Monthly Archives: February 2009

Why Brand Positioning Is Vital In The Game Of Winning Restaurant Brand Race?

Posted on February 28, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

How Chipotle has been successful in positioning its brand as a leader in the Restaurant World of Mexican Grill?

Brand Positioning is so important for overall success of the restaurant brand that one should not neglect it but more importantly try to position your restaurant brand by being the leader in trying  “out of the box” marketing ideas to be the number one in the game of brands race.

Mexican Grill, a fast casual restaurant concept is a hot growing trend in the restaurant industry. It is one of the most promising segment as there is a great potential in this market. No wonder lots of restaurant brands are competing for the  maximum share of the pie and the same position and that is  to be the number one. Among the numerous restaurant brands that has entered into the race and that stands out are Chipotle-Mexican Grill, Moes South West Grill and Qdobas. Since Chipotle has longer history in the business and looking at its growth rate, it seems clear that Chipotle is leading the race.

Why even being the second in branding race, it is important to be right behind the competitor and not let them leave you far behind?

Though Moes South West Grill and Qdobas and many other similar concept restaurants are behind Chipotle, the question is who is going to take the second position as in every segment there is number one and number two. Hopefully very close to each other. If you look at the burger world there is McDonalds and Burger King, if you look at the world of coffee there is Starbucks and Caribou Coffee. In most cases the number one and number two position in brands is very close to each other. But it is surprising to see in the world of coffee, Caribou coffee is way far behind. In one of the article that I read in the past, if I am correct it stated that Starbucks create one whole Caribou Coffee corporation in a month or two. What that means is that Starbucks opens that many number of coffee shops in couple of months that Caribou Coffee as a whole company has. So in this case  the Starbucks has left the Caribou very far behind and I don’t know how long will it take Caribou to even come close to Starbucks. The point here is when you are on the game of restaurant brand race, you try to avoid this situation and try to be as close as possible if not right on top of it’s nose poking at them without letting them to crush you.

Why implementing technology to stay ahead is very critical to the overall success of the your restaurant branding?

When I think of technology in brand positioning it reminds me of two company and that is Fedex and UPS. Fedex most probably is considered the number one in the documents shipping business as it is one of the first company to introduce overnight express delivery in the midst of doubtful cynics. Fedex was also the first company to introduce the first shipping tracking system in the world. So it has been positioning its brand as a leader who understands the importance of technology for efficient tracking of all the deliveries and help customers to have more control over their packages tracking and keeping them well informed at a comfort of their own computer or mobile phones. At the same time, UPS was almost 6 months or so behind the technology. Once they realised that they had to catch up with FedEx they worked day and night to finish up the technology and be up to the speed with the technology. Determined and with hard work they managed to atleast come closer to FedEx and in some areas they have far exceeded. The point behind this story is that same principle applies to the restaurant brands too. I would compare Chipotle as FedEx for now. Moes South West Grill and Qdobas like United Parcel Service (UPS). Chipotle has already introduced it’s mobile ordering system on iPhone for its customers which is like Fedex introducing GPS tracking system with its all deliveries. Had UPS not accepted the technology to introduce it’s GPS tracking system to its deliveries though it was 6 months or so behind of FedEx, I don’t know if I would be talking about UPS. May be I would but the story would have been a sad one. But today when we look at these two brands, they are very close in their ranking.  So with this historical example of two brands right infront of us, there is no doubt that implementing technology in your business is very critical to stay ahead in this competitive restaurant market.

Well we will have to wait and see if Moes South West Grill and Qdobas will speed up their technology for mobile ordering systems that is really in demand for the tech savvy customers that have a fast paced life who are not willing to wait even another five minutes waiting in the line to get their burritos. They want to order from their iPhone while they are on their elevator, pay it with credit card online and pick up their food straight at the register counter without waiting in the line. They will show their text confirmation code and cashier verifies the order and voila the customer’s transaction is over within 10-15 seconds. Such demanding the customers have become. If your restaurant can’t keep up with these demands, then they will move on to another brand at a push of a button on their iPhone.  So hopefully Moe’s South West Grill and Qdobas and other restaurant brands that are competing for the same share of the pie will speed up their effort in providing easier and faster way of ordering their food especially during the lunch time by introducing mobile ordering system.

