How to Market a Restaurant

Keeping the Seats Filled and the Customers Coming

Even on a shoestring, restaurants have to market themselves. Every restaurant has competition, whether it's the Italian restaurant around the corner, the McDonald's a half mile away or mom's Thanksgiving leftovers in the home freezer.
Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla Marketing is using a number of smaller tactics rather than utilizing larger tactics like the national TV ads that franchises use. Guerilla tactics are cheap if not free.

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Businesses to Facebook: Where are you taking Facebook Places?

Facebook Places remains promising. It allows Facebook users to ‘check in’ to local destinations on Facebook and it allows businesses to reward Facebook visitors with discounts, coupons and freebies.

However, it’s been more than six months since Facebook announced Places and many of the promises offered by Facebook regarding Places remain unfulfilled. Facebook said it would become easy for businesses to create, manage, and merge Places pages with the existing Facebook pages. It’s not.

When places rolled out, Facebook promised to provide a bulk management tool for brands with several locations. This hasn’t happened. Adding places remains a barrier for businesses with multiple locations. It requires being physically present at each location with a Facebook supported device. New places are immediately visible to Facebook users and are owned by Facebook until the business goes through a second, more arduous process to claim them. Each Place must be claimed separately and requires individual verification by phone or by providing related ownership.

For businesses that already have an active Facebook Fan page, the addition of a separate Place page is typically undesirable.  It confuses customers and splinters brand-related activity.  To address this problem, Facebook told businesses that it would be possible to merge Facebook Places with their existing brand pages. While it is possible to merge a SINGLE PLACE PAGE with A SINGLE FAN PAGE, the results of doing so are discouraging:  Custom tabs are removed. So is the ability to specify a ‘landing tab’ for the new, merged page. Instead, tabs from the Fan Page are converted to left-hand page links and the Bing-generated map becomes the required landing tab.  Business owners are frustrated.

“I didn’t ask to merge — Facebook just did it to us,” said Mary Sisson, a frustrated Fan Page administrator.  “Now we have no permanent information on our stores and a map leading to the store we’re closing. We’ve lost our widely-publicized Facebook address. And there’s no way I can see to edit anything. Extremely frustrating.”
Business owners also complain about losing page reports and Fan Page photo albums after merging pages. To address concerns, Facebook added the ability to ‘unmerge’ combined Place/Fan pages — but results seem to vary among those who abandon Facebook’s failed merging process.

“My business page went missing after unmerging Places.” said Brad Olson. “First the page disappeared then the Place. The ‘fans’ were transfered to a new page – but not at my Username and two years of work and galleries are gone. Any solution to restore this?”

Despite an outpouring of criticism for the way Facebook rolled out Places, many businesses remain hopeful about Places. More than 200 million active Facebook users connect to the site through their mobile devices, according to Facebook. And, people that use their mobile devices are also twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
That is why businesses are eager to leverage aspects of Places that work, such as the ‘deals’ feature. It allows businesses to reward Places page visitors with instant deals upon check in.  They can offer discounts,  gifts with purchases, rewards for bringing friends, rewards for customer loyalty (based # of visits) and pledges of charitable donations for customer visits.

Businesses are frustrated and hopeful when it comes to Places.  It has everyone asking Facebook, “Where are you taking Facebook Places?”

Article source:http://www.socialmeteor.com/2011/01/19/businesses-to-facebook-where-are-you-taking-facebook-places/

For teens, the future is mobile

SAN FRANCISCO--Marketers convened here this week to figure out how best to reach teens on the Internet. The answer: It's all about the mobile phone.

Advertisers are clamoring to reach teens in digital environments because that's where they're spending much of their time--either online, with cell phones or playing video games. What's more, teens wield an estimated $200 billion annually in discretionary spending.

Fuse, a marketing agency based in Vermont, talked in recent weeks to senior technology executives from companies such as Sony, MTV Networks, Yahoo, and Nokia to find out what the future of technology will look like for the teen market.

