Category: Press

Restaurant Owners – How To Create Offers & Loyal Customers   Modern Restaurant Magazine (September 2019) — It’s a sad fact of being a restaurant owner: even if your food and service are excellent, and a first-time customer had a wonderful experience, it may still be a while before he or she comes through your doors again. After all, customers have choices. Lots of them. It can be especially difficult for a restaurant owner to turn new customers into loyal ones if those people are new to the area. New residents often sample a variety of restaurants before choosing their favorite spots. That’s why it’s important to do more than offer incredible food and focus on creating a great first impression. Obviously, those things are important, but it’s vital to create a relationship with that customer. To begin building what will hopefully be a long-term relationship, you often have to offer an incentive — special offers or some kind of deal. While some people find a place that they like and aren’t interested in experimenting with other restaurants, many customers are understandably curious about what’s around the corner. They don’t want to miss out! While you could accept that fact, the danger is that customer may decide not to return. People do like to experiment, but they’re also creatures of habit. If your customers find a new favorite pizza place instead of yours, or a new French restaurant they adore instead of yours, or a new beloved burger joint instead of yours, and so on, you could be relegated to one of those “we’ll go there because we haven’t been there in forever” eateries. That’s better than nothing, but obviously, you want more regulars than semi-regulars. So how do you do that? Incentivize those new customers. Offer Restaurant Discounts Based on Age This is a classic; I’m not telling you anything that you haven’t heard before, so just consider it a friendly reminder. You might want to offer a “kids eat free” or “kids eat for half-off” type of deal. If parents know that every time they come to your place — even if it’s just on a particular day — they’re going to shave a bit off their bill, that may encourage them to visit more often instead of going elsewhere. Just make sure your discount is well promoted. Promote Dining Specials Based on the Day or Time of Day Dynamic pricing at work. Bars have their happy hour, not just because it makes customers happy, but it makes bar owners happy to see customers coming in earlier, at a typically less-busy time. If you often see a lull on Monday nights, offer an awesome Monday-night special that your customers will have trouble refusing. Again, make sure this is well promoted, so customers coming on, say, Friday, will be reminded about what they can have when they come in on Mondays. Market Restaurant Discounts to People who just Moved into Town Granted, this is my wheelhouse, since my company markets to new movers, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. If you aim your marketing at residents who are new to the community, and you can get them in the door, it’s extremely important to offer them more deals so that they return. That might involve sending them home with an added incentive to return (half-off your next appetizer!) as they leave — or using a service that will send them a thank you note for coming paired with another special offer for when they return. The new movers are the people in your community who haven’t picked out any favorite restaurants yet. You could be their first. Dining Loyalty Programs This is an obvious idea. But I bring it up because it would feel silly not to. If you haven’t developed a discount program for your most loyal customers yet, it’s definitely something to think about. Restaurant Incentives – Theme Days Your customers aren’t just people who like food. They’re dog lovers. They’re sports fans. They’re marathon runners. Maybe some of them are birdwatchers. Depending on your restaurant, you could have days where anyone dressed as a TV character or their favorite superhero gets a 25 percent discount. Or hold a singles night and see who shows up. Or — if you won’t be breaking health codes — invite your pet parents to bring their dogs. Not every interest is going to be worth catering to, or practical, but if it’s conducive to your dining establishment, you could host book clubs in the off-hours, where people gather for a drink and appetizers. The point is — your customers are more than just anonymous people receiving a delivery, sitting at a table or standing at a counter, ready to pick up their food. They have interests. They also have challenges, ranging from time-management to finances and everything in between. If you can remember that and cater to their personality or situation as much as you do their taste buds, you’re going to make a much stronger connection — the first step to building that oh-so-important relationship. You may have to do that with some clever incentives, but getting your customers to come through the door (and keep them coming back!) is the ultimate goal. Because another fact of being a restaurant owner is that you need your customers more than they need you. That is, until the relationship is no longer one-sided. That’s the day when your hungry and time-starved customer realizes that he or she needs your restaurant’s help more than they thought. Brittany N. JohnsonBrittany is the head of Our Town America’s corporate marketing department. She specializes in digital and print media, social media, and public relations. […]