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Email Marketing For Restaurants-Why Email Is Still An Effective Communication Tool For Restaurants?

Posted on February 27, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

How can a personalised email with video integrated can give a life to the communication and take the customer relationship to the next level?

Yesterday I received an email about President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress.  Though I know it was sent by one of his email campaign manager, it is still a personalised email sent to Nash and that is me. It doesn’t start with “Dear All” and starts with my name and I feel that I was appreciated as a human being by a president in his email communication. Though as a marketer I understand that it was automated, I feel it is better than mass media communication because it gives a control of the message to the recipient. What I mean by that is that though I didn’t get a chance to watch the live TV address by president Obama, the recorded version was sent to me via email. On the next day while I was driving back from work, I had a plenty of time to watch and listen while driving. So the point here is that due to the email communication, I was able to have a control over when to consume the content. I took out my iPhone and linked to the email and watched the clips of president’s address on YouTube.  I felt that with this email communication,  I felt the communication via email was personalised to my lifestyle demands and challenges. It didn’t force me to stick to the television to get the information. Mass media like TV didn’t have a control over my time and my lifestyle. Rather I had control over the choice of media and the time when to watch with the power of internet, YouTube, iPhone and of course the valuable communication tool-email.

Restaurants can also use similar strategies. You can load the message in your email account like aweber or icontact email service provider. You can also load the videos and personalise the email by giving a life to the communication. Now your customer have a chance to see you in person even if you never happen to be in the restaurant. In most cases, the restaurant owners are so busy, they don’t have much time to say hello to all their customers. In this case, taking advantage of internet technology why not reach all your customers by uploading a personalised thank you video and sending to all your customers. At least your customers would appreciate that you took your time to thank them in person though it is virtually.  This is just a simple example and there are so many other thing you can do with video integrated into your email communication that would take your relationship with customers to the next level.

During the early days of email it was plagued with spams. It was out of control. Till today, email marketing is affected by spams. It has given a bad name to the email marketing. Since then people are scared to give their email address to any company without building a good relationship. Some of the restaurants and many other small businesses have tried email marketing. Some of them succeed and most of them fail. The reason is that they fail to use it properly and effectively. In a simpler term, email is like a loaded gun. If you use it well, you will be able to shoot your target very well and get the reward. On the other hand, if you don’t know how to load the gun and fire the weapon properly, there is a chance that you will shoot yourself. It is same with the email marketing. If you use permission based email marketing then you will gain far more customers than by trying to spam. I don’t recommend spamming. It is like taking a shortcut to achieve your goals. It doesn’t work that way.

So the question is how can we make our email marketing more effective that works?

The answer to that is by providing valuable content to the customers. Just for an example, if you are an Italian restaurant, you can create a monthly newsletter and talk about the new pastas health benefits. You have to be informative rather than trying to sell the stuff. You could write articles like “7 tips how Italian pasta can help you from high blood pressure” just for an example. Now in the newsletter you are going with the mindset of teaching rather than selling. I call this selling by informing.  Now with this equation, customers would be eager to receive the newsletter because there is some valuable information that is helful in their life.

Therefore I still believe that email  is still one of the effective communication tool available for restaurant marketing.

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Why Monitoring Reputation of Your Restaurant’s Brand Is Very Critical For Success In The Twitter World?

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 4 Comments

Today I was just checking my Twitter updates in the afternoon. One twitter updates from non other than Zappos-Ceo Tony came to my attention. This is one of the company that I respect not only because it understands its tech savvy customers very well but also because it’s core business philosophy is very relevent to today’s demand of new information age.

The twitter updates said “Just ate at restaurant called “The Burger Grill”. They didn’t have Swiss cheese. That’s like staying at a hotel that doesn’t have towels.”

I retweeted to my followers as lots of my followers are restaurant business owners. I thought that I would pass this message to the restaurant business people and actually any business owner just as a reminder how important it is to keep monitoring your restaurant brand online. Especially on Twitter where people are talking about your restaurant. In this case it was not a good thing about this restaurant – The Burger Grill.

When I checked the number of followers of Zappos at the time of writing this article, it is 138,945. That means, at a push of a mobile phone’s button the message about the restaurant spreaded to all the followers and even more which was retweeted by some of the followers including me. With in split seconds the reputation of the Burger brand was challenged.  I don’t know if any person from the restaurant is monitoring all these things in the cyber world. If not then they are really in trouble.