Among the predictions: Mobile phones in the United States will surpass the popularity of desktops for teens. Only an estimated 20 percent of teens currently own a smartphone such as the iPhone, but mobile phone and content companies are counting on the idea that smartphone adoption will spread fast among teens in middle America and other areas.
"The iPhone is just the beginning of the all-in-one device. Uses of mobile devices will expand to include all kinds of bar code applications and prepaid debit card payment methods," said Bill Carter, a partner at Fuse, who presented the findings here at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference on teens and technology.

That's likely why geographic ad targeting to teens via the phone is expected to explode in the coming years. Right now, mobile phone providers analyze an estimated 4 billion Internet Protocol addresses to provide street-level targeting to consumers. Companies like U.K.-based Blyk, for example, are reaching teens through the phone with ads and information on nearby nightspots. Teens sign up for the service.

"When you combine this new technology with teens giving their permission to market to them, the growth could be exponential," Carter said.
But, he said, mobile phone providers likely won't succeed as the entertainment leaders for the phone, despite their efforts to sell ringtones, games, and music. Other companies like Apple, Google, and Yahoo will be more effective at "side-loading" the cell phone with services.
Case in point: Most teens download music to their iPod that's been ripped from a friend's collection as opposed to bought from the iTunes music store. "There's a natural gravitation to get content on a device that's different than the one the manufacturer intended," he said.

As a corollary, he said that most teens will eventually buy subscription-based music services, much like the cable TV model. He predicted that Apple's iTunes will offer an unlimited monthly download service for music. Mobile phone companies, too, will launch music subscriptions on the smartphone.

Another prognostication: Other technology platforms will save, not kill TV networks, Carter said. The analog-to-digital conversion will make it possible for teens to watch live TV on portable devices. The technology will help the television networks target programming to specific audiences, and that will buoy the cost of advertising, he said.

"The device is inconsequential compared to the content," he said.

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Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9991979-93.html#ixzz1U5S9GhNK

Increasing Use of Bulk SMS in World of SMS Marketing

Bulk SMS software is the latest buzz in the world of SMS marketing and in growing competition in the market, it looks like a lengthier stay. When it arrives to SMS marketing, one thing is very clear that the businesses choosing for it are actually searching for quick and easy way communication with the clients and the customers. Time is valuable and hence bulk SMS is the most favored SMS solution for SMS marketing campaign in India.

The SMS software is getting much popular each day, just because of its several advantages which builds your business handling favorable. Not only this, SMS messaging gateway has some other option which delivers messages as fast as possible. Customers satisfaction and the happy clients are the top concern of any businesses and only for those reasons it becomes essential to render top class services to them. Sending business messages to the point audience in minimal possible times is essential hence by get through bulk SMS software we can do it very easily with affordable cost.

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10 Uses for SMS in Small to Medium Sized Businesses

Over the past fifteen years the mobile phone has become the world's communication device of choice- far more preferred than the use of land-lines, television and radio, for example; and not surprisingly so. The magic of the mobile phone no longer lies only in its portable nature, but also in its simplicity, its usability and its adaptability. As a personal device for individuals, it can literally be said to have revolutionised the way that friendships, families and relationships function. Importantly too, however, thousands of successful businesses have recognised the power and reach that can be achieved with Mobile Marketing. Why? Because a mobile phone represents an immediate and highly personalised channel to the consumer that other media battle to attain.

One of the most successful forms of mobile marketing has been in the use of Bulk SMS (SMS Marketing). Although SMS Marketing has spread like wildfire between businesses of all sizes, the small to medium sized business, particularly, stands to benefit from this form of advertising.

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Cover story: Brands see high returns from mobile coupons

Brands from the restaurant and retail sectors are poised to ramp up their mobile marketing activity after Starbucks and House of Fraser witnessed record redemption rates using mobile coupons.

Mobile network operators including Everything Everywhere and O2 are feeding this appetite, with the former preparing to debut its own mobile couponing service later this year.

