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(Why is Restaurant Marketing & Branding important?)
There are an estimated one million restaurants in the United States, with 17,257 eating and drinking establishments just in Virginia (according the National Restaurant Association). You have a lot of competition. With that competition comes the stressful goal of attracting and retaining new customers and to increase awareness of your brand. Marketing your restaurant is not just about bringing people in. It’s also about retaining them so they keep coming back. If you have been operating your restaurant for some time now, you are already on the success list. However, something needs to be fixed if you are reading this article. Business may have plateaued, or you may be seeing that new customers are harder to come by. Our understanding of restaurant marketing is only sufficient if we first grasp a few key concepts. Restaurant marketing doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Your success will take time. Your success relies on understanding how the competition functions. You cannot merely follow the herd. You must be proactive, as others’ activities and the market dynamics around you matter. If you want to succeed, you must establish long-term and short-term objectives. When you market your restaurant, you increase its value. When marketing does not increase profit, it at least raises the value of your restaurant brand by increasing the gross revenue. Marketing, if done properly, may also enable you to expand by bringing in new employees. Creating a marketing plan is step one in the success process for your restaurant. These are the main steps in developing a marketing plan which we can talk about more in-person: Analysis of your current status by data gathering. Setting your goals and objectives. Review of ideas and deciding about the strategy. Determining the total budget and its distribution among campaigns. Execution and implementation of the strategies. Measurement and optimization of the plans. It would be unfair to close out this piece with touching on branding your restaurant. Branding has become a huge buzzword in the business world, but what does it really mean? It’s a complicated concept encompassing many aspects of your restaurant including your logo, website, colors, and even your restaurant’s interior design and furniture. Branding also includes how you treat your customers, how your staff talks to them, and what general experience they have when they visit your restaurant. The cornerstone of building your restaurant’s brand is defining your target customer. You want to be able to describe the type of person you want to walk in your doors and identify the best ways to connect with them. For example, if you’re targeting young professionals from upstate New York, consider hiring a marketing agency with experience in marketing towards this age group. You can also research what’s already working for other restaurants in similar niches and try to target the same types of customers. When your restaurant brand is initially finalized and all components are designed and established, the most important strategy becomes consistency and maintenance of that image in terms of design elements and customer experience. Successful restaurant branding is the foundation for all marketing activities. Click here to get started with Social On The Fly’s restaurant marketing solutions with a single goal of helping your restaurant grow. Why is Restaurant Marketing & Branding important? appeared first on Social On The Fly