However if they don’t have one then it is critical to have someone start monitoring their brand. In case there is this kind of instances, then they can right away take care of the customer and defend  their brand’s reputation. If they had discovered this online and taken care of them right away then there would have been tweet again from zappos about it. Since I didn’t see any of that it is safe to presume that the case was unresolved and left isolated. This is really bad for the restaurant-”The Burger Grill”. I don’t know if they understand the severe consequence of bad tweets about their restaurant on Tweeter which can either make it or break it. It all depends how effectively you can use to your restaurant’s advantage.

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Posted in Twitter Marketing

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Restaurant Marketing Ideas That Can Help Attract Customers To Your Restaurant.

Posted on February 23, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 2 Comments

5 Restaurant Marketing Ideas That Can be effective during the Slow Economy:

Yesterday I had a chance to have a breakfast with one of my friend- Alex at iHop who has years of hands on restaurant experience from Asia, Europe, Australia to US. He has successfully ran quick service restaurants like Great Wraps, Gorins Sandwiches and currently runs Dairy Queen as a owner, located in Atlanta. I thought it would be great to talk direct to the restaurant entrepreneur who has seen the business very closely in good times and bad times like today. So I was curious to know how he was doing his marketing in order to survive this economic turmoil. I was intrigued and fascinated by some of the simple marketing techniques that he is implementing yet very unique and very effective in a long term. Alex was frank and honest to tell me that he had learnt some of the ideas from marketing books and some that he just picked up from some of the chain restaurant. Never the less, he is successful in executing those marketing techniques whether it is his own idea or some that he emulated from others and modified to make unique to his restaurant business. Some of the marketing ideas that we discussed are:

  1. Free entree during the next visit with the receipt of previous purchase
  2. Free Entree for the winner on the Roulette Game Contest.
  3. Free Coffee with the purchase of the Chicken biscuit breakfast.
  4. Free Cheeseburger with the purchase of fries and drinks.
  5. Local Charity Drive-50 % of the sales on that charity day goes to the Local Charity Organization

Free entree during the next visit with the receipt of previous purchase: During the slow economy, people have a tight budget so they are always in a thought of savings. So keeping in mind the current customers economic situation, Alex has decided to offer a free entree which is a Dairy Queen burger in his case, to the customers who ever purchased a combo meal or any item from the menu and presents the previous purchase receipts. This strategy does two thing. First of all it pulls the regular local corporate customers into his restaurant as he has offered an incentives as opposed to nothing by his competitor who doesn’t have a clue what is he doing. If he was serving 300 customers daily on a regular day, with this promotion he has a chance to increase to 500 customers. With the increase of that extra 200 customers he has made enough to pay for the free item that he gave away. But the important thing that Alex achieve is that despite sluggish economy, he does his marketing very effectively and increase his sales  and profit. More importantly his customers like him more than ever because he is the only one giving them free stuff.

Free Food for the winner on the Roulette Game Contest: The marketing idea behind this is to attract customers with the idea of contest to begin with. His Dairy Queen is inside a Mall so there are lots of people from other states just visiting. So outside the store when they create some sort of contest like “Roll the Roulette and have a chance to eat FREE Fries or Blizzard”. Then this becomes interesting and fun for the people walking by. They don’t have to pay to play. But they will have a chance to win. Most of the time they do win some thing. So lets say a walking by customers plays a roulette and wins FREE fries. He is going to redeem in Dairy Queen.Chance are that he is going to buy burger and drink with the Free Fries that he redeemed.  So this guy who was there just visiting with no intention to eat at Dairy Queen, is entertained to dine with Dairy Queen. I call this selling by entertaining.

Free Coffee with the purchase of the Chicken biscuit breakfast: Free is a magic word that works in your restaurant marketing if you use it correctly. Alex does it very well with this promotion. Now he understands that coffee cost is may be 10-20 cents. So When he offers this as free with the purchase of 2 Chicken biscuits it is very attractive to the customers as customer saves almost $1.59 and may be more if you go to Starbucks. At the same time, Alex doesn’t lose a lot in his food cost as it  is very minimal on the coffee. This strategy of offering free coffee is recently used by McDonald’s to attract Starbucks customers to theirs.  Every now and then I see this kind of promotion with Dunkin Donuts too. So it is a proven strategy and it works. All you have to do is modify to fit into your business.

