Monthly Archives: January 2009

Google Maps-Learn How Online Customers Are Finding Your Restaurant In Google.

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Today people are looking for local businesses like restaurant on the internet before they visit the physical store. Whether it is a tourist from another state or a foreign country or even a local guy from the same town, they browse internet to find information like maps, directions, and contact information. So it is very essential to be listed on Google maps if you want your restaurant to be found and visited by potential new customers.

So what does Google Maps means to Restauranteurs?

Google Maps (maps.google.com) also known as Google Local (local.google.com) is a tool provided by Google under Local Business Center to empower especially the small businesses including your restaurant to publish their business information on the internet to promote and attract the new and existing customers.

Why it is important to add your restaurant in Google Maps?

I am sure when you watched the video you might have realized that how many people like Lauren Ellsworth in the video are searching for information of local restaurants right now. If you had listed your restaurant on Google maps then chances are that people searching for pizzeria could have found your restaurant assuming you had a pizza restaurant and also visited your restaurant. But if you were not listed on the Google map, then even if you were the best pizzeria in the town people would have not found you and therefore your restaurant virtually never existed. The online searchers would go to the other pizzeria that was listed on Google maps. Therefore it is very crucial to be exposed in Google map so any one looking for pizzeria restaurant can find you.

What extra incentives can you include to attract the online searchers to
choose your restaurant over your competitors?

Well now you might have also realized on the video when Lauren Ellsworth typed the pizzeria streeterville in Chicago in Google there were tons of other restaurants that were displayed. She also mentioned that she made her choice based on the distance and most importantly ratings. Therefore quick and quality service is very important too once you attract these online customers. Because chances are that they are going to provide some ratings based on their experience in your restaurant.

The another strategy that you can use to persuade the online customers to choose your restaurant over your competitors is to use online coupons. While using maps.goole.com there is another tab called coupon. You can add your own coupons using this another cool feature. With the incentives of coupon, they are more likely to choose your restaurant than the Joe Blow’s restaurant across the street.

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Viral Marketing-What Is A Viral Marketing?

Posted on January 12, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 2 Comments

What is a Viral Marketing ?

Viral Marketing is a brilliant and unique process of marketing your restaurant or any business which enables you to promote your  product, service or brand quickly to thousands and sometimes even millions of  people if  done creatively.

The key here is to have a viral effect. Once the virus affects one person it gets spread to all the people that comes in contact with him. The number that is affected is in exponential as all the friends that got affected from the first person starts affecting all of their friends. This keeps on rolling like snow ball from the top of the mountain growing bigger and bigger before it lands to the bottom.

Watch the video as an example of viral video. The video is about a song called Numa Numa that was created by a simple guy like you and me. The number of downloads so far shows as I am writing this article is 24,536,700 views. The video demonstrates the power of viral effect it can have in your restaurant business if you do it as creatively as this guy. Can you imagine how powerful that marketing would be for your restaurant if you had one of your restaurant video watched over 24 million times all over the world.
The video is very natural and has very simple shots that he took right in front of his computer with ear catching music at the back ground. Now if this guy can do, you can do the same with your restaurant too. Go and do it as Nike likes to say ” Just Do It”

What four elements must be included to make Viral Marketing a successful?

Not all the marketing is made viral. However smart restauranteurs always aims for this kind of viral marketing whether it is in the form of viral video or viral photos. There are four  key elements that have to be included if you want to make it successful. Lets say if you want to make one of your restaurant video viral, then it has to be natural. It should not look like cheesy advertisement that normal eyeballs are accustomed to. Second it has to be funny. If the video created the viewer to laugh that they could not control. Chances are that they are going to email it to all their friends. Thirdly the video should have emotional direct response element in it. What I mean by that is you should display your product say your juicy burger so good and mouth watering that it compels him or her to try the burger next time or may be right away if your burger makes him salivate and come running to your restaurant. Lastly if your video has the sensational effect of a beautiful lady, it will help your video to be watched by more people even the
serious guy in the office with the dark specs who seemed never to be excited by the ladies.

