Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I want to tell you about a restaurant owner I was introduced to just a few weeks ago. For the sake of today's episode, let's call him Dave. So Dave owns this neighborhood restaurant. He's a great chef. His staff is friendly. His food is consistently good. The dining room is beautiful. And if you ask him how things are going, he'll tell you the same thing a lot of restaurant owners tell me. Yeah, we're doing okay, but we need more customers.
[00:00:25] That's exactly what he told me. So I asked him what's he doing to market the restaurant. And what happened is Dave starts listing everything, and I mean everything. Well, we're posting on Instagram four times a week. I'm paying somebody to run Facebook ads. I just hired a photographer. I'm thinking about bringing in a local influencer. I ran a promotion last month. It went well. So I'm considering doing another one next month.
[00:00:47] He's busy. He's spending money. He's doing what he thinks restaurant owners are supposed to do.
[00:00:53] And yet his sales aren't where he wants them to be. So I ask him a question. Hey, Dave, who's your restaurant for?
[00:01:01] And he looks at me like I've just asked him something ridiculous.
[00:01:04] Everybody, everybody loves our food.
[00:01:08] Okay, so why should somebody choose your restaurant instead of the one down the street?
[00:01:13] Well, you have to understand we have great food and great service.
[00:01:17] Okay, and what kind of experience are you trying to create, Dave? And he says, well, a great one. And I said, okay, how many people who came in last month have come back this month?
[00:01:29] And with that, he was stumped. He didn't know how many of them told their friends about you.
[00:01:35] And he doesn't know the answer to that one either.
[00:01:38] And see, there's the problem. Dave doesn't have a marketing problem. He has a strategy problem. He's trying to use advertising to solve a problem he hasn't bothered to even identify. He doesn't know who he's going to attract. He can't articulate why somebody should choose him as opposed to any of the other options.
[00:01:56] He hasn't deliberately designed an experience for the people that he actually wants to serve. And he has no system for turning a first time customer into a regular.
[00:02:06] But he's spending money on Facebook ads. And I see this all the time. Restaurant owners will spend thousands of dollars promoting their businesses before they can answer even the most basic questions about their businesses. They'll hire a social media manager before they've even defined their brand. They'll discount their food before they've even established its value.
[00:02:27] They'll spend money acquiring new customers before they figured out how to keep the customers they already have.
[00:02:35] And then they'll tell me, well, my marketing just doesn't work.
[00:02:38] And honestly, the answer is no. Random marketing activities don't work together simply because you're doing a lot of them. In order to pull them together, you need a strategy. And today I'm gonna give you one. We're going all the way back to the beginning again. We're going to talk about what marketing actually is, how to identify the audience you're meant to serv, how to position your restaurant in a crowded marketplace, and how to turn your dining room into your most powerful marketing tool.
[00:03:07] Then we're going to talk about attracting new customers. We're going to talk about retaining the ones you've already got. And ultimately, how do we inspire them to tell other people about you? And, yeah, we're going to talk about Google. We're going to talk about websites, we're going to talk about social media and email and advertising. But we're going to talk about those things only after we've built the foundation.
[00:03:29] Because guess what? The order matters. You can have the greatest marketing campaign in the world, but if you're promoting the wrong experience to the wrong people, you're going to have a very expensive problem.
[00:03:41] This is the ultimate guide to marketing your restaurant. How to get more customers, how to keep those customers coming back, and most importantly, how to build a restaurant that people are excited to choose in the first place.
[00:03:54] All of that on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy. Let's get into it.
[00:03:59] There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown. This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
[00:04:30] Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy podcast. We put out two episodes every single week. One on operations, the other one on marketing. All of it drives towards increased profitability. Profit first we say, right, dial in profitability. Set revenue targets, hit those targets. Generate budgets so you can make money. You can be profitable no matter what revenue level.
[00:04:53] Then once you know that, once you have a system in place, well, then we throw kerosene on it. That's growth. That's marketing. That's what today's episode is all about. I am giving you basically the big foundational episode you've been waiting for. Restaurant Marketing 101. Everything you need to know, pull from the frameworks, the systems, the things I've talked about for years, all in one action packed episode. This one's gonna be long and you're gonna wanna take notes. And this is a great one to bookmark and to come back to over and over and over again. All of that after a word from one of our sponsors.