Free Cheeseburger with the purchase of fries and drinks: This strategy is good for lunch and dinner and in between break time. McDonald and all the other Chain restaurant does it which they call it “Dollar Menu”. But Alex’s marketing idea is little bit different than McDonald’s in the sense that it is free in the first place however with the purchase of Fries and drinks. As we all know that McDonald’s or Dairy Queen, they all make their most of their profits from those two items Fries and drinks. I believe Alex’s marketing idea is more attractive and sustainable as he is able to attract more customers which would not have come had there not the free cheese burger promotion. Though he lost little bit on his cheese burger which is not that high any way in food cost can be be recuperated by the high margin sales of Fries and Drinks. The success formula in this strategy is that with the free cheese burger he is able to increase the number of customers he attracts to his restaurant. The extra customers that is funneled into his restaurant pay itself for the cheese burger that he gave away to those many customers. On the other hand, McDonald’s $1 menu strategy is not a revenue generating rather customer attracting strategy with the hopes that they would buy other high margin food like fries and colas. But what guarantee is there that the customers would buy the other items. That’s why the $1 menu in most cases for all the major restaurant chains has been the loss leader but just because of the competitive restaurant market they have to put it there. But smart restaurant entrepreneur like Alex doesn;t have to follow that. He can take the idea , modify it and make it profit generating strategy.

Local Charity Drive-50 % of the sales on that charity day goes to the Local Charity Organization: They also recently had Local charity drive where they pledged to provide the 50% of the sales of that particular day to go to the Local Charity that Dairy Queen had picked. This achieved two things. First thing, people were thrilled and supportive towards this promotion that was for some great cause. Their customers had a chance to support the cause indirectly by buying food from them as they knew that 50 % would go to the Local charity. This instilled respect in their customers mind towards Alex’s Dairy Queen. They felt that Dairy Queen was not in their community to suck the money for profits only but also do some great work for the community sharing the same values and aspiration, and hope for better community. Second thing, because of this huge support from the community for this local charity event more people were involved and there were more people than any normal day. So when they added up at last, though they had to give away 50% to the charity, they made more because of the extra volume that they did on that particular day.

I looked at the promotion that was on the menu stand while we were having breakfast. Basically people can go their for breakfast and their pancake is free on that day. The customers who ever feels like offering some money as a charity for the cause can voluntarily do  and that would go towards that particular Children’s Miracle  charity. Thought I liked Dairy Queens charity promotions where the business  gives away  50% from the sales, the idea of customers giving away for charity is also good. Whatever the case may be or strategy you may implement, it has to be aligned to do good for the community. Since your business is within the community and depends on the people living in the same community, it is at the best interest of your restaurant business and the community to help each other and flourish and grow strong.

Tomorrow is national pancake day at iHop. There is a buzz on Twitter. Every body is talking about iHop national pancake day. I even tweeted about the iHop buzz word on the twitter to my followers. Imagine how many people might have tweeted and retweeted the same stuff before it has reached to millions via web on computers and mobile phones. This is the power of Twitter that can be so effective and powerful if you use it cleverly and effectively.

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Advertising Vs Marketing-How Can You Turn Your Advertising Into Buzz That Spreads Like A Viral.

Posted on February 22, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is the difference between Advertising and Marketing?

Advertising and Marketing in restaurant business is sometimes confused  to be the same thing. Though it sounds similar, there is a difference.  Both has the same goal of achieving customer’s attention. But they are totally opposite in their approach of getting the customers attention.

Advertising to me is a short cut approach of introducing your product ie delicious food and service like catering to the mass by using traditional media like television, radio, newspaper or yellow book whether they like it or not. In a simpler term, it is like going to other people house without their permission and asking for them to eat at your restaurant. The problem with this approach is that the person though he might have liked your restaurant and the food, he doesn’t appreciate the fact that some body came to his house without permission. So with this bad first impression he might never come to the restaurant.

However, marketing takes a different approach. Marketing is a process of attracting customer’s attention with a long term vision of building your own little community based on shared common goals and values respecting each other’s privacy which  starts with permission. It tries to build rapport , and then relationship and then friends and then only customers.