How can your restaurant use viral marketing strategy?

It is very simple to use the viral marketing strategy and yet so many restaurants don’t use it to their advantages. I would encourage you to use this technique in your restaurant marketing effort . First of all it is free and  it can be done by your self. Second it is far more effective than those flashy television advertisements that really don’t work effectively for the small restaurants.

One of the simple things you can do is start taking pictures of the customers while they are enjoying their birthday party. You can compile them and make a good slides of the beautiful pictures and send them to the birthday boy or girl via email. I will guarantee you that he or she is going to send it to all his or her friends.

Another thing you could do is start taking the video with your digital video camera or the Flip Video Camera that I recommend. It could be a graduation party at your restaurant. Once you get the video in your Flip Video Camera you can then directly upload it to your computer and Youtube. However it is very important to get the permission from your customer to make sure if you can upload it in Youtube just as a courtesy. More than so they will will not deny you as you have already built a relationship with them and have a common trust. Once you get their approval you can simply send them the link of the video. First they will will be so amaged that you pulled off such a great video shot which is such a treasure for their whole life which they can go back and watch even when they are ninety years old. They will be so grateful to you and be more loyal to your restaurant than the other average restaurant that doesn’t even bother to take some pictures. You will be amaged how you can have your own loyal customer do the most powerful marketing for your restaurant. Your customer will send those video links to their all the friends and relatives that were present there. In my opinion, this is much more powerful marketing than the TV, Newspaper,Yellowpages, and Radio marketing all combined.

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Flip Video Camera-Making Your Restaurant Video Marketing Easy And Simple

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Now when we talk about video marketing you might have thought that those are only for big chain restaurants who can offer big bucks to those television networks. No doubt, you are right about that until the internet and site like Youtube was born. Internet technology has been so revolutionary that now even small restaurant can make their own videos and promote it through video sharing sites like Youtube  using simple video camera called Flip Video Camera.

So what is Flip Video Camera?

Flip Video Camera is a simple, thin, pocket size video camcorder which unlike other regular video camera,  is easy to record and upload the video into your computer or directly on the video sharing site like Youtube without having to deal much with technology.

You might be thinking that you will need to hire professionals to shoot the video just to spend money for nothing. Infact you yourself or any body at your restaurant can shoot the video. If you can get the vacation video or even the plain photos then you are can definitely shoot the video for your own restaurant. Be creative and take different angle shots and you will look like a professional video recorder.

For those who have their personal Sony or other branded  video camcorder, you can use it. However you will have to deal with one or two more steps before you could transfer the video to your camera or the video sharing site like Youtube. I would highly recommend you to get the Flip Video Camera whether you currently have  or you don’t have it at all. They are not that expensive rather  cheaper  than the regular branded video camera. The cost of the Flip Video Camera is only around $ 129. You can buy it through sites like amazon.com or ebay.com or even from a local Wal-Mart or Office depot.

Watch the video to find out how simple the Flip Video Camera  is and easy it is to record the video of your own restaurant. It shows you an overview of its features to give you an idea how you can make best use of them.

Flip video camera is so popular because it is easy and simple to use. You don’t need to deal with all those software and technology issue. It is plug and play. It has a USB drive that comes attached to it. The beauty about it is that once you take the video shots of your restaurant, you can directly upload it to Youtube. Best of all the hosting of the restaurant video is free at Youtube. You then can embed the video into your website or if you don’t have a website you can promote it via email or even through Youtube.com video sharing site.

You can even start promoting your video through Youtube. You are now empowered to start your own video marketing campaign. The best part is that you no more need lots of money for television advertisement which was  out of reach to small restaurants. Now you can do it for as little as $100 or even less depending upon how aggressively you want to promote. The key thing is that at least you have a control over the money you spent on video marketing that is more effective than television advertisement in my opinion. The video marketing that you do at Youtube will be trackable and measurable. You can track exactly how many people are interested at your restaurant video by the numbers of clicks in your video. You also can measure if the campaign is succeful or not by the number of new customers that you brought in with the video marketing. If you do it with creatively the return on investment would definitely surpass the amount that you would put on the video marketing campaign.

