Revolutionary Framework For Restaurant Marketing

Restaurant marketing can be overwhelming.  What does restaurant marketing actually mean?  Where does it start and where does it end?  Does it really work?

It’s popular nowadays to consider marketing to be anything in a restaurant touches a customer or a potential customer.

Using that broad definition, all these, and a million more, can be considered part of your marketing:

• The way your food plating is done,
• The cleanliness of your restrooms,
• The color of your walls,
• The press release you send,
• The layout of your menu,
• Your Google Adwords account,
• The fundraising card you participate in,
• Your signage,
• Your Facebook page,
• Your server uniforms,
• and on and on and on and on….

It’s an incredible, complex and overwhelming thing to get your head around.

That’s why I developed the IdEA Marketing Framework.  A revolutionary framework to organize and optimize your thoughts about restaurant marketing and a tool for you to use to optimize the way you spend money on “marketing”.

Your restaurant marketing plan and budget should be placed into three distinct and manageable buckets – The IdEA Framework:

I- Innovation Marketing (bucket #1)– Provide new, interesting and profitable products and services to your guests,
d- Defined Systems – (Each of your marketing buckets need to have an efficient repeatable system in place to make them work.)
E- Environment Marketing (bucket #2)– Create a place your customers rave about, love to visit, and love to spend money in,
A- Attraction Marketing (bucket #3) – Bring a consistent stream of new guests to your restaurant while enticing more frequent visits.

Once those buckets are in place in your thought process will be much clearer, and your investment (both time and money) will be spent much more effectively.

Here’s How the IdEA Framework Works:

Let’s say you learn about a new idea, product or tool and are want to seriously consider using it in your mix.  The first thing to do is figure out what IdEA bucket it best fits into.

• Is it a new product or service to be provided to your guests?  If it is, then it goes into the Innovation Marketing Bucket.
• Is it used to improve your “place” (restaurant, food truck, catered event, etc.) so that your customers will rave about it, love to visit or want to spend more money?  If it is, then it goes into the Environment Marketing bucket.
• Is it used to attract new customers or entice more frequent visits? If it is, then it goes into the Attraction Marketing bucket.

Once each of your ideas, products or systems are in the appropriate bucket, it becomes clear what the purpose should be for each, and you’ll be able to ask the right questions of yourself to see if you should use them in your business.