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QSR Magazine (July 2019) — New mover marketing is a fantastic way to reach those new residents and begin building a relationship. Sometimes, being well-known and well-liked can actually work against a restaurant. That may sound like a crazy statement, particularly since brand recognition is an important aspect to consider when buying a franchise. Restaurant owners, after all, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase franchises with big-time brand recognition. But when it comes to landing customers who are new to a neighborhood, a big name is often a disadvantage for owners of mainstream restaurant franchises. When someone moves into a new house or apartment, they usually want to explore their new neighborhood. After a long day of moving, they’ll have worked up an appetite and be on the hunt for new, local places to eat. Many times, new movers want to know what’s good, trendy and local, rather than settling for the same restaurants they have already been to countless times before. The key is to let the new movers know that, while the brand may be national, the owner is still a local. Marketing to new movers can turn a big brand from being impersonal to personal. New movers may be searching for local mom-and-pop restaurants; however, that doesn’t mean big brands are out of the running. Reaching out to people who have just arrived in town can be an effective way to remind them that the owner of a national franchise is still a vital part of the local community. In fact, it’s something today’s movers are craving. In a recent millennial mover survey, 80 percent of respondents said they’d love to receive a housewarming gift and more than half (57 percent) said they want to live within walking distance of restaurants. Therefore, any neighborhood restaurant who connects with them first gains a huge advantage. Also, by welcoming a new mover to the neighborhood, a big-name brand is suddenly no longer something corporate and impersonal. It’s a brand that cares enough to reach out to somebody new to the neighborhood. That’s presuming the restaurant isn’t just mass mailing a coupon to every house and reaching the new people by chance along with everyone else. Targeted, new-resident offers with appealing offers or freebies are key to drawing in this lucrative demographic. There is more than one big-brand restaurant. Another simple reason to market to new movers is one that is as old as business itself—competition. Customers have a lot of choices, especially when it comes to food. The restaurant industry, along with the economy, continues to grow. Sales at restaurants hit $825 billion in 2018 , according to the National Restaurant Association, and are projected to reach $863 billion in the United States by the end of 2019. There are over a million restaurants in America, and a lot of them have familiar names. Even famous brands need to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack, simply because the pack is so big. If a neighborhood is full of popular restaurants with notable name recognition, that familiarity will draw some new residents in the door. But in a well-populated area, there’s no guarantee that every new mover will try out each big name-brand dining establishment competing for stomachs and dollars. People develop habits pretty quickly. While people new to a neighborhood may be looking for quirky and unusual eateries, they often get their morning coffee and breakfast sandwiches at the national restaurant franchises that can give people what they want quickly and efficiently. New movers who also work in the area and are grabbing food during their lunch hour will quickly start compiling a list of easily accessible favorite spots. When they don’t want to cook dinner, and they want something simple and easy, they go to the familiar and comfortable. In all of those cases, nationally recognized franchise restaurants usually fit the bill. But big brand names have the same problem as the small, mom-and-pop restaurants have; customers develop daily habits that can be hard to break. Restaurants that miss out on getting new movers to come into their business in those first few weeks may lose out on that customer becoming a regular forever—and that’s a lot of potential profit missed. New mover welcome packages should be full of fun, local offers to nearby businesses—included. New mover marketing is a fantastic way to reach those new residents and begin building a relationship. After all, from a new mover’s point of view, if he or she is enjoying that coffee and breakfast sandwich in the morning and getting to work on time, why go somewhere else where things may not go so well? If a new mover loves “Pizza Fridays” with the family and has discovered the ideal pizzeria to pick up something on the way home, why risk upsetting the kids—who are still adjusting to this move—by trying something different? While part of the excitement of moving is trying new things, what makes people feel at home are rituals that become ingrained in daily life. It’s a mistake for owners of a national restaurant chain to assume new movers will simply walk in the door. It’s always a good idea to put out a welcome mat and make life-long customers in the process. By: Michael Plummer Jr. – a U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of experience as a senior-level franchise executive and IT professional in the direct mail marketing industry. In 2009, he took over as the president/CEO of the Our Town America franchise brand for his father, the founder, Michael Plummer Sr.   Brittany N. JohnsonBrittany is the head of Our Town America’s corporate marketing department. She specializes in digital and print media, social media, and public relations. […]