Since the Flip video camera has made it so simple for any one to take the video. There is no excuse for any restauranteurs to not make their own video and upload it to Youtube. More importantly to present your restaurant in more professional way and to stand out of other average restaurants.

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Youtube Marketing-What Is A Restaurant Youtube Marketing?

Posted on January 10, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is Youtube ?

Youtube is another social media online video sharing site where anybody from any where
in the world with internet access  can upload the video and share with their friends, family, or customers and virtually to everyone interested.

What is a Restaurant Youtube Marketing ?

Restaurant Youtube Marketing is a process of marketing your restaurant using Youtube video sharing site whether you choose for sponsored video advertising or free advertising by organic search result when someone finds your restaurant though Google or Youtube.

How can you promote your  restaurant on Youtube online video ?

Watch the video where Product Manager Matthew Liu explains how you can you use Sponsored Videos to promote your videos on Youtube.

The idea here is promote your restaurant on Youtube online video sharing site. First you can  create some sort of short video of your restaurant. It could be with your chef cooking the signature dishes with his acrobatic skills to make those online viewers salivate and come running to your restaurant or it could be a funny video with one of your staff in the restaurant that would make those online or mobile viewers laugh to cry and cannot help but email those videos to all their friends. Right there, it is a viral marketing that is more powerful than the yellow pages, newspaper, radio and TV advertisement combined.

Then the next step would be to load up the video in Youtube by logging into youtube.com . You can either log in with your Google email account or if you don’t have you can sign up by going to https://ads.youtube.com/

Now you will have to create ad campaign with the key words that is related to your video. For example you can add the Best Italian Food in Atlanta, or Authentic Italian Restaurant in Atlanta assuming the video is about your Italian food or Restaurant. You can create your own budget for pay per click advertisement campaign. That means when new potential customers view the video, then only you pay. It is more effective than those expensive and ineffective mass media TV advertisement. You can have a budget of $ 25 per day or $100 per month or what ever amount you think is appropriate. This gives you control over not only your marketing dollar but also control over quality lead that might generate offline customer to your restaurant.

This is a great opportunity especially for all the small independent restaurants because it provides a leverage to have online video advertisement to even battle those big chain restaurant that have been enjoying the luxury of big television network access with their big pocket. Now the Youtube sponsored video advertising  will level the plain field of video marketing by democratizing the video advertising not only to the big chains but also  to small restaurants and all the businesses.

So I would encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity. Get some short video of your restaurant right away.You can do it with your ordinary Sony camcorder .Up load the video and get started with the sponsored video advertisement.

Good Luck and let me know how it went .Go and sign up right now at https://ads.youtube.com/

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Order Coffee Using iPhone and Pickup Without Waiting In Line.

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

One of the key ingredients to your restaurant success in today’s fast paced world is speed and convenience. Without them, selling food or drinks alone might not work as it used to in the past especially with iPhone and iPod generation.

Americans don’t have much time especially during the week days while the work load is greater than the time. So that means they also have less and less time for lunch. The average lunch break time is about 30-45 minutes depending upon the company that they are working. By the time they leave their office and drive to the local restaurant their half of the lunch break is over. Once they reach the restaurant there is a big line as every one seems to be  hungry exactly at the same time. It could take several minutes before they could get their food in their hands. This is a time consuming process and this doesn’t help the hungry customers who are in a hurry. This some time could lead to an unpleasant experience.

So the question is how can a technology and multifunctional device like iPhone help the hungry office workers order food seamlessly at a click of iPhone and receive it without even waiting in the line and without fumbling to dig into wallet or purse at the cash register counter. iPhone has been a great platform for any mobile application to provide mobile services like mobile order and mobile payment that it will make small restaurants to be able to provide the mobile services to their customers too.

