restaurantnews.com - July 9, 2019
Restaurant owners and operators have a lot to look forward to in August for restaurant marketing opportunities. For starters, August is National Sandwich Month, National Catfish Month and National Panini Month. Restaurateur can also take advantage of special days celebrating Banana Splits, Bananas, Brownies, Cherry Turnovers, Chocolate Pecan Pie, Chop Suey, Filet Mignon, Frozen Custard, Ice Cream Pie, Ice Cream Sandwiches, Lemon Meringue Pie, Mustard, Oysters, Peach Pie, Peaches, Pecan Tortes, Potatoes, Raspberry Cream Pie, Raspberry Tarts, Rice Pudding, S’mores, Soft Ice Cream, Sponge Cake, Spumoni, Vanilla Custard, Waffles, Watermelon and Zucchini. For beverage marketing, Beer, Lemonade, Mead, Root Beer, Rum and Whiskey Sours take center stage in August. There are also several days focused on family and friends in August. Restaurant marketing plans can be built around Friendship Day, Girlfriends Day, Sisters Day, Son and Daughter Day, Middle Child’s Day and Senior Citizen’s Day, among many others. Here’s your restaurant marketing calendar for August: Brownies at Brunch MonthNational Sandwich Month National Catfish Month National Panini Month National Golf Month Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month Get Ready for Kindergarten Month Romance Awareness Month 1 – National Raspberry Cream Pie Day 1 – National Girlfriends Day 2 – National Ice Cream Sandwich Day 2 – International Beer Day 3 – National Watermelon Day 3 – National Mustard Day 3 – Mead Day 4 – Assistance Dog Day 4 – National Sisters’ Day 4 – Coast Guard Day 4 – Friendship Day 5 – National Oyster Day 5 – Work Like a Dog Day 6 – National Root Beer Float Day 7 – Lighthouse Day 8 – National Frozen Custard Day 8 – National Zucchini Day 8 – Happiness Happens Day 9 – National Rice Pudding Day 9 – Book Lover’s Day 10 – National S’mores Day 10 – World Lion Day 10 – Garage Sale Day 11 – National Raspberry Tart Day 11 – Son and Daughter Day 11 – Play in the Sand Day 12 – International Youth Day 12 – Middle Child’s Day 12 – Vinyl Record Day 12 – World Elephant Day 13 – National Filet Mignon Day 13 – International Lefthanders Day 15 – National Lemon Meringue Pie Day 15 – Julia Child’s Birthday 15 – Relaxation Day 16 – National Rum Day 16 – Tell a Joke Day 17 – National Vanilla Custard Day 17 – International Homeless Animals Day 18 – National Ice Cream Pie Day 18 – Bad Poetry Day 19 – National Potato Day 19 – National Soft Ice Cream Day 19 – World Humanitarian Day 19 – Photography Day 20 – National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day 21 – National Spumoni Day 21 – National Senior Citizens Day 22 – National Pecan Torte Day 22 – National Eat a Peach Day 22 – Be an Angel Day 23 – National Sponge Cake Day 24 – National Peach Pie Day 24 – National Waffle Day 25 – National Banana Split Day 25 – National Whiskey Sour Day 25 – Kiss and Make Up Day 26 – National Dog Day 26 – National Cherry Popsicle Day 27 – National Banana Lovers Day 27 – Just Because Day 28 – National Cherry Turnover Day 28 – National Bow Tie Day 29 – National Chop Suey Day 29 – More Herbs, Less Salt Day 30 – National Toasted Marshmallow Day 30 – Frankenstein Day 31 – Trail Mix Day Need help generating some buzz for your restaurant marketing efforts? RestaurantNews.com offers an affordable, dependable, effective outlet for your restaurant news. For more information, please visit http://www.restaurantnews.com/press-release/. Responsival.com - 7/10/2019
Coming from a city consistently-ranked one of the best food cities in the United States, the digital marketing experts at Responsival have a knack for food. Whether we’re eating our way through the Steel City or using digital marketing strategies to boost ‘eatership’ at some of our favorite spots, we know what it takes to be at the top of our food game. As a restaurant owner, however, it can be hard to know the exact course of action to take for your digital marketing efforts. Not only are you extremely busy running the day to day functions of your restaurants, but you’re consistently working on what makes your place one of the best in town: the delicious food. That’s why Responsival - the experts of digital marketing Pittsburgh - is here to break down the six most important aspects of your restaurant's digital marketing strategy. RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGNTHE ONLINE PRACTICE AT THE CENTER OF DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RESTAURANTSIt’s a no-brainer that every business needs a website in the 21st century. However, in the restaurant industry, having a responsive website is even more important. Studies show that more than 90% of people research a restaurant before dining -- more than any other business type. These people are looking for easily accessible information about your restaurant like where you’re located, what your hours are, and what’s on the menu. Making this information as easy to find as possible not only helps get your name out there, but can make customers commit to coming in for a meal. But you don’t just need any old website. You need a website that looks great on all devices - from desktops to smartphones - and is the one-stop-shop for anything a potential customer could need. According to the National Restaurant Association, 3 in 5 US restaurant diners order takeout at least once a week. With online ordering becoming more and more popular, it’s vital that your website is equipped with everything it needs to maximize your sales, including an online portal or partnerships with Postmates and other delivery services. Luckily, the experts of digital marketing Pittsburgh at Responsival have experience in all aspects of making a restaurant’s website ready for sales at a price you can afford. For you, that means you always have someone on your side helping your business reach its full potential. A COMPLETE GOOGLE BUSINESS LISTINGALLOW YOUR BUSINESS TO BE FOUND WITH EASEWhen