So I’m at a recent conference with restaurant owners and we were talking a lot about mobile marketing and social media marketing for restaurants and the question kept coming up – “Do we need to hire someone to do all this stuff?”

Short answer: Yes, absolutely.

Longer answer: You may already have a marketing or PR or tech oriented person on your staff that can take over these duties as part of their job. Yet that would assume that they currently have a lot of downtime in their responsibilities, which, I’d guess, is unlikely to be the case.

In my conversations with restaurant operators we pretty much identified the tasks to require a half time position and perhaps a full time position for aggressive or larger restaurants. So that’s 20-40 hours dedicated to digital marketing – is that prudent and worth it? Well, I’ll argue the answer is yes – so let’s talk about it.

Job Responsibilities & Checklist

There are four main areas I would task for your Digital Marketing Manager…

1) Email Newsletter
You’ve got an e-newsletter right? Please say yes. If not, this is task #1. Find an email service provider like Fishbowl or Constant Contact and get a sign-up form on your website and plug email address collection in your restaurant. You should be publishing an e-newsletter to your customers once a week. Every restaurant has enough going on at their location(s) that weekly is the right frequency. The bare, bare minimum with an email program would be once per month, but that is really not enough. Push for weekly.

2) Website Updates
There is nothing worse than seeing Valentine’s Day event info in May when I’m looking to make Mother’s Day plans. A dedicated e-marketing person on your team will ensure that this does not happen by updating the site weekly with event info, menu changes, new photos/videos, etc. You lose credibility with customers when your website is not updated correctly and this is an easy one to get right.

3) Social Media
Managing social media for your restaurant could be a full-time task all by itself because there is so much to manage, juggle and keep updated on.

There are the big three of social media: Facebook, YouTube & Twitter. There are the social review sites to keep tabs on such as Citysearch, Yelp & Urbanspoon. There are restaurant guide sites from local newspapers and magazines and countless others.

You obviously can’t monitor every single site, but with a dedicated e-marketing manager you can select maybe 10 to 15 websites to keep tabs on by creating a virtual dashboard with direct links to all appropriate sites. See chart for our recommend prioritization of targets.

4) Mobile Marketing
Mobile is getting bigger by the day. Most likely you haven’t started your mobile efforts, but take my advice and get started. Even a slow start, just get some motion going as it relates to mobile. That includes collecting mobile numbers for text messaging and mobile promotions. It also includes investigating mobile apps such as mobile ordering, a customized mobile optimized website, and possible customer service options such as mobile service surveys. The other biggie with mobile is “location based services” and that would include (relatively) new services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook Places as well as many more.

Ok, so believe me when I say that is a lot to keep up with. Who is going to do it? You as the restaurant owner or manager? You just can’t do it yourself. You need to manage and oversee it and have the e-marketing manager report to you or your overall Marketing Manager, but yes you need to have a dedicated person pushing all of these efforts.

If you’re going to commit to e-marketing efforts, then you need to truly commit to them. You can’t start and participate infrequently and think that it is going to work. The immediacy of social media & mobile in particular call for a fresh and updated presence that is never really more than 3 to 5 days dated. Any more than that and your relevance equation drops quite dramatically.

ROI Equation
Your next question should be related to return on investment. Will the salary for your e-marketing manager be justified in increased sales and marketing performance? The good news is your salary investment should be on the lower side as a recent college graduate (or current student) would be ideally suited to the position due to their existing familiarity with the technology involved.

Your Online Voice
One worry I hear from operators is that a young staff member might misrepresent their brand online with a lack of professionalism or inappropriate comment or posting. It’s a valid concern, but it can be managed successfully with your management oversight process. As the owner or executive, you need to build the content plan and tone of voice carefully with your digital marketing manager. It is then their task to spend the quality time and effort to implement that plan in the various online channels.

Metrics & Measurement
You’ll need to establish metrics in order to effectively measure the results of your e-marketing efforts. You can track clicks and new business and increased customer database size as well as fan and follower up ticks and other social connections.

So do the math. How much new business do you need to do to support this new position? I can tell you that it’s a huge opportunity and one of the biggest downsides of taking no action is missing the boat and being late to the party only to find that your direct competitors are better established for success via these e-channels. They can literally dial up customers on-demand through their mobile, social and email customer lists. Do you want to be able to do that?

This article was written and contributed by Running Restaurants, the premium restaurant business membership site.

Jaime Oikle from Restaurant Report is hosting a 1hr teleseminar focused on social media marketing for restaurant owners tomorrow, Wednesday Aug 5, at 3pm EST.

Click here for the full scoop on what will be a VERY informative call

Mr. Oikle invited Joan Stewart from Publicity Hound and Nathan Gilder from Restaurant Revolution to share step-by-step examples and how-to for restauranteurs desiring better relationships with customers.

On this exclusive call with Restaurant Report, new media marketing techniques such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and other important websites will be discussed.

Restaurant owners will be given expert advice and real world examples of other operators using these tools successfully.

Other topics include blogging, dealing with poor reviews online, Internet video creation, and common mistakes operators (both large and small) are prone to experiencing.

Click here for the full list of topics and to register for the call

If you cannot make the live call, a recording will be made available to you!

To differentiate yourself in the restaurant business—and make that burger worth the price—you have to be innovative, creative, irreverent and unpredictable.

At least that’s what works at Hard Rock Café, where customers don’t just pay for those twelve-dollar burgers, they line up for the privilege. And while you may not be able to attract guests with a giant electric guitar or an original Beatles concert poster, you can implement some of the same best practices that have made the Hard Rock’s culture of service so irresistible.