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[00:06:42] Okay, so before we really get into it, right before we talk about anything else, I want to agree on a definition for marketing. And I'm going to make it incredibly simple. If you go all the way back to episode one of this show, it's so important that I started with that question. What is marketing? I'm going to give you the definition. You can go back and listen to episode one. You can also get it right here. It really comes down to three questions. That's it. Marketing comes down to three questions. What's the product? Who is it for? And how can we reach them? Again, that's it. Now don't confuse simple with easy, because marketing is not easy. Marketing restaurants is not easy. But I want to make it really simple.
[00:07:24] Those are three simple questions, but answering them well and then building an entire business around those answers is not necessarily easy.
[00:07:34] So let's start with the first one. What is the product? If you own a restaurant, your first instinct is probably going to be to tell me about the food, right? You sell pizza, you sell burgers, you sell sushi, you sell tacos. But I want you to think a little bit more deeply about that. If somebody is hungry, they have plenty of ways to solve that problem. They can simply open their refrigerator. They can make a sandwich. They can stop at the grocery store. They can grab something from a convenience store. So why do they choose to go to a restaurant?
[00:08:05] I think it's because they're buying more than food.
[00:08:08] They're buying an experience.
[00:08:09] And that experience might be completely different depending on the customer and the occasion. The couple celebrating their anniversary is buying an opportunity to spend a special evening together. The parent picking up two kids after soccer practice is buying convenience and maybe 45 minutes when they don't have to cook or clean.
[00:08:28] The office worker grabbing lunch is buying a good meal that fits into a busy schedule. The group of friends meeting at a bar is buying an opportunity to connect.
[00:08:36] The food matters. Of course it does. But the food is only one part of what you're actually selling. See, your restaurant includes the lighting, the music, decor, service, hospitality, location, convenience, menu pricing, and the way a guest feels from the moment they discover you until the moment they leave.
[00:08:57] See, all of that is actually the product you're selling. And here's why this matters. Because when you understand the experience you're selling, you can begin to identify the people who actually want it.
[00:09:10] Which brings us to the second question.
[00:09:12] Who is it for? And again, just like Dave, please don't tell me everybody. I know you want everybody to come to your restaurant, and I know you'll happily accept money from just about anybody who walks through the door.
[00:09:27] But that's not the same thing as saying your restaurant is designed for everybody. It isn't. And that's okay. In fact, that's good news, because the more clearly you understand the people you're actually trying to serve, the better you can design an experience that appeals to them.
[00:09:43] Think about a romantic fine dining restaurant. Now think about a family friendly pizza place with a game room.
[00:09:51] Both might be fantastic businesses, but they're solving different problems for different people at different, different points in their lives.
[00:09:59] And if you try to combine them into one experience without a very clear strategy, you might wind up disappointing. Both audiences say the couple wants a quiet evening, and the family wants a place where the kids can have fun. And that doesn't make either customer wrong. But you need to decide which experience it is you're building. And only after you've answered those first two questions can you intelligently answer the third.
[00:10:27] The third question, of course, said, how can we reach them?
[00:10:30] Because the way you market a restaurant to let's say young professionals in a downtown office district is probably going to be very different from the way you market a restaurant to families in the suburbs. Different people, different needs, different buying decisions, different ways of communicating.
[00:10:47] And see, this is the mistake I want you to stop making. Don't start by choosing a marketing channel.
[00:10:53] Start by choosing the customer. Don't say, oh, we need to get better at TikTok. Say, who are we trying to reach and where are those people paying attention?
[00:11:04] Don't say we should run a discount. Say, what would make our ideal customer more likely to choose us?
[00:11:11] Don't say we need more followers. Say, how can we become more relevant to the people who are most likely to visit our restaurant?
[00:11:19] Again, what is the product? Who is it for? How can we reach them? Those three questions are going to guide everything else we discussed today. And to help you answer them, I want to introduce you to a framework I developed and have used with my restaurant owners for years. It's something I talked about. It's the foundation for the first part of my book, the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. That book came out in 2023. The follow up book, the Restaurant Profit Playbook, comes out in January 2027.
[00:11:50] Let's go back and let's talk about the ABCDs of marketing because it's the foundation of so much of what we're going to do moving forward.
[00:11:59] Okay. All right, so we got four letters. A, B, C, D. A is for audience.
