Awesome Restaurant Marketing Ideas!

Book of the Month: "Selling Eating" by Charlie Hopper

Restaurateurs don't sell food, they sell eating.  In fact, if you watch very closely, you will see people eating in restaurants and nodding - smiling, shaking their heads, pointing and on occasion they will not eat... they will poke their food.

Meanwhile, the beginning of today seemed like any other with products to be checked and inventoried, cash to be counted, employees to motivate and restaurants to clean.  The very detailed restaurant checklist is full of "have-to's" which can be a grind for a management team and staff.  There are aspects in any restaurant operation which are a heavy burden on the mind, body and spirit of even the most disciplined and experienced person.

Enter Charlie Hopper.  He wrote a book, but not just any book... Charlie redefines what restaurateurs are all about in Selling Eating: Restaurant Marketing Beyond the Word Delicious.  After twenty years of restaurant communication experience, he has a deep well to pull from as he offers recommendations that range from brand positioning and the “The Seven Very Specific People Your Restaurant Needs to Reach,” to actionable advice like “Three Things Every Menu Should Do,” “Eighteen Separate Restaurant Marketing Moments,” “Fifteen Forbidden Food Words to Never Use,” and many more insights.

Topics: Guerrilla Marketing Recommended

Thinking Backwards to Make a Profit [true story]

What does it take to make a profit in the restaurant business?  Is it possible to give away a free lunch and stay profitable?  How about 300 free lunches?  For many smaller restaurants, it is believed there is no such thing as a “free lunch” and every transaction must be profitable.  It is a stretch to believe that having a drawing where 300 people win “the prize” of a free lunch will help business enough to make it pay and yet this has been done successfully. 

Topics: Guerrilla Marketing True Story