someone Googles your business, the first thing they’re going to see is your Google Business Listing (GBL). GBL’s are the phone book listings of the 21st century that provides you quick information like hours, food type, and reviews. Since your GBL is often the first place - and sometimes the only place - that people gain information about your business, it’s key to make sure your GBL is complete. Not only do people find your business and learn about you from your GBL, but your GBL is a place where people can easily gather reviews from Yelp, Zomato, and other review sites. Since 33% of people view reviews prior to eating at a new restaurant and more than 92% of people trust these reviews, it’s important to not only make this information accessible but to monitor it carefully. Responsival can not only help you get your GBL up and running but can assist you in Online Reputation Management for your restaurant to monitor your customers’ feedback. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETINGUNLOCKING A VISUAL MARKETING MECCA THROUGH DIGITAL MARKETING PITTSBURGHSocial media is an increasingly important aspect of any business’s marketing strategy. With 69% of adults using at least one social media platform and the average American having 7.1 social media accounts, social media is an obvious place to reach an engaged audience. Notably for restaurants, social media is a visual way to display images of your food, dining area, and more that attracts people to your restaurant in the first place. Maintaining and growing interest in your restaurant on social media can be a time-consuming process. From responding to tweets sent to your business to editing Instagram posts and engaging with your customers on Facebook, it’s sometimes difficult for restaurant owners to use social media to the best of their abilities. Luckily, you can hand your social media over to the experts at Responsival to keep your social media active and running to its full potential. PAID ADSEXPAND YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING PITTSBURGH REACH WITH SOCIAL MEDIA ADSAdvertising is the key to reaching new audiences and growing your business. However, times are changing and a billboard or newspaper ad is no longer the best way to reach new audiences. Where can you get the most bang for your buck for your advertising? Social media advertising, of course. With high levels of engagement, low costs per impression, and granular targeting capabilities, running paid ads on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn is a great way to create buzz around your business and reach new audiences. While learning to use these marketing platforms can be difficult, Responsival can help increase awareness about your business and drive traffic into your restaurant, creating long-lasting regulars. EMAIL MARKETINGDISPERSING INFORMATION TO HIGHLY-ENGAGED AUDIENCES FOR A HIGH ROIEmail marketing is a great way to disperse information to your most highly-engaged audiences. Typical marketing campaigns via email send monthly newsletter, birthday discounts, and more. Email marketing allows you to easily inform your customers about promotions, new menu items, and (eventually) new locations that are opening at a relatively low cost. Your restaurant needs to be using email marketing primarily due to the 124% return on investment you can expect from a successful email marketing campaign. This ROI surpasses that of all other marketing techniques and is great for engaging your audience. Responsival can help you design email templates and carry out an intentional email campaign that maximizes sales and ROI. CONTENT CREATIONCREATING WEB CONTENT TO ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE AND DRIVE SEOWhen it comes to standing out as a business, the key is to hack the Google algorithm for search engine optimization (SEO). While the algorithm is constantly changing, one thing stays pretty consistent: the value of keywords. These keywords - or the words that you use in written content that mirror what people look up on Google - help you rank in the top search results, making your business easier to find. The best way to tie a larger number of keywords to your site is to utilize blog content. Not only does blog content help boost SEO through keywords, but blog content helps engage your audience. As a restaurant, you have a wide variety of possibilities for the type of content your write, ranging from ‘10 Best Italian Restaurants in Pittsburgh’ or ‘7 Best Date Ideas in Allegheny County.’ These topics help people learn about your business and gain an interest in what you have to offer. There are a wide variety of ways your restaurant can take your digital marketing strategy to the next level. Get in touch with Responsival - the experts of digital marketing Pittsburgh - and see how we can create a custom marketing strategy for you today. July 6, 2019 by Ejaaz Sufder Ali -The Good Men ProjectInstagram is one of the most authentic and reliable social media platforms which people use to explore their ideas and useful information to help others for some purpose. A wise business person uses media especially Instagram to attract targeted audience and to engage a large number of clients across the world for some purpose. Instagram has become a need for a modern business person to take online initiatives. To market any type of ideas through image presentations. Small scale businesses and large scale businesses have great opportunities in their social media platform to enjoy a large number of audience and to engage them for some purpose. Marketing specialists who widely use Instagram they know what type of marketing plan is effective in this world to create attention for the people and to urge them to visit something from online resources. There are numerous online software and apps which help the marketing specialists and interests people to get basic ideas to market the best campaigns for some purpose.
