The Marketing Executives Group International

by: John Matthews (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-matthews/0/53a/2)

In today’s tough economy, the fight for share-of-customer by restaurants to effectively capture sales has never been fiercer. Restaurants that sit back and wait for the economy to improve will have a very long road to recovery. Aggressive restaurants that go after sales by working the critical three-mile business radius surrounding their units will not only survive in the short term but will prosper when the economy turns positive – and it will!

Local Store Marketing (LSM) should be a critical, constant component for driving restaurant sales. Many LSM tactics can be executed by your existing staff for very little money. Restaurants should look at the following ideas to prop up their sales:

• Nudge Your Customers: For those restaurants that have customers’ lists – reach out to your customers by emailing or calling -- inviting them back to your restaurant. All it takes is a friendly reminder to keep your restaurant top-of-mind.

• Create Customer Loyalty: Introduce a customer loyalty card and provide incentives for your core customers to visit your restaurant more frequently. Use these same loyalty incentives to turn casual customers into core customers.

• Start Product Sampling: Want to entice trial of your proprietary food? Deliver product samples to surrounding businesses in the three-mile radius around your restaurant. Be sure to hand out menus with your product samples, and then watch new customers roll in.

• Create New Customers: Establish new relationships in your three-mile radius with local businesses by offering catering of your proprietary foods; contact local hotels to promote your delivery to hotel guests; and set up meetings with the local chamber and surrounding schools and churches to hype your restaurant as a great venue for their next event.

• Launch Special Recognition Days: Everyone wants to be recognized, so create an event at your restaurant that recognizes and appreciates specific customer groups such as a key local employer, local school families, charity volunteers, etc.

• Improve Visibility: Has your restaurant become part of the landscape? Have you become retail wallpaper? Create excitement outside of your four walls to draw attention to your restaurant. A-frame boards at the street; cold-air balloons on your roof; mascots waving in crowds; search lights; etc. all create and increase visibility.

These are just a few proven LSM tactics a restaurant can begin to implement immediately for little or no cost. Local Store Marketing is critical to your overall marketing strategy and a must in today’s tight economy. The most successful restaurant operators win the battle for customer traffic because they make an operational commitment to local store marketing. They know local store marketing captures the entire customer base in the critical three-mile radius surrounding their restaurant. In addition, they know that implementing local store marketing is low cost or no cost. Successful restaurant operators effectively infuse their year-long promotional campaigns with local store marketing, building a strong sales foundation for sustained and long-term growth—and you can too!

The decision is yours: you can either choose the passive route --letting your success or failure be dictated by those customers who opt for your restaurant--OR you can aggressively maximize the sales opportunities within your three-mile business area. Prudent restaurant operators are those who take control of their marketplaces with LSM to maximize every sales opportunity.

2009 © Copyright. John Matthews, Gray Cat Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.