Why Advertising doesn’t work effectively as it used to during the Tv industrial age?

In today’s information age people are bombarded with thousands and millions of advertisements on televisions, radios, newspapers and the list goes on just to get people’s attention. The problem is people have less time and more choices now than the industrial age when there were may be 2 or 3 tv stations and 3 or 4 newspapers in the town. In this chaotic fish market where every one is claiming their product is the best, the question arises who to trust? When I look at the television advertisements, the testimonial seems so obvious to me that they are paid to lie about the product. You cannot deceive the generation Y and baby boomers who are one of the most socially aware group in the world. They will figure out whether you are genuine or fake with a push of button on their mobile phone and a click of a mouse. I wouldn’t recommend you try this with these groups.

However  advertising can be turned into viral buzz with some creativity and imagination. On the video there are several examples of advertising from the billboard in the bus to bag carried by the lady which are simple but different and stands out from the crowd. They are so eye catching and unique to our normal eyes that they can’t resist looking at them and telling to their friends about it. You can also take some idea from this and use some to your restaurant advertising. “To Go” bags are the most underrated advertising tools that any restaurant have at their disposal that are not used to it’s potential. It is like having all the ammunition and not using in the war. If you want to win the battle of competitive restaurant business, then you have to use every weapons at your disposal. Make it different from the rest of the generic bags that you can get from any restaurant. Stretch your imagination and you will see the magic it does to your restaurant.

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Search Twitter-As a Restaurant Owner You Can Find Out what Your Potential Customers are Craving For On A Real Time And Attract Them In To Your Restaurant Before Your Competitor.

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

When your new potential customers are searching restaurant in your town in Twitter, be the first one to respond and increase your chance to turn them into customers.

search.twitter.com

Search Twitter is a feature within Twitter which allows you to search what people around the world is searching at the very moment on a nearly real time basis. Right now it may be delayed search results by few seconds, however Twitter is also testing for a feature that would provide us a real time people’s twitter search. Wow! this is going to be the most powerful search engine available for any one  that could be used for any business-big or small, including your restaurant.

Twitter Search which you can find at search.twitter.com is really a hidden treasure for your restaurant business. It has full of appetite information about so many food enthusiast. If you can dig in the right information and use it to your advantage it can be more powerful than the television, radio and yellowbook advertisement, all combined.

Why Twitter Search is a powerful tool available for restaurants?

There was a story about the Twitter’s  usefulness in finding the best restaurant for a newcomer in New York that I heard couple of months ago. It went some thing like this. Weekends are the best time when most of the New Yorkers and many go out for dinner. It is their way of  life style. But to new comers to this city, it might be challenging to decide which restaurants to go. In the past they have been relying on the restaurant review sites and had to go with the stranger’s recommendation which could have turned into not so good choice. But with the birth of Twitter, the new comer has an access to the real time opinions of his New York’s friends who are trustworthy and more accurate than those recommendations from restaurant  review sites.

If you look at this twitter search feature then you can think of it as a search engine like Google which searches the web for the contents that are relevant to people’s queries. But Twitter search takes one step further and that’s when it becomes so powerful. I believe this is powerful than Google in the sense that it brings nearly the real time searches. Where else  Google’s  searches may  be few weeks if not month old search results. If you put this in a simpler term then it is like reading the minds of millions of people and trying to find out what are they craving for dinner tonight at exactly 6pm or what are people craving for lunch at 11:30 am. It can be that specific. When you can search these hungry people using search.twitter.com and provide them with the right information and some sort of incentives in return for  dine in or take out, you have more chances of swaying their decissions and funneling all these hungry customers into your restaurants.

Try this out, you will be amaged how many people are looking for your restaurant in the cyber world who are very hungry but don’t know where to go. Be the first one to connect with them, build  a rapport and invite them to your restaurant. Give them the best service and the food that they were searching on Twitter and you will have one more twitter follower, a great fan and a loyal customer for years to come.

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Restaurant Branding In Crisis Online- Why You Need To Protect Your Restaurant Brand Online?

Posted on February 19, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Restaurant Brands can be hijacked on the internet. How Can you protect from happening?