[00:12:05] B is for brand.
[00:12:07] C is for competition.
[00:12:09] D is for differentiation. And we're going to work through them in that order because each answer informs the next one. Let's start at the beginning. A. A is for audience. Let's imagine you own a restaurant that serves burgers, sandwiches, salads, and maybe a few other American classics. You tell me your target audience is people between the ages of 25 and 55.
[00:12:32] Okay, that might be a starting point, but it's not particularly helpful because a 33 year old parent with two young children and a 30 year old single professional might be looking for two very different restaurant experiences. They might even have similar incomes. They might live in the same neighborhood. They might even enjoy the same food.
[00:12:54] But the reasons they choose a restaurant could be completely different.
[00:12:59] So I want you to go deeper. I want you to first think about demographics, right? But I also want you to think about geography. Meaning where do your customers live? Where do they work? How far are they willing to travel? How do they get to you? And then think about their behavior. When do they go out to eat? Who do they dine with what are the other restaurants they go to? What occasions cause them to choose one restaurant over another?
[00:13:24] And then think about psychographics. Think about what they value. What are they looking for emotionally? What makes them feel comfortable? What are they willing to spend more money on? What frustrates them about what some of their existing options might be?
[00:13:39] See, because ultimately we're trying to identify a problem, not even necessarily a dramatic problem. Sometimes the problem is simply, I need a good place to have lunch, but sometimes it's more specific. I need a place where I can take a client and know the service will be excellent. I need a place where I can bring my kids and not feel like I'm bothering the people around me. I need somewhere special to celebrate my wife's birthday. I need a quick, reliable dinner on the way home from work.
[00:14:07] See, those are all opportunities, and your restaurant should be designed to solve one or more of them. Let me give you a personal example. When my son was younger, my wife and I would sometimes find ourselves picking him up after a long workday. We'd be tired, he'd be hungry. And the thought of getting home, cooking dinner, and cleaning up everything afterward just wasn't particularly appealing. There was a restaurant right near his preschool that solved a really important problem for us.
[00:14:33] It wasn't simply that they had food. We had food at home. It was that they provided an experience that fit what we needed at that particular moment. And once you understand that distinction, you'll begin to see marketing totally differently.
[00:14:49] See, you're not trying to convince everybody to buy what you happen to be selling. You're identifying people who have a particular need, and then you're creating an experience that actually meets it.
[00:15:01] Okay, so we're gonna give you homework. Here's your first assignment. I want you to identify three or four types of customers, people who are especially important to your restaurant. I want you to describe them, meaning, what do they want? When do they want it? What matters to them? What are they frustrated by? And what makes your restaurant a particularly good solution?
[00:15:23] If you can't answer even those questions, don't worry about your next Instagram post yet. You've got way more important work to do.
[00:15:31] Great. A is for audience. B is for brand. See, once you know who you're serving, well, then you need to define the experience that you're crafting for them.
[00:15:42] That experience is your brand. And I want to be very clear about something. Your brand is not a logo. Your logo is part of your brand identity, but the brand itself is much bigger. It's the impression that people form through every interaction they have with your restaurant, meaning the website, the signage outside, the way the host answers the phone, the music you choose to play, the menu you serve, the paper it's printed on, the food that you serve, the way the food is presented, the way the server handles a mistake, the way a restaurant makes somebody feel.
[00:16:17] All of that is your brand.
[00:16:21] So when I work with restaurant owners, I want them to think about three things I say. First, the product on offer, meaning what kind of experience are we actually selling? Are we casual? Are we upscale? Are we fast? Are we leisurely? Are we energetic? Are we intimate? Are we family friendly? Are we a destination for celebrations?
[00:16:38] You've got to get specific. The second thing I ask them to think about is the brand image, meaning what emotions do we want people to associate with us? Comfort, excitement, belonging, luxury, fun, trust. All of that matters. And being specific matters. Finally, the third thing I walk my clients through is this idea of audience engagement. This is really crucial. It's nuanced. What kind of relationship do we want to build with our guests? Are we the familiar neighborhood place where everybody knows your name?
[00:17:11] Are we the destination people save for a special occasion? Are we the convenient lunch spot that they rely on three, four, five times a week? See, each of those relationships is different. And once you know which one you're trying to create, then your decisions become much clearer. It becomes a lens that you view everything through.
