options, but they can be confusing and only update every 24hrs or more. The software I recommend, and personally use with more than one website, is called Mint.
In today’s video, I provide an overview of what Mint has to offer, and why you should be Tracking Your Website Traffic.
The video is only about 8 minutes long and will give you insight on the types of information you can get from a simple application. What’s amazing is that you can actually get so much more… I just can’t show you my own installation for security purposes.
Here are other types of information that might be helpful for you and your webmaster… all of which can be found using Mint.
- Types of browsers people use for your site (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc)
- Locations of people looking at your website
- If people are viewing the website multiple times (if they’re coming back week-after-week, for example)
If you’re a gadget freak, you can even look at your website stats on an iPhone or other mobile device.
Bottom line: tracking the traffic to your website is highly important, regardless of what program you choose to do it with. If you have questions or otherwise, don’t hesitate to comment.
Video: Restaurateurs, Reboot Your Brain For 2008
In the previous post I mentioned having goals for the sake of clarity.
But becoming clear goes beyond our restaurant businesses. It goes outside the day-to-day, week-to-week grind. As business owners, we tend to feel there’s never enough time to accomplish everything that we want. We constantly are thinking and acting… always in motion.
When I first got involved in this industry, I sat down with a local restaurant supplier and listened for over an hour. I remember asking how the typical restaurant owner acts while they’re browsing the store. You know what he said?
He told me that when restaurateurs walk through his doors they are the definition of impatient, nearly displaying signs of severe ADD.
Does this sound familiar?
Buzzing. Being here and there and everywhere. Someone once said, “Time is the thing that keeps everything from happening all at once.” Time parcels moments out into separate bits so that we can do one thing at a time. In [business], this does not happen. In [business], time collapses. Time becomes a black hole. To the person with [a business] it feels as if everything is happening all at once. This creates a sense of inner turmoil or even panic. The individual loses perspective and the ability to prioritize. He or she is always on the go, trying to keep the world from caving in on top.
The paragraph above was taken from here, and all I did was replace ADD with business.
Of course it doesn’t have to be that way… and it may not be if you’ve structured the business to where you’re able to remove yourself from it occasionally (please share your secrets with the rest of us). But if you’re feeling rushed, or that things are out of control… or even just slightly difficult to control… much of that has to do with clarity, goal-setting and…
REMOVING ALL THE THINGS FLOATING AROUND IN YOUR HEAD.
Here’s the point I’m trying to get at: you probably have too much going on in your brain… and you can do something about it.
It’s called “Rebooting Your Brain”, and it’s a method devised by a marketing genius named John Reese. It’s not something that’s earth-shattering: it’s simple and effective. To explain his method, John was kind enough to create an hour-long video that goes step-by-step on how he clears his mind.
Click here to watch the Reboot Your Brain video
The video WILL take a few minutes to start, especially if you’re on a slower connection. It’s worth the wait.
The exercise requires the following:
- Three notepads, each with several sheets of paper
- A pen or pencil
Like any other exercise, this will require some time and thought. I recommend you watch the video and take notes on what to do. Next, schedule some time in the evening (or morning, perhaps) during the Christmas season these next couple weeks and actually do the assignment.
You will feel better afterwards. I know because I force myself to do this, and will be doing it again in the next couple of weeks. (And I wouldn’t waste my effort writing this if I didn’t think it was worth it!)
Restaurant Owner, What Are Your Sales and Marketing Goals?
After reading seven periodicals a month, frequenting blogs, attending restaurant group meetings and tradeshows, reading books, listening to audio tapes and frequenting seminars etc etc… I’m surprised at how many times are the BASICS are not reinforced.
Seriously. Did our businesses meet the goals set for 2007?
Do we have EXACT figures for restaurant business sales and marketing that we hope to meet in 2008?
For all the “strategies” and “tactics” that Restaurant Revolution and others will bring to you, please don’t lose sight of basic goals. And remember: Goals are SPECIFIC. They can be MEASURED.
When we have a plan, complete with goals that can be measured and tracked, we have CLARITY. The more CLEAR we are on what we want to accomplish, the easier it is to filter out the noise that’s encountered on a daily basis… including the phone calls, walk-in salespeople and everyone else that wants a piece of us.
So, with all the great information that is (and will continue to be) available… please remind yourself at the sub-conscious level to write down your restaurant business goals and stick them in a place you will see them every single day.
I’m warning you now that 2008 is only going to deliver another truckload of new information. It will be interesting, some of it will be amazing… and most of it will do absolutely NOTHING for you… but the only way to really know is if you have a plan to judge it by.
Check the next post on How to Reboot Your Brain for more in-depth information on exercises I recommend and personally use.
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