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Spice up Your Marketing Menu with Social Media
No matter how effective your email and online marketing efforts, nearly every restaurant can benefit by adding social media to the mix. Tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn boast millions of users, including many of your existing and potential customers. However, many restaurateurs shy away from these tools assuming they don't have the time or content to be effective, but that isn't true. Constant Contact has come up with the following five tips to help you easily spice up your marketing efforts with a quick dash of social media.
1. Make a connection
The root of all social media sites is a personal or professional networkof some kind. There are countless online social networks ranging from small, niche communities to massive, mainstream networks. Many business-to business professionals use LinkedIn to connect with peers and prospective customers; whereas, consumer brands tend to gravitate to Facebook to reach a more diverse, socially connected audience. Twitteris fair game for all businesses and opens up a casual, yet professional channelfor communicating with your network.
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 Measure Marketing to Ensure Success
There is so much that goes into running a restaurant that you have to constantly gauge your business. You look over every food invoice. You review labor costs. Yet one of the biggest expenses is likely to be the least scrutinized. Advertising and marketing is a necessity, but it's costly, so you need to know what offers are working and which ones aren't.
Most small business owners find advertising to be a task that they would prefer not to deal with because they don't understand it. A lot of money seems to go out, but you're not quite sure how effective any of those marketing efforts are. Because of this, many restaurant operators don't create a marketing plan, which makes the process even more difficult to assess. Developing a marketing plan and evaluating each element should be high on your priority list. The good news is that it doesn't have to be difficult. The first thing you need to do is plan for the year. Set a budget and decide when you want to advertise.
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 Greener Than Thou
Mastering the Art of Earning Green Points
There are hundreds of ways your restaurant can reduce its environmental impact, but that doesn't mean you have to do them all. In the era of Green, your focus as a restaurateur should be figuring out which green steps, points, methods, and initiatives are right for your restaurant.
In addition to learning which steps are right for your restaurant, keep in mind that there are probably dozens of steps you're already taking that could be earning you points toward becoming a Certified Green Restaurant®.
Clearing up the confusion
The Green Restaurant Association is constantly communicating with restaurants, chefs, general managers, owners, wait staff, etc. At a recent trade show, we heard this from a restaurateur:
"I've been to your site and I've seen the standards, but I'm not ready to get Certified yet. I still have a lot of work to do."
Restaurants do not need to accomplish every single step outlined in the Green Restaurant Association's standards.
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Use Gift Cards to Boost Your Business in These Tough Economic Times
With so many Americans feeling the pressure of tough economic times, it's important to offer your customers an incentive to visit your restaurant. Use your new electronic gift card program from Elavon to expand your business in non-traditional ways. Gift cards are not just for gifts anymore.
Send your best customers a card pre-loaded with $5 to offset rising prices elsewhere. Pre-loaded gift cards can also bring in new customers who have never tried your restaurant. Give them out at community or school events to encourage new visitors. Reward your most loyal customers with a gift card (example - after 5 visits, give them a $15 gift card). Or give them pre-loaded cards to give to friends.
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At Sysco iCare , we've done
our homework, so you don't have to. iCare partners are Sysco approved and
uphold the highest service levels, quality standards and performance guarantees
of anyone in the industry.
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