[00:17:30] Imagine a restaurant that says it wants to be a relaxed neighborhood gathering place, but its website looks like a luxury fashion advertisement. Its menu is written in language that nobody understands. Its servers behave as though they're working in a formal dining room. And its social media account is full of photographs that make the restaurant look empty and intimidating.
[00:17:51] See, in that instance, there's a disconnect. The restaurant is trying to say one thing, yet it's communicating something entirely different.
[00:18:00] That's not simply a branding problem. Ultimately, that becomes an experience problem, an expectation problem, and it leads us to the next letter. So, again, A is for audience. B is for brand. C is for competition. I want you to stop thinking of competition as something inherently negative. See, your competitors can actually teach you an enormous amount.
[00:18:23] First, they help validate that there's actually demand for the particular kind of experience that you're looking to craft.
[00:18:30] Second, they help define the category that you're competing in.
[00:18:34] That category matters. Let's say you own a neighborhood pizza restaurant. Your competition isn't necessarily every restaurant within five miles. You might compete with the other pizza restaurants. When somebody wants pizza but you might compete with other family friendly restaurants when parents are deciding where to take their kids. You might compete with delivery options when somebody doesn't feel like leaving the house. And you might compete with the grocery store when somebody is deciding whether to cook or just order takeout. Different occasions create different competitive sets. So here's what I want you to do. Identify the restaurants and the alternatives that your ideal customers are actually going to. Not just the businesses that look most like yours, but the businesses that your customers might choose instead of yours. And then study them. Visit their restaurants, look at their menus, look at their prices, the websites. Read their reviews. Study their social media.
[00:19:28] What are they doing well? What are the customers praising? What are their customers complaining about?
[00:19:33] What experiences are already well represented in your market?
[00:19:38] And you identify the gaps because you might discover that the opportunity isn't to open another version of what everybody else is already doing. The opportunity might be to serve a particular audience in a way that nobody else has figured out yet. Which brings us to the final letter.
[00:19:54] D is for differentiation. See, this is where the entire exercise comes together. You've identified your audience, right? A is for audience. You've defined your brand. So we figured out who has a problem that you're uniquely qualified to solve. And then the brand is the solution to that problem.
[00:20:11] Next, we dug into the competition. You studied the competition, right? C is for competition. You figure out who else is trying to solve the same problem. Puts you on a short list. You get a category. But now I want you to answer the most important question in the entire exercise, and that is this.
[00:20:28] Why should somebody choose you?
[00:20:31] Guess what? It's not because you have good food. Your competitors have good food. It's not because you have good service. Your competitors are trying to provide good service, too.
[00:20:40] But I want you to think about what it is that your restaurant actually makes it meaningfully different. Right? What is it that makes it meaningfully different than any of the alternatives? And more importantly, why does that difference matter to your ideal customer?
[00:20:57] Here's an easier way to dig into this. It's an exercise I love. I want you to write down 10 stories that only your restaurant can tell. Right? I always say this. What are the stories only you can tell? There should be 50. I just want you to think of 10. And please don't tell me you can't think of any, because maybe there's a story behind you, the owner. Maybe there's a story behind the building. Maybe there's a signature dish that has become part of the neighborhood or become iconic Maybe your chef has a unique background. Maybe your restaurant has a particular tradition. Maybe there's something distinctive about the way you serve a particular item. Maybe you have an extraordinary team member, a legacy team member. Maybe your location creates an experience that no one else can replicate. Maybe a restaurant is built around a belief that hospitality influences everything you do.
[00:21:47] Whatever it is, those stories become the raw material for you differentiating yourself in the market.
[00:21:54] Now, not every unique fact is automatically a compelling reason to visit. You still have to connect it to what your audience values. But when you identify the things that actually make your restaurant distinctive, well, honestly, you stop sounding like everyone else.
[00:22:11] You stop saying, hey, come enjoy great food and great service. And you start telling people something specific, something memorable, something they can repeat to a friend. And here's what I love about this. You don't necessarily need a massive marketing budget to be different. In fact, most of the times, this is totally free. You just need to understand what makes you special and then build your business around it.
[00:22:35] Which actually brings us back to one more letter. Because A, B, C, D ultimately leads to E, and E stands for everything.