How to get Instant Feedback from Online Resources? There is another short method “Automatic Instagram Likes” which is also effective for creating influence for the public. Many business people prefer to use and buy different packages form various online resources to get opportunities for profit-making sites. Instagram is one of the most useful and reliable traffic generating software which people use to attract interested communities and to create influence to call for specific purposes. The main purpose of almost every Instagram follower is to deliver a task which should have some message to show their willingness to enjoy the instant responding media and instant responding online channels to engage people and to get their feedback. Instant feedback is possible to get live updates about the response of the people and to know about which one technique is the best to avail the instant marketing opportunities. Almost every auto like software has remarkable features, package plans, subscribers limit, likes limit, subscribers limit to engage communities across the world. The main objective behind each software is to attract interested business persons to help them to achieve their targets of sales and to explore their businesses in worldwide markets or in specific regions. How to Download Auto like Software for Instagram? The downloading process of almost every software is different. Automatic Viral Alternative is one of the authentic and automatic software which work efficiently and effectively to engage the people and to generate traffic to increase the sales volume and to increase the profit ratio by getting automatic likes. This software is best and recommended for almost every type of business promotion and have lots of other built-in features which enable users to use for attracting online traffic and to help business owners to make profits and to earn money by increasing tremendous traffic through efficient business plans. The nature of the business does not matter in this type of marketing strategy. With the help of the online and automatic system, tremendous traffic can be increased to increase business sales volume. Marketing specialists use creative thoughts and effective business plans to get the attention of interested users and to make influence to engage communities through efficient business campaigns. Ashish Deshpande — July 7, 2019 - Business 2 Community
If you think automation means big corporations replacing human employees with fancy robots – think again. Chances are, as a small business owner, you’re already using some automation tools in your business and personal life. If you use applications such as GSuite, Zapier, IFTTT, Hootsuite, Zendesk, or the like to save time and get more done – you’re already tapping into the power of automation. Incorporating automation technologies in your business can help increase agility, lower costs, improve productivity, reduce delays, minimize errors, and improve customer satisfaction. An automation strategy allows you to systematically apply the right tools to optimize the benefits of these technologies and boost your bottom line. Here are the various types of automation that are useful for SMBs, and how they can benefit your small business: Types of Automation Small Businesses Should UseThere are many ways to use automation to streamline business operations, increase efficiency, improve productivity, and lower cost. Here are a few types of automation can make the biggest difference for small businesses:
Here are some key ways that automation can benefit a small business: 1. Adapt To Market DemandAutomation gives you the scalability and agility to handle changes in market conditions since you don’t have to hire more employees to handle fluctuations in customer demand or order volume. For example, automation can help you handle many repetitive tasks so you don’t have to hire and train new employees to manage inventory, process orders, or handle payment when there’s a spike in order volume. You can better control costs and ensure that customers are getting their orders without delays. 2. Reduce Labor CostMany small businesses spend a lot of their budgets on hiring employees to perform tasks that are labor-intensive and time-consuming yet not adding much value to the business. Automation enables you to reduce the number of employees needed to handle these tasks and therefore, lower your overhead and increase your profitability. It also allows you to focus on the quality rather than the quantity of your employees so you can hire better talent to fuel growth. 3. Optimize Workforce AllocationAutomating tasks allows you to free up resources from repetitive tasks so you can focus on strategic and innovative initiatives rather than manual work. Human resources software can also provide the necessary data and analytics to optimize resource allocation, e.g., by making sure team members are working on the right projects and minimizing the chances that one person is over-allocated while another is sitting on the bench. 4. Increase Marketing ROIMarketing automation can help you optimize budget and improve results. There are many affordable tools you can use, covering areas such as email marketing, CRM and sales, programmatic ad buying, audience targeting, and eCommerce (e.g., product recommendations.) In particular, automation helps you process, analyze, and organize a large amount of customer data so you can implement personalization strategies, which will be the key to improving sales and marketing results for the coming years. 5. Minimize Human ErrorsAutomation helps improve the accuracy of many business operations. From invoicing and bookkeeping to order processing and inventory management – you can eliminate costly errors due to manual processes such as re-keying information from one system to another. For example, shipping software helps ensure that you’re printing the right labels for delivery, scheduling software minimizes errors in employee management, and a smart inventory tool eliminates the need for counting items manually. 