Watch the video and see how a person can easily order  frappuccino from Starbucks with few clicks on iPhone and also make their payments by their  itunes account. Once the frappuccino is ready the customer gets the text message saying that it is ready, the customers comes straight to fast lane where they don’t have to wait in line. All they do is show the text order confirmation to the cashier and gets the frappuccino. It cannot be simpler, easier and faster than that. All in all it would take,may be 10-15 seconds before the customer gets the frappachino in his hand.

The good turn around time of a lunch customer from the time he orders and gets his  food on his  hand after finishing the payment transaction is around 2 minutes and 40 seconds in quick service restaurant industry. Imagine that time is reduced to only 15 seconds how many customers would you have served in 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Essentially you would have served about 10 times more of the customer. Now that is speed and convenience. Your food is prepared and sold in faster speed. This would be ideal to drive thru like Starbucks or Mcdonalds or any restaurant that has a drive thru. Another good thing about this is that there would be less chance of mistakes as all the orders are predetermined by the customer while ordering by mobile iPhone and is being sent  digitally. That means there is no manual entry by your staff in the order taking process and decreases the chances of error which is a great benefit considering that a single mistake could back log your line for several minutes. As the prime  lunch time window is only 2 hours between between 11am. to 2pm. loosing even 5 minutes is like loosing 20 customers. The another best part of this technology is that it has  bar code system known as Semacode which will allow to use itunes account for the payment transaction which will bypass the credit card transaction and speed up the pick up process.

Apple Inc. has already patented iPhone mobile ordering and paying technology. The iPhone application for this mobile ordering and paying is called “Quick Order”. What this tells us is that revolutionary technology is coming to restaurant industry whether it is just selling coffee or food.

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Google Local Search-What Is A Google Local Search?

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is Google Local Search ?

Google Local Search is a search engine tool powered by Google which helps the consumers find
the local stores, products or services in the local area  when they type in the query  on the internet.
For example, if a guy wants to try a new Italian restaurant in Manhattan , he is going to type say
Italian Restaurant in Manhattan and google search online. The Google Local search will provide several
Italian restaurants around Manhattan in relevance to the query. The consumer checks out the restaurants
displayed by Google and makes decision. If your restaurant is not listed in the Google Local Search then you
are missing lots of online customers who could have turned into your  potential customers.

Why it is important to small restaurant business ?

Lets face it that today literally very few people use yellow pages phone book to find things locally. People
turn to internet to look for more up to date information regarding the local business. Besides it is a costly
advertising expense that doesn’t deliver results as it used to in the past. The problem with the news paper
and TV is the broad based. It goes to beyond your 3 miles radius neighbourhood which is really not necessary considering the fact that most of the dine in or takeout customers come within 3-5 miles radius.

Understanding Google Local Search is important to small restaurant entrepreneurs  because it helps the restaurants to have a online presence without even having the website of its own. Best of all it is free.
People can access to name, address and phone number of your restaurant provided you have taken initiative to input all those information though Local Business Center.

The another cool thing is that people can access the same information by mobile phone while they are on the go. Imagine a customer is driving and he is hungry but likes to go to Mexican restaurant. All he has to do is type in  Mexican Restaurant and zip code and that will display the names of all the Mexican restaurant that local area. He can call in right away and place takeout order or go and dine in there. With out the your restaurant local listing in Google there would have no way that the guy could have found that Mexican restaurant. It would have been a loss business.

Check out the video about the google local and see for yourself how ordinary people are looking for offline businesson on the internet before they visit the physical store. The customer could be looking for your restaurant right now.If your restaurant is no where to be found on the google then you are missing lots of these type of online or mobile  customers. It is very critical as a restaurant owner to understand Google Local Search and use it to your advantage.

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iPhone- Marketing Your Restaurant On iPhone.