With the rise of web 2.0 and social media tools on the internet, it has helped small businesses like restaurants to leverage the technology to brand it’s name to the world easily and much faster. No more do they have to spend millions of dollars to get spots on a Superbowl commercials on the television. In fact with some clever smart ideas small restaurant have a chance to outsmart even  big restaurant chains if they choose to harnesss the power of Twitter. Restaurants have started using social media tool like Twitter and it has enabled them to communicate with their potential customers on a instant demand basis and also with existing customers about deals and latest happenings and so many other things useful and related to their restaurant.

With every things new, there is always some confusions and complexity to deal with during the initial phase as the creator of the new social media themselves like Twitter is trying to figure out how to provide the service best without harming others interest. So while going through maize of complexity of branding online, there seems to be one problem with Twitter,that they don’t have control over. That is the  control over the authenticity of the restaurant brand representation. It’s not that they don’t want to but it is practically impossible to police millions of people who are registering accounts every second. That means any one can register your restaurant brand name under their name and possibly could try to take advantage of if not caught early and reported to Twitter. In this case would only Twitter have the right to siege the name if the person were proved to be misrepresenting your restaurant brand. This has happened  to so many restaurants and companies like Exxon and also high profile figure like His Holiness Dalai Lama recently.

Instead of reacting to the hijacking of your brand and go through tedious process of complaining to Twitter which might take so many valuable hours out of your busy schedule why not just proactively protect your brand right now.  You can go online and see for yourself if indeed somebody has taken your restaurant name. It could be that they might have the same name like yours and they have registered it first or it could be some individual unrelated to the brand but for some commercial reason he might have reserved that name under him. It is like hijacking your brand. It is serious crisis and happening to many businesses including restaurants.

This puts a big question mark on Twitter’s capability of authenticating the representation of any high profile figure and big companies brand and restaurant brands like yours.  So now the thing to be cautious is to make sure you reserve your restaurant name on Twitter before any body grabs it.

You can go to www.twitter.com and register your restaurant name. It is free so there is no point  waiting any longer. Even if you think that you will not use it right away, you can reserve it and let it sit there so that when you are indeed ready at least the name is reserved and you have a control over it. You then can pursue your restaurant branding online via Twitter. The earlier you jump into this band wagon the better it is. Because your competitors don’t have a clue what the heck is Twitter. So before it is too late, go ahead and start building your brand and grab all the loyal customers and create fans and followers who would be eager to get may be some coupons, specials of the day or  any new updates about your restaurant.

Good Luck with Twitter and keep tweeting and you will be amazed how simple the tool is and yet so powerful than any other traditional media out there.

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Using Twitter How Can You Effectively Brand Your Restaurant Online?

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 6 Comments

The Power of Twitter In Restaurant Marketing.

Restaurant Branding Online is a whole different game from branding done  through traditional medium like Television or radio. It is very cost effective and yet very powerful if done correctly. However if you neglect this, it can pull your restaurant business down with few push of buttons on iPhones and G Phones-Anroid that are never left alone by generation Y and tech savy consumers.

When I researched the restaurant industry to find out the leaders that were using social media tool like Twitter, the first brand that appears is Popeyes Chicken. Popeyes Chicken has recognized the importance of using social medias like Twitter to attract the new tech savvy generation that is growing in exponential number every day. They have been also exploring new mediums  like My Space, Face book to reach and connect to new generation customers.

There is a  common misconception about this kind of online restaurant branding in the restaurant industry. Business owners of small independent restaurants think that this kind of online restaurant branding is expensive and complicated and that they are only for big chain restaurants with big marketing budget. Nothing is far from truth. In fact,small restaurant has a great advantage even to battle and win the big chain restaurant with big marketing budget provided they want to learn and use it effectively.

I would highly recommend every restaurants  to use Twitter to market their restaurant which would help them  create a great restaurant brand and loyal fans.It can be much powerful than the traditional medias like TV, Radio, Newspapers, Yellow pages all combined.

If you do it yourself then it doesn’t cost you a dime except little bit of your online social time. However if you are very busy, it can be outsourced to another person outside of your company or you could use some one in your own company who is well rounded and knows how to use Twitter and other social media tools on the internet. The most important thing it that you have to have a confidence on that person who you think can represent your restaurant brand accurately and communicate the same message with your customers online. It is like a human customer service available instantly on the internet when ever the customers require service from your restaurant or need to answer any questions regarding your restaurant business.