[00:22:44] Everything. Every decision you make communicates something to your customers. Your menu communicates something. Your prices communicate something. Your lighting, your uniforms, your website. The way your staff greets a guest communicates something.
[00:23:01] The way you respond when somebody complains.
[00:23:03] Even the condition of the sidewalk outside of your restaurant. And see, this is where I think restaurant marketing gets really interesting, actually, because most people want to talk about the things that happen actually outside the restaurant, right? Like social media and advertising and email and pr.
[00:23:19] But I want you to spend a little bit more time thinking about what happens inside the restaurant.
[00:23:26] Because if you're promising one experience in your marketing and actually delivering something completely different when people arrive, well, you've got a mismatch. That's a problem.
[00:23:36] See, let's imagine you're marketing your restaurant as the perfect place for a romantic evening. Your Instagram page is full of beautiful photographs. Your website is elegant. Your copy talks about intimacy and connection. And then somebody makes a reservation. They arrive and the music is blasting. The lights are bright. The tables are crowded together. The servers are rushing around from table to table, pushing people through the meal.
[00:24:03] The restaurant is full of people watching the game on tv.
[00:24:06] See, nothing is necessarily wrong with having a loud, energetic, boisterous, bright restaurant with people watching the game, but they're not consistent with the experience you actually promised.
[00:24:18] So you've created an expectation that the actual product doesn't fulfill.
[00:24:23] And that disconnect damages trust.
[00:24:26] So now let's flip it around.
[00:24:28] Imagine a neighborhood restaurant, right? Maybe something that looked like Dave's Restaurant. And this neighborhood restaurant promises a fun, relaxed place for families. The website shows families enjoying themselves. The menu is easy to navigate. The staff is welcoming. The kids have something to do. The food arrives at a pace that works for parents with young children. The restaurant delivers exactly what the marketing promised.
[00:24:52] See, now you've got alignment, and that's what we're trying to create.
[00:24:56] So again, there's homework here. I want you to do another exercise. Go outside your restaurant. I want you to literally walk across the street, face away. And now turn around and look at your business as though you've never seen it before.
[00:25:10] What does the exterior actually communicate?
[00:25:13] Now walk toward the front door. What do you notice? Walk inside. What's the first thing you hear?
[00:25:18] What's the first thing you smell? How are you greeted? Sit down at the table, look around. Sit at another table, look around.
[00:25:26] Read the menu, watch the service, pay the bill, and then leave. And ask yourself one question at every stage.
[00:25:34] Does this experience reinforce the brand that we're trying to build?
[00:25:38] Because if it doesn't, you have an opportunity to improve your marketing without buying a single.
[00:25:45] See, this is why I want you to stop thinking about marketing as something that the marketing department does.
[00:25:51] Marketing is something the entire restaurant does, meaning the chef is involved, the host is involved, the servers are involved, the managers are involved, even the dishwasher is involved. Why? Because everyone contributes to the experience.
[00:26:06] And that experience is the foundation of everything that comes next.
[00:26:11] See, because now we're ready to talk about one of the most important frameworks again. I developed it and wrote about it in my book, the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. It's called the triangle principle. Here's how most restaurant owners think about marketing. They want to attract new customers and say. That ends up being the entire conversation. They say, hey, Chip, how do I get more people through the front door? How do I increase reservations? How do I get more orders online?
[00:26:36] And those are perfectly reasonable questions. But see, they're incomplete. Because a successful restaurant marketing strategy needs to accomplish actually three distinct things. See, there's three sides to a triangle. I think there's three sides to marketing your restaurant. Attraction, retention, and evangelism. That is the triangle principle. See, attraction is how you actually bring new customers into the business. It's about customer acquisition. Retention is how you turn those first time customers into repeat customers. And evangelism is how you actually inspire those customers to go tell other people about you. Otherwise known as word of mouth. If we know it's so powerful, then let's build a plan for it. Attraction, retention, and evangelism. See, three very different objectives, three different sets of actions. And here's the most important part. I want you to work through the triangle backward.
[00:27:31] Not attraction first. Evangelism first, Then retention, then attraction.
[00:27:37] Now, why?
[00:27:39] Because if you're not giving people something worth talking about and you're not giving them a reason to return, then attracting more people simply creates more opportunities to disappoint them or to be forgotten. And acquisition or attraction is expensive and difficult and time consuming.