6. Leverage Remote WorkforceThe increasing use of remote workers is helping many small businesses access the talent and expertise they need while lowering their overhead. You can also find the right people to work on the projects at hand without the cost of hiring a large team of full-time employees. Recommended for YouWebcast, July 18th: 6 Trends Changing Customer Retention in 2019 Automation facilitates internal processes so employees don’t need to be in the same location to work together seamlessly. Some businesses can even go completely virtual, saving on overhead (e.g., rent, office equipment.) 7. Improve CollaborationTo ensure the success of complex projects, you need to monitor every team member’s responsibility and ensure the proper flow of information and communication. Automation helps you track project process, communicate key dates and milestones, and keep team members up-to-date with the latest data, files or project status for seamless collaboration. 8. Increase Employee SatisfactionBusiness process automation helps streamline employee experience and ensure that their needs and requests are addressed in a timely manner. For example, it can facilitate forms workflow to handle vacation request forms, leave management, travel reimbursement, expense reimbursement, and more. In addition, automation can be used to facilitate new hire on-boarding so employees can become productive as quickly as possible and have a hiring experience that will help you acquire and retain the best talent. 9. Enhance External Partner CommunicationYou can integrate the systems of external vendors and partners with your platform to facilitate supply chain and procurement management, ensure timely exchange of information, minimize delays, and reduce errors. For example, you can automate the purchasing and invoicing process or integrate your inventory management software with your supplier’s system to ensure that re-orders are placed in a timely manner so you don’t run out of stock and delay important projects. 10. Deliver a Consistent Customer ExperienceAutomation helps you standardize processes such as marketing, order processing, shipment, and post-sale support so you can deliver a consistent shopping experience that meets customer expectations and builds trust. The process also allows you to gather data and fine-tune processes to streamline customer experience so you can acquire and retain more customers while driving more sales. 11. Facilitate Customer SupportCustomer support technologies, such as help desk software, searchable knowledge base, and chatbots, can streamline customer support, enhance self-service capabilities, and improve customer satisfaction. For example, chatbots can handle some basic queries and provide links to helpful information so customers don’t have to wait for a human agent. They can also screen questions and direct customers to the right agents. 12. Ensure ComplianceFor many small businesses, adhering to government and industry regulations – such as tax compliance for travel reimbursement or the handling of customer information in a highly regulated industry (e.g., healthcare and finance) – can be rather costly. By automating your processes, you can ensure that employees are following specific procedures that comply with industry standards and regulations. You can also incorporate rules into the workflow management to ensure that the necessary criteria are met. Final Thoughts: Implementing Automation the Smart WayNew tools are introduced frequently and it’s easy to fall prey to the “bright shiny object syndrome” if you don’t have a clear strategy to guide your implementation. Get clear on your short-term and long-term business objectives so you can identify key areas in which you should focus your attention and resources. Gather data on your current processes to identify workflows that can benefit most from automation (e.g., repetitive tasks that are performed manually but aren’t adding much value,) so you can prioritize them for automation. Then, you can analyze and improve the processes to ensure that they’re optimized for cost-efficiency before you standardize and automate the workflow. After all, if you’re automating a sub-optimal process, you’re just amplifying the inefficiency! It’s also important to select the right tools for the job so you can stay within budget and meet your business requirements. Often times, small businesses can get the highest ROI with simple tools that are easy to use so you don’t have to spend a lot of time and resources on implementation and employee training. Last but not least, don’t forget to define what success looks like and set up KPIs that are tied to your business objectives so you can measure the results and fine-tune your strategy. https://www.business2community.com/small-business/12-reasons-every-small-business-needs-an-automation-strategy-in-2019-02216750 Kimberly A. Whitler Senior Contributor / Forbes - 7/7/2019
Small business marketers invariably have different challenges than large company marketers. Smaller budgets. Smaller teams. Less time for extensive, rigorous testing. To better understand how these unique challenges can lead to unanticipated mistakes, I turned to Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, a leading growth platform. Kimberly Whitler: Kipp, I know that you work with many with small and medium sized firms. These firms tend to have extremely constrained resources that can lead to different types of challenges—and problems—relative to large firms. What are the top mistakes that small company marketers make? Kipp Bodnar: I actually see three big mistakes that are more common among smaller firms. 1. Losing Sight of Loyal Customers: For smaller companies, in particular, it’s critical to maintain the customers that you have and make sure they are happy and growing better. However, for many small companies, they either don’t have great insight into their most valuable customers or they don’t have the resources to develop stronger relationships. This comes down to a technology/systems challenge or a human resources one. Investing in the source of the problem (i.e., technology/systems or human resources) is the way to address this issue. 