Twitter is such a great tool for monitoring your restaurant brand.  Using this tool you can defend your reputation and also get so many business by communicating with your potential customers and delivering the right information in a real time basis. Imagine a tourist from other state or a foreign country came to your city let’s say New York. He is hungry. He doesn’t have a clue which restaurant to visit. He likes Italian food. He takes out his iPhone and types a message in Twitter. He asks all his friends if they know any Italian restaurant they recommend in New York in 10th Street. His local friends from New York instantly recommends the favourite restaurant at that particular location on a real time basis. Since he trusts his friend more than a local directory, he visits that particular recommended Italian Restaurant.

Another scenario could be that if the owner of that Italian restaurant had a smart strategies like Popeyes then he would be proactive and respond to the twitter request instantly. He would have used Tweetbeep which would alert him with certain keywords that he would target like “10th street restaurant” just for an example. He would instantly get an alert and could investigate about the query and help him by providing more information and may be with directions. This is proactive marketing that is feasible because of social media tools like Twitter. This would not have been possible may be even few years ago before the birth of Twitter.

If the tech savvy customer had a good experience at the restaurant then he would tweet right away and tell all  friends in his twitter account and possibly to the whole world who ever were trying to decide where to eat at that very moment in New York at the 10 th street. The Italian restaurant might have a chance to sway other peoples decision to dine with them. On the other hand if the customer had a bad experience in that Italian restaurant then he would again tell all his friends via twitter and virtually to whole world. The bad thing about this is the speed of the bad reputation that  would be transferred in split seconds and to thousands and even millions and more. With old traditional word of mouth they would be able to tell may be  10 or 20 people, but with twitter they can tell to the whole world with a click of a mouse or push of a button on their mobile phones. So the thing to keep in mind is that not to mess up with these tech savvy customers.Provide great service and delicious food. He will do the marketing for you. But if by accident the customer got a lousy service and had a bad experience please try to resolve it as soon as possible. You will not have a luxury of waiting time of 14 days to get the complain letter from this customer. Rather he would be sending that same letter in 140 characters or less to all his friends that could be in thousands. That would grow exponentially as his thousands of friends have another thousands of friends.This could mulitpy in to millions and even more.  See how fast this grows. This is the nature of the Twitter. Either it makes it if you do it correctly or it breaks it  if handled incorrectly.

So I would highly urge to fellow restaurant entrepreneurs to look at this simple and yet powerful tool called Twitter very closely and use it to your advantage and not the other way round.

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Posted in Twitter Marketing, Viral Video Marketing

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What Is A Restaurant Branding? How To Create Your Own Great Restaurant Brand?

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 1 Comment

7 Important Aspects Of Great Restaurant Brands:

When you talk about a restaurant brand, it is a trade mark or identity of a company that reflects the quality of it’s product or service. For example Starbucks is a brand. Starbucks- it’s name and the logo  embodies the representation of the quality coffee, great service and experience that the company provides to the customers. So restaurant brand is a uniform recognition of a company’s  quality product,service or experience that is derived from the art of great marketing

Watch the video and listen from David Schoenecker who talks about his experience and perception about a local pizza restaurant branding. There are seven key aspects for any restaurant brands to be successful. They are as follows:

  1. Are Always  Consistent
  2. Provide excellent and unique experience
  3. Have Unique Brand position
  4. Have Specific Target Market
  5. Have same quality equipments and products
  6. Constantly Timely Delivery
  7. Quality Customer Service

Great restaurant brands are always consistent in the message they communicate with their customers. Whether it is on Tv, radio or on internet, the message of the marketing should always be the same.David on the video tells how the local pizza restaurant have everything  the same maintaining the quality from the decor to the music they play.

When you visit Starbucks, the customer is always served with hot coffee at a great speed.They also provide a unique customer experience of homely environment where any one can go and hang out with their laptops, or have a personal meetings with friends or business partners.

Chipotle is another great restaurant brand which position itself as a trendy, fast casual Mexican Grill. It positions itself as a leader in this fast casual restaurant industry by introducing new technology like Chipotle Mobile Ordering System. Essentially it allows any body to order the food by using iPhone and that their customers have to never wait for long waiting lines. Chipotle has a unique brand position.

