The Restaurant Ebook has over 100 ways to market your restaurant and increase sales. Here are a couple that are easy and inexpensive.

• When you want to get the word out to your potential customers in a neighborhood, try working with the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. Have printed door hangers made announcing your promotion or opening. Offer a local Girl Scout or Boy Scout troop a donation for passing them out within your demographic target area. A little community participation coupled with a promotion serves two purposes.
• Besides a restaurant, one of the most frequented businesses in most residential areas is the local cleaners. Try partnering with them to exchange coupons or promotions. It will work for both of you. Other partnership opportunities can be hardware stores, car washes, hair salons, barber shops and even insurance agents.
• When considering partnerships, direct mail is another opportunity for businesses to join together and save money. The cost of postage in today’s world may be prohibitive for the lone operator. However, if the costs were split two or three ways, this valuable tool may be lees expensive than running an ad in the local news paper. More effective too!
• Guest cards. Restaurants pay a lot of money to get a new guest in the door. Why not pay your existing customers those advertising dollars. A simple card printed with an invitation to get 10% off their next visit if they bring a new customer with them can be an effective way to build relationships.
• Customers all have childhood memories or travel highlights of food they have eaten that sticks in their mind. Pick a slow night of the week and designate it “Customer Favorites” night.  Specials for the evening will be chosen from suggestions customers offer you. Always get the customers contact information to call them when you plan their feature. Many will bring guests. Another relationship building tactic.

For long term success in the restaurant business, establishing a “feel good” contact with guests is important. Any successful restaurateur will tell you the the best form of advertising is word of mouth from regular diners.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook 

The Internet is a beautiful thing! Behind the keyboard you can be anything you want. There is even a song that tells the tale of a guy who becomes 6 feet 5 inches tall, dark and handsome - online. He becomes a millionaire with big fancy cars and expensive habits - online. His fantasies become reality - online.

When it comes to finding help for ailing restaurants, its amazing to me that websites, blogs and articles hype the achievements of the fabulous marketing gurus who become magicians - online. They apparently have crystal balls, taro cards, boiling pots of potions and withered skulls that produce overnight results for anyone willing to pay. There are so many of them that I have to believe someone is believing their hype.

I may be a little naive when it comes to Internet marketing, but are there really restaurant owners who are hiring these online marvels? Are there really business people who believe there are quick fixes for sales, marketing and operational problems? What happened to knowledge, experience, learning and planning?

Visiting other websites and blogs have become my daily humor exercise. How can anyone not be amused by someone selling the restaurant “W.O.W. Factor” for $29.95 and offering a guarantee that if it doesn’t work, they will work for free (by email) until it does? More belly laughs can be had by the people who offer thousands of new customers by purchasing their mailing lists of people who are moving into your area. I don’t know where you live, but the real estate agents in my state are looking for jobs. I am wondering if these “thousands” are homeless and all the mail is going to shelters?

Of course, then there are the “marketing experts” who just came out of a national restaurant chain who were responsible for “397 multi-unit operations”. This person is now offering their “coaching” skills for as little as $25 per hour to give you the “secrets” of restaurant marketing. Now if you are sitting in Podunk, Idaho with a restaurant that just lost $10,000 last month, what do you think some character out of a public restaurant chain based in Atlanta can do for you?

Restaurateurs who fall for these voodoo, knee jerk pitches online should walk out the door, go to the closest McDonald’s, spend five bucks on a burger and shake and then just watch, look and listen for about an hour. You will learn more about marketing, service, cost control, customer expectations, operations and training in an hour than a $25 an hour witch doctor will teach you. There, I just saved you $20! Send me a fee.

To survive in the restaurant business you need knowledge, not quick fixes. You need to learn what marketing really is. You need to know what your customers expect. You need to know the differences between cash flow and profits. You need to find how to develop a marketing plan while tweaking your customer service system. You need ideas that work for your restaurant, not the chains. You need to know about analyzing you demographics. You need to find out why you have advantages the chains can’t match.

There is no substitute for experience. Of course, I am kind of fascinated by the thought of becoming a witch doctor. Might be fun concocting these quick-fix potions in some 40 quart pot. Maybe I can get the staff to do a little dance around the kitchen at the same time.

Larry Edger, Author

The Restaurant Ebook