2. Not Being Able to Find New Customers: For small companies that aren’t yet popular household names, finding customers is not easy and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Sometimes, marketers focus on too many channels and the execution is poor. This can be because it is hard to figure out which channel to focus on and where to allocate resources. Finding customers starts with figuring how who your ideal customer actually is. For small company marketers, they should spend the appropriate amount of time building buyer personas. That’s the exact reason HubSpot created the ‘Make my Persona’ tool, which is free and has been used by 130,000 businesses. 3. Lead Generation: Lead generation is related to not being able to find new customers, but is more specific. Marketers need to generate enough leads to keep the sales team happy, especially in small B2B firms. Only 1 in 10 marketers feel their lead generation campaigns are effective. For all marketers (regardless of company size) your website is the most important tool for turning prospects into customers. It’s important for marketers to make sure the web pages guide visitors to take an action. As Bodnar suggests, the toughest challenge for a new(er) business is to find and keep customers. There are a number of system challenges that make this even more difficult. Those firms that have better marketers (the right type of training, knowledge, and skill) and are focused on developing the right systems, tools, and techniques to find and keep customers should have an advantage. July 8, 2019 | by S.A. Whitehead
A disengaged teenage fast food employee blurting out, "Do you want fries with that?" was once the limit of customer engagement and upselling for most QSRs. It never worked very well, so it's little wonder that when restaurant tech offered something better, restaurant leaders were quick to respond. And today, everything from Big Data to artificial intelligence is informing the upselling that is now more likely to come from a mobile app or a drive-thru menu board than the actual carbon-based life forms behind the QSR counters and drive-thru windows. Likewise, with huge QSR brands like McDonald's plunking down cash in the $300 million range on decision logic tech companies like Dynamic Yield to support the burger brand's AI-assisted upselling and customer personalization efforts, you can bet that tech-assisted selling is only going to grow more common. But at what point does it all become a little too much?After all, whether suggestive selling via customers loyalty apps or technology that "recognizes" the phone that loyalty app was downloaded on as customers enter QSRs, all of it ultimately depends on data. Lots and lots of data about individual customer's online habits being collected and stored all the time everywhere we all go. And that, according to a lot of consumers, is well, kind of creepy. A crash course in 'creepy' techOne woman who looks at data of all kinds most of the days of her life in order to gauge restaurant industry trends is the president of restaurant trends think tank, Culinary Tides, Suzy Badaracco. In an interview with this website, Badaracco said customers definitely have some issues with the way restaurateurs and other retailers obtain and use their data. In fact, she said if she had to rank things like consumer privacy and brand transparency in order of greatest concern for most Americans, she would say restaurant customers are most concerned about the overall privacy of the data they share, followed closely by concerns around the secondary use of such data. Issues like a given brand's transparency about ownership and operational practices, which have received a lot of media attention, as well as a brand's food sources and preparation details, would probably be less concerning to restaurant consumers, she said. Perhaps more importantly in Badarracco's mind, is that restaurant brands don't seem to be "on the bus" when it comes to understanding these concerns among their patrons. "Consumers want a voice in how the information is used. ..." she said. "They do understand they are being tracked, but it varies on if they understand how this is being done exactly. They are willing to trade personal data but only if they get something in return." For instance, she said the data around how Americans use restaurant apps or other restaurant-affiliated online tools, shows that currently diners don't really seem to have a good understanding of how brands work with and use their data. Most diners just want the brand to make sure their apps and other online tools work well, primarily, to get what they want to order with as little time and inconvenience as possible. But beyond those needs, she said, customers do get a little "creeped out" if and when they learn brands are digging deeper into their dining doings. "There is a sliding scale of creepy — face recognition — creepy, recognizing a previous order — less creepy, ordering takeout through app — not creepy," she said. For instance, research performed by Oracle NetSuite, Wakefield Research and The Retail Doctor indicates that there's something of a disconnect between all types of retail executives, including restaurateurs, and consumers related to this subject, with 73% of executives thinking retail environments, in general — including restaurants — have become more inviting over the last five years. The problem is that the same study found only 45% of consumers thought so. "Consumers are not interested in speaking with robots while shopping in-store or online. ..." said a line from the research report. "Despite significant investments in enhancing the customer experience online and in-store, retailers are not able to keep up with rapidly changing customer expectations and this is creating a huge disconnect. ... Seventy-nine percent of retail executives believe chatbots are meeting consumer needs. Two-thirds of consumers (66 percent) disagree, with respondents noting that chatbots are currently more damaging to the shopping experience than helpful." And the dichotomy continues with other tech-associated findings in the report, including:
Cowboy Chicken's decidedly un-'creepy' approachAt the chicken chain, however, President Sean Kennedy said his brand approaches its use of tech and customer data with one notion foremost in mind: To know the customer is to love and respect them and their data. "The simplest way to explain the base principal of the digital ad strategy is to 'Know The Customer.' This is the strategy that underlies the keyword phrases which we've selected for SEO, as well as the paid ad campaigns which have been implemented," Kennedy said in an interview. "Content opportunities are finite, and ad dollars are budgeted, so we have to be smart about the way that we're reaching the customer base. Through website analytics, audience segmentation, buyer intents, and other indicative data, we're able to gain an understanding of what resonates with the customer base and continue to optimize around these strategies based on results-driven reporting." Kennedy said the brand also feels this approach is absolutely essential to a personalized customer engagement experience that reaches customers right when they're trying to decide where and what to eat. "This has led to experimentation with platforms like Waze advertising, as well as plans to implement re-marketing initiatives," he said, by way of example. "We're continually evaluating ways to effectively reach the customer base." But when it comes to the dollar-magnet for tech at the chicken brand, the chain's app is where it's at. Kennedy said he sees it as both a strict marketing tool and customer retention and loyalty platform because it taps into the brand's customers' daily experience. Then, as far as customer-tracking and message personalization tools used by his brand, Kennedy said the app comes first, followed by email marketing and re-marketing via search and display ads. "In addition to the app, search marketing has been a critical tool for us as it allows us to do intent-based advertising and track this ad spend to directly measure impact in terms of revenue," he said. As far as "creeping" customers out with the brand's use of tech and digitally based marketing practices, Kennedy said he rests easy knowing that the brand's platforms are easy to opt in and out of. Likewise, he points out that Cowboy's unsubscribe rates are lower than the restaurant industry average. With 100,000 people currently enrolled in the brand's "Campfire Email club" and 50,000 in its loyalty program, it would seem Cowboy's Chicken has managed to strike something of a sweet spot between being intrusive and truly communicating with customers in an honest, seemingly non-manipulative way. "Consumer concerns regarding transparency and data use are always a key consideration when making marketing decisions," Kennedy said. "We want to be as personalized as possible with our messages and offers, but we want to do so in a way where the personalization is done responsibly and with avenues where the customer can opt-out if they choose to." By way of example, Kennedy — who could be identified as a Gen-X-er — said he hates getting text from brands, but that's why his brand offers options. He said the biggest users of Cowboy Chicken's SMS platform, for instance, are between 18-24. It might not be right for him, but it is right up the Gen Z-er and late millennial's alley. He added that the company's email adherents, however, fall mostly in that 35 to 54 age range, while app users run the gamut from 18 to 65. The point is, the brand offers the options, so participating in its tech has some measure of control for the patron. And, a sense of control, well that may be the one thing we all want more of these days. Dave Knox Contributor/ Forbes - 7/8/2019
As the Chief Marketing Officer of Arby's, Jim Taylor knows a thing or two about driving buzz around their business. Their Arby's themed subscription box sold out in 55 minutes, they set Guinness World Records for both the smallest and largest advertisement, and they invented the Marrot - a meat carrot. I sat down with Jim to talk about this marketing, the importance of the front-line employees in restaurants, and his philosophy of "taking what we do seriously, but not ourselves too seriously." Dave Knox: “We Have The Meats” has been one of the most famous kinds of classic advertising campaigns of the last few years. However, Arby’s has gone a lot further than just an ad campaign with a history of grabbing headlines with buzz-worthy announcements. What has driven you to mix those worlds of classic media campaigns and buzz? Jim Taylor: It's a core part of our strategy. We can't compete on spending, dollar for dollar with the bigger guys. But what we think we can compete on is having a really differentiated, interesting tone of voice that can cut through the clutter, and entertain people. There's certainly a lot of effort we devote to getting guests in seats and in cars through the drive-through. But we also put about an equal amount of effort into figuring out how we can engage people, and just show the human side of the brand. Show that we understand what their passions are and are fellow fans along with them. And also embrace imperfections. People talk a lot about authenticity, and I don't think there's anything more authentic than actually owning some of your imperfections or shortcomings and being willing to have the confidence to be comfortable enough in your own skin to say hey, this is who we are, and hey, we messed up here and we know. For example, we did the Jon Stewart thing too, where he made fun of us for years, and we just played along with it instead of push back, and that led us to an opportunity where on the final week of his airing, we actually bought a commercial that got a lot of publicity, thanked Jon for making fun of us for all those years. As someone that we'd miss, even though we're not sure why. So I think just that spirit of taking what we do seriously, but not ourselves too seriously, has allowed us to do brand activations that help us fight above our weight. And it's one of the parts of the job that I just enjoy the most, is to figure out how we can, not really create conversation, but figure out what are the conversations that we think we can plug into and have a point of view on, and that people will engage with. YOU MAY ALSO LIKEKnox: When you look at this world of restaurants and food, what opportunities and threats are you seeing because of the rise of technology, and how has it changed your day to day job? Taylor: I think that for me, one of the things I'm most excited about, and we have a saying in the restaurant industry that the experience of the guest can never exceed the experience of the employee. And I'm excited about the power that technology has to make the job of our employees easier. Whether it be scheduling, or the job of our general managers, who frankly, is the most important job in our industry, making their jobs easier to forecast their business. To prepare to delight each and every guest that comes through. To give them dashboards that can help them understand real-time and over time, how they're performing on key performance metrics. We want to deliver new ways to train our front line employees so that they understand why we're doing things and how to do them correctly. I'm really excited about technology's ability to do that and move from what frankly, five years ago, was a very much a “mail a bunch of paper out to people” type mindset. And now we're moving on to more ways to connect with people the way they do in social media and chatting and texting and all that. I have never seen a business that is more interconnected than restaurants. I mean, ultimately, the restaurant business is about bringing a thousand details together in just the right way, across thousands of restaurants. And the job of marketing or branding, as I view it, is to really own the guest experience across each and every touchpoint. Whether it be outside the restaurant, in terms of how you're trying to drive them in, as well as inside the restaurant, how we equip employees to give every guest a great experience, and what the guest experience is there. So, it's just, it's a lot bigger world. It's a more complex world. But it's one that is so fun to work on. There are so many challenges and opportunities, and we really focus innovation across every guest touchpoint. Knox: What's the future marketing look like to you, and where are you most excited in terms of emerging markets, channels, tools, whatever have you? Taylor: I think the future of marketing to me is just about innovation that creates simultaneous value across every stakeholder group. You know, it's not just enough to position the brand and deliver great advertising. It really is about how you add holistic value to your employees' and your guests' lives across every touch point. And it's going to be more complex, and leaders in marketing are going to have to be up to the challenge of learning new fields and how marketing interacts with them. And being able to present persuasive arguments for business model innovation, in addition to other types of innovation. And I think in the end, it's going to be a business of finding new solutions to old problems and friction points that really creatively overcome trade-offs. To me, that's really what innovation is about. It's about not accepting trade-offs between the guests, your bottom line, franchisees, operators, etc. And how do you work to get a solution that leverages technology or some other tool, to solve it, to create that value? Finally, I think that we have to get better as marketers in the future. There's been so much emphasis put on big data, and I still think in the end, big heart beats out big data. And marketers need to figure out how to really bring to life compelling, emotional benefits when guests interact with their brand. And I think that's been a little bit of something that's been a little bit of a lost art. So many times we start with the how, so much discussion about the how, and we don't go back up to the why and the who and the what often enough, and really think about the story arc that we're creating with the brand, and what can really engage and inspire people emotionally, to become attached and loyal to our brand. 7.1.2019 By Corey Feeney
In the world of restaurants, the competition is fierce, the choices are abundant, and the inbox is an increasingly important vehicle which restaurateurs can use to engagetheir customers, ultimately gaining insights about their clientele. The U.S. alone boasts a robust mix of more than 650k restaurants and dining experiences. Amongst all this competition, how can email marketing help a restaurant stand out and thrive? At Patina Restaurant Group, we recognize that by creating a personalized experience, our clients feel more connected to our brand. By leveraging a healthy mix of classic and innovative marketing tactics, we know that we’ll get new diners in the door and once they’re here, offer the best possible experience. For our frequent customers, we lean on digital purchase histories to serve them relevant content in their inboxes, and for new opted-in diners we collect personal details, like birthdays, so we never miss an important opportunity to connect. Creating Lasting Relationships Through Email We’ve learned that while many of our diners are local residents, we also welcome many tourists. This presents both a unique challenge and an opportunity to be creative with how we engage our customers. For example, customers may only visit and dine at our Orlando restaurants annually, but we will continue to engage with them via email throughout the year. In this way, we can be top of mind when they are planning their next visit to the area. We also take this a step further by encouraging these customers to visit us again by highlighting upcoming special events like Morimoto Asia’s annual Sakura Festival, a culinary celebration of the beloved cherry blossom season. At Patina Restaurant Group, we think it’s critical that our email automation strategy is as “human” as possible. Our lapsed guest automation is one such example: if a guest has dined with us frequently in the past but has not visited us in several months they’ll receive a friendly, personalized email from the general manager of that location, sharing what’s new. We’re careful not to reach out to guests who have only dined with us once or twice, because our message would not resonate with that audience. This tactic has led to return visits but also, increased customer loyalty and engagement with our brands. In fact, the general manager of The Sea Grill at Rockefeller Center once received a handwritten response from a guest thanking