When Peter Morton and Isaak Tigrett opened the first Hard Rock Café in 1971, their vision was to offer hospitality unparalleled in the industry. A lot has changed since then: the menu, the music, even the memorabilia. What hasn’t changed is the Hard Rock’s “unbelievable guest obsession”—or the eight best practices that keep that obsession alive in every restaurant, every day.

1. Train employees in the language in which they dream. Respect for individuals means respecting the ways in which they learn. Variety is the key: offer training in multiple languages, through multiple medium. At the Hard Rock, most training is delivered “comic-book style,” with fewer words, more pictures and a healthy dose of humor.
2. Assist your staff in creating a volunteer philanthropy group. Make sure your mottos are more than just words on a wall. At the Hard Rock, the phrase “Love All – Serve All” represents an absolute commitment to making the world a better place. A unique volunteer program is created at each café, and the employees drive the process. As a result, they are more determined in their efforts—and more loyal to the company that helps them make a difference.
3. Enforce standards, but give out “permission slips.” Fundamentals are important: the right people need to be in the right positions with the right training, and technical standards must be met. But truly individualized service is delivered by individuals. Give employees the freedom to be the people you hired.
4. Hire only “rock stars”—and treat them like volunteers. The expression “hire for personality, train for skill” is popular for a reason: Unique experiences are created by unique people. And to get the best performance out of those unique people, treat them with the same courtesy and respect you’d show a workforce of volunteers—and they’ll pass that behavior on to your guests.
5. Realize that people will only repeat what they like. If guests paid a cover charge to enter your restaurant, would you treat them differently? Would you welcome them more warmly and talk with them at every opportunity, rather than just when you’re serving them food? This is how Hard Rock employees are trained to think about guests—and it shows in every interaction.
6. Earn mental “shelf space” by creating positive experiences. Guests rate us on a REX scale: reality versus expectations. To earn a positive rating, we have to exceed expectations. And since guests have so many choices (and such short memories), we have to earn positive ratings every time, with every guest, to stay top-of-mind.
7. Treat every customer like a guest in your home, your company’s CEO or a first date. When the CEO eats dinner in your restaurant, do your cooks make absolutely certain his or her order is perfect? Do servers execute every step of the sequence of service? Do managers stop by the table for authentic, personalized conversation? Now imagine what would happen if every guest were treated this way.
8. Do what you say you will do. Companies with integrity have employees with integrity. Deliver on your promises to employees, and they will deliver on your promises to guests. At the Hard Rock, that “promise” is the same as it was in 1971: an unparalleled guest experience. What promise does your company make?

by Jim Knight, Senior Director of Training and Development at Hard Rock International and member of CHART, restaurant training.

Bringing my passion of music to training was a natural progression for me. The strategic use of music to train restaurant employees has proven to be an invaluable tool to engage employees, impact learning and affect behavioral change.

Music sets the mood and atmosphere; and also touches emotions, breaks walls of resistance, energizes, and relaxes. Here are some examples of how music can be used in ways that are appropriate, motivating, and memorable:

New Menu Item Rollout
We had a restaurant that was going to be adding a line of rollup sandwiches to their menu, so we tied training into a “Shake-Rattle-and Roll” theme. We used Joe Turner’s old “Shake-Rattle and Roll” song as the theme for the staff training and even called it “The Shake-Rattle-and Roll, Rollup Menu Roll Out” training session. It was a blast and we had every team member shake, rattling, and rolling rollups!

Clean Is Mean!
During cleaning and sanitation training for a restaurant that employed mostly high school-aged workers, we created a “Clean Is Mean” rap contest. I used rap music during the training session and then we had the employees team up in small groups and compose a rap song that was called “Clean Is Mean” (mean meaning “cool.”) The objective was to include all our major cleaning and sanitation points covered in the session into their songs. We then had the teams perform their composition and awarded rap CD’s for prizes.

Holiday Specials
I once used a surfing music theme before, during, and after a training session focusing on our Memorial Day weekend specials. We played surfing music from the 1960′s during the training and throughout the weekend in the restaurant. We used music from the Beach Boys, The Ventures, The Trashmen, Dick Dale and the Deltones, just to name a few. We even called our servers, “surfers” for the weekend and had them all “surfing” up food.

It’s important to choose the right music for the right situation and the right audience. Before you embark on using music to engage employees, remember the following “4 P’s”:

• Preparing – Choose, in advance, the music appropriate to your audience and purpose.
• Precaution – Music published before 1900’s is considered Public Domain and can be used free of charge. Most modern music, however, is protected by copyright laws, unless used by non-profit organizations. Contact ASCAP at 800-505-4052 or BMI at 212-586-2000 for details.
• Practice – Be comfortable with the equipment and music chosen.
• Premier – Your use of music slowly. Test it out to make sure it produces the desired results.

No matter what the training topic or setting, I never leave my office without my CD’s and boombox! Have fun and rock on!

Article by Lanny N. Okonek, member and past President of the restaurant training Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers (CHART)

Restaurant Revolution and Judy Asman conducted an information session with John Alexander of Chart.org. This interview was put into video format and can be seen here.

To help you get the most value of this information, we created this 10-page, no-fluff report (shown right). If you want the lists, tips and bullet-points that John brings up, make sure to get your copy of the report absolutely free.

How Training Will Help Your Restaurant Thrive In Any Economy

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