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is iPhone ?

iPhone is a  revolutionary mobile device with three products converged into one. As by the name only,one can tell that it is a mobile phone. It also include portable media player most popularly known as iPod and internet connection.

What does marketing on iPhone means to your restaurant?

Since its launch on 11th July, 2008, it is estimated that Apple has sold about 7 million 3G iPhones in the first quarter alone. As of late October 2008 the total number of iPhones sold was about 13 million. The number of iPhone sold is staggering since then. There is no doubt that this product is a smash hit and will be admired and owned by so many not only in US but world wide. The iPhone is being sold in more than 70 countries and most probably more in the future.

Well you might be thinking what does all this statistic means to you ? It means a lot. It means the leverage that your restaurant will have to connect to the potential customers directly without spending big bucks on those mass media television ad marketing.

It also means leveling the marketing field  plain. Never in the history of marketing it has has been this easier for small restaurant  to battle even the big chains. Today the successful marketing is not dictated by the dollars they can spent on traditional media like tv. Rather it is won by the restaurant owners who will use  innovative idea and the right tools readily available virtually for free or very low cost.

For the small independent or chain restaurants it is a promising time if you can recognise the opportunity and take advantage of it. Therefore I would highly recommend to all the restaurant owners and operators to keep their eyes and ears open with regards to mobile marketing and start using mobile marketing on iPhone.

Please watch the video about iPhone presented by the Co-founder of Apple Inc. to get a better idea of the revolutionary multi functional device. More importantly to see beyond iPhone and the possibilities how it can help market your restaurant effectively at a affordable price.

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Blog Marketing-What Is A Restaurant Blog Marketing ?

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 5 Comments

What is a Blog ?

Blog is essentially a website where entries are posted on a regular basis displayed in reverse chronological order.Blog is a tool which helps you to showcase your product or service to the locals and virtually to the whole world. It helps to display the menu, distribute the coupons, and much more to attract new potential customers.

Blog is a conversational communication medium where you and your customers can communicate in more personal level by allowing your customers to comment on the video that you posted of a  recent wedding event that took place at your restaurant or provide feedback on anything that is relevent to your restaurant.

What is Restaurant Blog Marketing ?

Restaurant Blog Marketing is a process of marketing your restaurant using blog.

Why it is essential for your restaurant ?

Blog is essential for your restaurant because it enables two way communication between you and your customers. You would be able to understand your customers likes and dislikes  on a more personal  level.
Best of all it is free, and you can literally get your blog ready within few minutes if you put your mind into it.

How can you use it for FREE and right now ?

There are several free blog software out there but I would recommend WordPress for your blog simply because it has several cool features that you can add on as required later in the future. You can visit at www.wordpress.com and register your restaurant name for a blog. Play around with it and in no time you will have your own restaurant blog at no cost.

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Video Marketing-What Is A Restaurant Video Marketing ?

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What Is  Restaurant Video Marketing ?

Restaurant Video Marketing is a process of marketing your restaurant by using online video content that would help  persuade new potential customers to try your restaurant product or service and thus ultimately help create  your restaurant brand awareness .

The key here though is viral video which is natural, funny and sometime can be little sexy which attracts even the most conservative eye balls. The idea is to make it contagious that it spreads like a viral to everyone. One person watches the video, he finds it funny and send it to all his group of friends and their friends send it to all their friends. This keeps continuing until it will have snow ball roll effect just to realize that over million people have downloaded the video to watch it in last 24 hours. Now that is very powerful. It is more powerful than the traditional mass media restaurant television advertisement.

Your restaurant video can be a simple one where you can display your entire restaurant from the kitchen to the seating area and not to forget the famous chef preparing live, the most popular dishes with his acrobatic skills. If you can add may be similar touch of “BAM” like the one on the Emeril Food TV network show it might create even more excitement to the viewers or it  could be a simple video with a touch of a funny and may be  sexy element  which I will leave up to you to decide.