them for the thoughtful email and noting they would be coming back to dine. Making the Most of SendsThe historical spending habits of our customers are another essential part of our email marketing strategy. We leverage Emma’s integration with Venga and our point-of-sale systems to target customers based on items they have previously purchased. This technology allows us to suggest additional events and menu items that our guests are likely to find interesting. Recently, one of our NYC restaurants held a rosé wine tasting, and in addition to emailing that restaurant’s mailing list, we were able to identify and invite guests who had purchased rose at our other local restaurants. By sending only the messages that our guests want to receive, we can consistently maintain above-industry-standard open and click rates while allowing us to cross-promote our portfolio. With Emma connected to our POS and reservation systems, we’re able to be much more strategic about the content we are putting in front of our guests, which leads to higher engagement and lower opt-outs. We are also able to demonstrate clear ROI from our marketing efforts, as this integration allows us to associate actual reservations and spend with individual email campaigns. We also use Emma’s robust click activity information to maximize the impact of each email that we send. The click map has helped us to identify the optimal locations for our CTAs, so our subscribers can quickly and easily get to the information they want. We also use this data to inform our eblast layouts when sending communications about multi-restaurant events. After an initial eblast, we’ll typically adjust the layout in response to business needs and increase visibility of locations that we want to highlight. We value the insights Emma’s reporting provides because it allows us to easily measure the impact of our email marketing across our restaurant and catering business. Justine Jahnke — July 2, 2019, Business 2 Community
When you think of social media advertising for your manufacturing, construction, or B2B company, you probably think of Facebook or LinkedIn. What about YouTube? Many neglect it because they think their ideal buyers aren’t there. Isn’t it all just a bunch of makeup tutorials? Wrong! YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet. Your ideal buyers are absolutely on YouTube doing research for the services you provide. Why Advertise on YouTube?To build brand awareness, increase lead generation, and drive website traffic. YouTube even helps you increase the chance of your YouTube channel being found through organic search, and you can specifically target your desired audience. Growing Your YouTube Organic Search RankIt’s every company’s dream to be at the top in search rank. Since YouTube is a search engine you can use your video ads to grow your subscriber list. As more people subscribe to your channel, more people will be notified of any new video you post. This increases the views your video will get in the first 24 hours, which raises the video up on the search ranks and into more ‘related video’ searches. If your content connects with enough people, it can show up in google search as well. Reaching a New AudienceTrying to reach millennials? You should know that 70% of millennial YouTube users watch videos to learn how to do something new or do research. If you’re trying to reach a new audience, like many industrial businesses, YouTube is a good place to build a presence. Plus, you can target ads on YouTube based on a user’s perviously watched videos and their search history from YouTube and Google. Pro-tip: Make sure you do some keyword research before you start targeting ads based on search history. It could save you time and keep you from chasing bad leads. Video Is Highly Engaging ContentEveryone likes a good video. YouTube or even Netflix wouldn’t be a thing if it weren’t true. Almost one third of Internet users (1 billion people!) visit YouTube daily. Yeah, think about that – that’s about 1/7th (14%) of people on the entire planet, oh and this guy… Video is powerful and people watch it because it is engaging, accessible, and low barrier – all you have to do is press play.That’s why marketers say that the play button is the most clicked Call-To-Action. As many as 78% of marketers say that video gives them a good ROI. Even marketing automation tools, like HubSpot, have integrated video into their platforms. With over 3 billion searches per month on YouTube, specific ad targeting, and valuable content, you can increase search rank, build brand awareness, and even generate leads. The only question left should be: How do I get started? How to Get Started With YouTube AdvertisingYou don’t have to do all the work yourself. If you are excited about video and want to dive in but have no idea what to do, you can hire a digital marketing agency, a social ad agency, or even a freelancer who specializes in the targeting social ads. If you do hire someone, make sure you still understand what running a YouTube ad campaign means. You will want to support any advertising you do with content on your YouTube channel and on your website. Steps to Starting A YouTube Ad CampaignA great resource to learn a lot about Youtube ad set up and management is from our good pal HubSpot. HubSpot gives us a bit of a step-by-step overview:
Before you start advertising, you’ll need to Create a marketing strategy, set SMART goals, and track your performance. Overwhelmed? Even if you just make a few videos and post them to your YouTube channel for the next few quarters, you’ll still be impacting search rank with optimized content. Your Next StepsIf you don’t have a YouTube channel, start by making one and optimizing it with branded cover & profile images and links to your website and other social media channels. If you do have a nicely branded YouTube channel, start by optimizing the video content that you currently have and establish benchmark data for its performance. Then start building that YouTube Marketing Strategy. Read more at https://www.business2community.com/youtube/why-you-should-run-a-youtube-advertising-campaign-02215544 |
Marcus Guiliano
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