O2 Media has revealed its debut location-based You Are Here campaign to promote Starbucks’ instant coffee product Via achieved a recall rate of 93%.

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The Three Greatest Survey Questions Ever

The VP of a Fortune 100 company recently asked for some advice. They were heading into their peak selling season that would last only three months max, and they only had an ability to measure revenue from the website, nothing else. They did not have any web analytics tool.

Her question was: Which analytics tool do you recommend because we want to improve our website and increase sales.

My answer: Don’t implement a web analytics tool, implement a short website survey that would have just three questions.

Surprised?

There were a number of factors behind my recommendation but one of the main ones was that if you want to move really really fast and you don’t know anything then it is better to ask the customer what you should do rather than implement a tool and try to figure it out based on clicks. You will get better insights, faster than you can imagine.

Web analytics is awesome (you do expect me to say that don’t you! : )), is has to be a critical part of your web strategy because it can yield great insights. But for the fastest way to understanding customer problems there is nothing like asking the customer herself / himself (and yes it will lead to improved revenues).

Given the time crunch going to the customer made the most sense, implementation of the Web Analytics tool would happen and after a month or so and slowly over time ClickStream data would play a increasingly important part in decision making. In due course it would achieve parity with the Qualitative data (bu

t hopefully never overshadow it).

Ok so survey got the nod, what questions to ask?

[UPDATE: 04 Mar 2008: You can now implement this survey 100% for free, a true onexit survey with no strings attached. Please see: 4Q - The Best Online Survey For A Website, Yours Free!]

Here are the three questions no survey can live without (and often a survey can be pretty awesome with just three questions):

What is the purpose of your visit to our website today?

It can also be framed as "what is the reason for your visit today" or "what task are you looking to accomplish on our website today" or "why are you here today".

Few website owners have a good understanding of why people visit their websites and this is one of the best possible ways for you to find out that critical piece of information. Answers that you will read, the distributions you will get between different primary purposes, will be eye opening for you, and they will help explain so much of the "weirdness" you see in your ClickStream data (and yes even your path analysis).

Were you able to complete your task today?

If you like conversion rate and revenue then you are going to love this one. An extremely simple question that asks the survey takers to self report their own perception of your website's effectiveness in helping them complete their tasks.

With this question we don't have to rely on our hypothesis such as if the visitors saw this page then they might have gotten their question answered or if I am measuring conversion then I can understand how effective my site is or our site is doing great because we just launched a massive quarter of a million US dollars redesign. We have the customers voice telling us exactly how well the website is performing when it comes to delivering the goods.

Now in case you want to know exactly what you need to do to improve the numbers in the graph, you'd ask a third question:

If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?

It can also be framed as "If you were able to not complete your task please explain" or "Why were you not able to complete your task on our website today" or simply as "How can we improve our website to ensure you are able to complete your task", etc.

The answer to this question is open text VOC, Voice of Customer. It is optimal to refrain from making this a drop down with choices like: Improve internal search, Update the navigation, and Provide more product information etc etc. Let the customers talk, give them a chance to tell you in their own voice the reasons and provide you with suggestions. It works better than you guessing what the answers might be and suggesting those.

Analysis for this question is done by categorizing the responses into common themes and then rating the % of times each theme is occurring in the open ended VOC for those who are not able to complete their task. This is your simple and direct to-do list of issues directly from the horse's mouth about what you should work on in order to improve your website experience for your customers.

These three simple questions that will be the source of a wealth of insights when it comes to helping your deliver on your customer centric strategy. [Want more: Got Surveys? Recommendations from the Trenches.]

ClickStream data is often missing the context, in that absence we overlay our own opinions / experiences / perspectives to make sense of it all. But with answers to these simple questions you’ll have the context to make sense of it all.

What do you all think? Have you tried surveys? Do you have a golden question or two that you use? Please share your own tips and feedback on my question suggestions above via comments.

Article source:http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/the-three-greatest-survey-questions-ever/

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