Watch the video of Carl’s Jr. commercial to get an idea what makes a video viral. There are certain elements that are included in the commercial that  makes it go viral. First thing it is little funny especially at the end. Second it has a beautiful lady which attracts even the most conservative eyes. Thirdly the video has been successful in evoking the emotion with the viewers. When online viewers see the guy enjoying succulent, juicy, hot ” Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich ” despite tears it  has definitely helped causing an emotional response to try the Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich” right away. The other important  part of this video marketing  is viral effect made easy . It has made so easy for the viewer to share with his or her friends with just few clicks. That’s what make it spread like a contagious virus.

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Face Book Marketing – What Is A Restaurant Face Book Marketing?

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is a Restaurant Face Book marketing?

Restaurant Face Book Marketing is a process of marketing your restaurant using social media networking site Face Book.

Why Face book is important to your restaurant ?

Facebook.com is one of the most popular networking site there is in the world today. Chances are that your own young  kids, nephews, or cousins might have an account with facebook. Today when I checked out the number of face book users in United States, it is 36,427,820 about 35.5 million and about 140 million users world wide. The number is growing rapidly every month.That is lot of restaurant traffic for your restaurant readily available in the cyber space. As a smart restaurant marketer, the question is, will you be able to understand the power of social networking site Face Book and tap into the great potential of attracting those new customers and converting them to  most loyal die hard fans of your restaurant brand.

Face book has changed the way we socially network and communicate. What it means to Restaurant Owners and  Operators ?

I guarantee you that most of your restaurant customers have already facebook account and if not they will be joining the bandwagon soon. Founded on 4th of 2004, in less than five years it has changed the way  how we communicate among each other. From those American Idol craze teenagers to adults working in small offices and  big corporations have decided to change their life style by adopting facebook as part of their life. As a restaurant entrepreneur and operators it is very vital to understand the changes that are
taking place with your  customers and more importantly to be able to change yourself to adopt the new emerging technology like Face Book.

Facebook is a great blessing to all the small businesses including your restaurant provided you understand its importance and great power to even battle those multi billion dollar big restaurant chain. Today the internet and application like facebook has leveled the plain field with regards to marketing. Your restaurant marketing success is no longer dictated by the big company who has the most money to spend at those mass media marketing rather any one  who is smart enough to spend their time understanding these new online marketing strategies and implementing them at  virtually free or very low cost.

On the other hand it is curse for those restaurant who are not willing  to change from their own comfort zone and trying this incredible powerful marketing tool readily available at facebook. For those restaurant professionals who still believe in those old age marketing ideas, it might shock them to wake up one day  that their customers have moved to their competitors who have adopted the facebook and similar emerging technologies.

How can your restaurant start using Face Book now ?

First go online at www.facebook.com and sign up for free account for your restaurant. Once you create account you can create a profile for your restaurant. You can use your artistic skills to decorate your restaurant profile page with great restaurant photos and also add those funny viral videos. You then can create your own group where you basically invite all your existing customers to be part of your restaurant community and make them your loyal fans to spread the word too all their friends. Now I call this word of mouse. Ravings about your  great food and vibe is advertised with a click of a mouse to thousands possibly millions if you  try hard. This is much more powerful than the word of mouth advertising I believe.

You can also post any events that are taking place in your restaurant in the future or just a simple general announcements. Above all the features, the most favourite of mine is the “Create Targeted Ad” which you can find inside Page Manager Application section. You can create an online Ad and target to specific
country, city or to certain age group and much more to your specific needs. This alone is powerful tool than all  the traditional media like newspaper, Phonebook, television combined. You also get the choice of having result oriented marketing known as cost per click ( CPC) where you only pay when some potential online users clicks at your ad. You have a control over how much you want to spend on the marketing. More importantly you will have a better idea about your online marketing effectiveness. You will bluntly know if it is either working or not working.

There is no doubt that Facebook is effective especially if you understand how it works and use the targeted ad. So it is very essential for every restaurants to use Face book marketing if you want return on investment on every dollar you spend on online marketing.

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