Moe’s South West Grill is another fast casual restaurant based out of Atlanta. Their target markets are blue collar office workers aged from 25-34, Parents with Kids aged between 34-48 and generation Y aged from 18-25. They have specific market they target. They just don’t go and try to attract any body they see. Because different people have different eating preferences. Moe’s understands this so they target only specific market.

On the video David talks about the local pizza restaurant that has built a great brand. They have been successful by implementing quality efficient POS Systems and other equipment required by the restaurant. They just didn’t buy some generic register to save some money to ruin their long term reputation which is the brand. They also made sure that they were using the same quality paper and utensil product for the customer to give the same product quality that they have been used to with it’s brand.

Pizza restaurant should be able to deliver their pizza with in 30 minutes and no later than 45 minutes if there is traffic. The timely delivery should be maintained and not be neglected. If one day they deliver in 30 minutes and the other day they take 1 hour 30 minutes then that is not constantly timely delivery.

Last but not the least is the customer service. The customer service should be excellent. I mean really excellent. Delivering on customers anticipated request is excellent service. It’s like reading customers mind and delivering even before customer requests.

I hope this gives you a better understanding of a great restaurant brand and more importantly to create your own great restaurant brand.

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Restaurant Marketing-Why Restaurants Need To Initiate Conversation Online Before Converting Them To Friends And Then Customers.

Posted on February 15, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Why Restaurants must  be involved in Cyber Space and make friends before turning them into customers?

Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the great entrepreneur who has embraced the technology and taken his wine business to the height that any business man would envy. His style is straight forward and his knowledge of wisdom is so true and very helpful for any entrepreneurs including restaurateurs who want to embrace the change that internet has brought.

The one thing that I like about internet technology is that it levels the plain field. It democratize the marketing. What I mean by that is ” Marketing in the TV industrial  age used to be dictated by the amount of advertising money that a company could spend and that is usually in millions. But in information age like today, the battle of marketing is not fought solely with money but with ideas. Money does play a role in marketing but it is not the sole factor that decides the winner. It is the idea and innovation that wins today. Just take an example of You Tube. It was started by just 3 guys former employees of Pay pal with very few resources and capital. But their idea was great. It was innovation in itself considering that it paved the path to democratize the video content. No more is the video content controlled by Tv stations. In fact today any individual with a Flip video camera, internet connection can create their own mini online Tv empire that can even threaten the traditional Tv stations. Infact you as a restaurant owner or chefs have a power to start your own restaurant TV network like Emeril Live Show. No more you have to spend outrageous amount of money to traditional media like Tv which doesn’t work any more these days. In fact they don’t control my attention. I have so many choices that I don’t really have to pay the attention to them. I would rather go and view online videos that specifically suits my style and my flavour. No more they can throw the commercials at my face whether I like or not. With a push of a button I will flip the channel or with a click of a mouse I will go to other sites that will attempt to create rapport and build a relationship. I  and so do you will no  more take those  forced advertising which is irrelevant to us.

So the question is how as a restaurant business should start a new way of reaching to customers that is relevent to them and are more likely to admire your restaurant and become a Loyal Fan?

As Gary Vaynerchuk explains that so many companies know how to mix and mingle in a real world. They tend to hold back when it comes to internet. Internet is indeed like a big conference where there are different kinds of people. It is like going to the chamber of Commerce. You go there so you can connect to your local business friends. Now as a restaurant entrepreneur internet is similar to business of chamber of Commerce. But it is much bigger that Chamber of Commerce and there are more people than you can imagine. Without taking a long time to drive to your chamber of commerce, you can visit so to say the cyber chamber of commerce with a click of a mouse. You can go to different forums that is related to food industry. You can go to different blogs related to food or visit groups on face book that is non vegetarian or vegetarian or may be green revolution group. Go and get involved in these blogs leave the comments when you like the discussion. Add value to their discussions and help where possible and make some friends in the process.Try to solve the common problems faced by the general people in the forum of your own home town. This is how you get involved in the internet world, start conversation, open your fist and give an open hand for virtual handshake on the internet.

This is how you build relationship and create loyal fans of your restaurant for years to come.

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