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Restaurant Marketing to Millennials Modern Restaurant Management (July 2019) — We are creatures of habit. If you’re a caffeine junkie, you probably go to the same coffeehouse every day, rather than trying new ones every other day or so. If you find a favorite toothpaste, you probably stick with it. We have our favorite TV shoes and music. Some people even go to the same vacation spot year after year. That can be a scary concept if you’re a restaurant owner looking to win over more customers. It isn’t enough to offer wonderful food. You have to get people in the door, first to try your food — and then, of course, convince them to keep coming back. You have to ensure your food and service are so good that you can break customers’ habits of regularly visiting your competitors’ restaurants and come to yours instead. That’s a worthwhile goal, and of course, restaurants should be trying to draw consumers away from other restaurants. But if you really want to win over loyal customers, an easier approach is to focus on your potential customers who haven’t yet aligned themselves with your competitors. That is, look to the new movers, the people who have just bought a house or put down their first month’s rent in an apartment. They’re new to the community, excited to be there, and they’re hungry for information about your neighborhood. You can give them that knowledge — by targeting your marketing efforts to them. There are probably more new movers in your community than you think. Every year, approximately 40 million Americans move to a new home, and many of them, it should be noted, are Millennials and lately, Generation Z (people born in the mid-1990s). Our Town America, a new mover marketing franchise, recently commissioned an online survey of 652 men and women (born between 1981 and 1996), to get a sense of what’s important to Millennials when they move to a new city. And they are moving. Our research indicates that the most popular places for Millennials are the following cities: Phoenix, AZ Las Vegas, NV San Diego, CA Fort Collins, CO Raleigh, NC Fort Myers, FL Des Moines, IA Boise, ID Charlotte, NC Greenville, SC Wilmington, NC Houston, TX Birmingham, AL In other words, instead of cities like New York City, San Francisco and Boston, which have an exciting and glamorous reputation, many Millennials are opting for places that are known for a more reasonable cost of living and better quality of life. That’s good news for many restaurant owners across the country. Regardless of where you are located, your odds of winning Millennials over increase when you understand them. While individuals are obviously unique, as a group, generations have a lot in common. While baby boomers’ habits have been studied and over-analyzed for at least half a century, we’re arguably still getting to know Millennials. So, if you’re looking to know more about the young people moving to your neighborhood, you’ll do well to keep a few things in mind. Millennials Expect You to be Able to Come to Them Our survey found that 69 percent of Millennials want to live within a range of delivery services. That’s probably not a surprise, given how delivery has taken off. But it does underscore that if you haven’t partnered with a service that can bring your food to your consumers, it may be time. There are countless delivery methods to consider including: adding delivery drivers to your staff, working with Uber Eats, or encouraging customers to use services like Postmates to enjoy your food at their convenience. Despite Their Love of Delivery, Millennials May Still Want to Come to You Fifty-seven percent of Millennials want to be within walking distance to restaurants and stores. Three out of four of them would prefer to meet their neighbors in person rather than just see them online. This means that, while delivery is important, don’t forget to ensure your restaurant has quality table service and a nice ambiance for customers. Owners should be making an effort to get Millennials into their place of business. In fact, our survey indicates that if a Millennial is new to the community, they would love a new business to welcome them with a valuable offer. Millennials Very Much Want to be Part of the Community There’s a lot of talk about how Millennials are always on their phones and don’t take much stock in face-to-face interactions. But our research shows that a majority of them still crave human interaction. Fifty-three percent of those we surveyed say that they want to live in a neighborhood that offers great community events. In order, their preferences are food festivals, concerts, sporting events, bar hopping or wine tastings and family-friendly events. By sponsoring or participating in some of these events, you may be able to reach some new-to-town Millennials and establish countless loyal customers. If you’re involved in these events, Millennials are more likely to see your restaurant as one of their favorite dining spots, and a place that makes them feel as if they’re home. Millennials Are Always Looking for a Good Deal Sure, what generation doesn’t want to get the most bang for their buck? But like their great-grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression, the Great Recession came along when many of these Millennials were in their formative years or just starting out in their careers. The Great Recession made a powerful and often devastating impact, and so Millennials are looking to be part of the community while still being fiscally responsible. In fact, 85 percent of respondents say that they’d take advantage of a local small-business discount or freebie, like a free meal or haircut. Almost all of the survey participants (98 percent) say they’d likely revisit the business after trying out the offer. The point is — getting new Millennial movers in the door can pave the way for a new generation of loyal customers. New mover marketing can help to establish new […]

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