[00:27:58] So we work backwards. We make it a flywheel. So let's start with evangelism. Evangelism is about giving people something to talk about.
[00:28:06] Now, I want you to imagine somebody leaving your restaurant tonight. They've had dinner with their spouse. Let's say they pay the bill. They walk outside, they get into the car. One of them says, that was good. The other one says, yeah, that was nice. And then they drive home.
[00:28:20] Now, imagine a different conversation. They get in the car, and before they've even pulled out of the parking lot, one of them takes out their phone and sends a picture to a friend. You have to see what this place did. Or maybe they call their parents. Oh, my God, we are taking you here next time you visit. Or maybe they get to work the following morning and tell their co workers about an extraordinary moment, just a single moment from the previous night.
[00:28:42] See, that's what I want you to create. A story, something that's actually worth sharing. And are you ready for the uncomfortable part?
[00:28:50] Good food and good service may not be enough.
[00:28:54] They're important, maybe even essential.
[00:28:57] But really, it's table stakes, right? Because if everybody in your competitive set is trying to deliver good food and good service, well, then you need to give people something more specific to talk about. Something above and beyond. So maybe it's an extraordinary presentation. Maybe it's a signature dish. Maybe it's a particular hospitality ritual. Maybe it's the way you celebrate birthdays. Maybe it's the way you welcome first timers. Maybe it's a personal touch that makes someone feel genuinely seen and recognized.
[00:29:27] Now, the point is not to create a gimmick. The point is to create a memorable moment that actually reinforces your brand and gives your guest a story that they can't help but share.
[00:29:39] And here's the deal. You've got to be deliberate about it. These are manufactured. I don't want you to leave the entire thing to chance. I want you to sit down with your team and ask, hey, what do we want people to say about us when they leave?
[00:29:52] What specific moment in the experience, in the experience could inspire that reaction? What would we need to do consistently to make those moments happen?
[00:30:02] Because if you can create something that guests naturally want to photograph, describe, recommend, or bring their friends back to experience, well, then you've created a marketing asset that exists inside your restaurant and it is free. And your guests get to carry that story into places that your advertising will probably never.
[00:30:22] Now, I don't want you to confuse evangelism with begging for a five star review.
[00:30:26] Reviews are useful, recommendations are useful, but the objective is far bigger than that. The objective is to actually create the kind of experience that people are genuinely excited to talk about.
[00:30:40] Think about the Eiffel Tower, right? There's no one who goes to Paris and doesn't take a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Think about the big golf ball at Epcot, down at Disney World. Think about the big green monster at Fenway. Think about the EMP State building. Think about a million things people go, and these, these objects, these landmarks end up helping people evangelize. It's the same thing in your restaurant that is the first side of the triangle.
[00:31:08] Now, retention is about giving them a reason to come back.
[00:31:12] Let's talk about it, because here's what I see all the time. A restaurant owner works incredibly hard to get a new diner through the door. They spend money, they run promotions, they post on social media. They do everything they can to convince someone to give the restaurant a try. And then the customer comes in, they eat, they pay, they leave. And the restaurant has no plan for what happens next. They have no relationship, no follow up, there's no reason to return, no way to stay in touch, nothing. It's as though the entire marketing effort ended the moment the customer paid the check.
[00:31:50] That's exactly when the next phase of marketing should actually begin.
[00:31:54] See, you've already done the hard work of getting them to come try you. Now you need to make the second visit just that much easier. And there's so many ways to do that, right? First, the experience itself obviously needs to be worth repeating. If the food is inconsistent, if the service is unreliable, or the restaurant doesn't deliver on its promise, then I promise you, no loyalty program is going to fix that.
[00:32:19] Second, you need to create opportunities for another visit. Meaning maybe there's a particular night of the week that's worth coming back for. Maybe there's a seasonal menu item, maybe there's an event, maybe there's a new experience. They haven't tried. Maybe there's simply a personal invitation from a server who has connected with them during the meal.
[00:32:39] Third, this is about developing a relationship. And this is where all your guest information can become incredibly valuable.
[00:32:47] If somebody voluntarily gives you their email address or opts in to receive messages from you, you now have a way to communicate with them long after they've left. So you can invite them back. You can tell them about something new, something that's going on, something that's coming. You can remind them of the experience they enjoyed so much. You can give them a reason to think about your restaurant, to stay top of mind when it matters most, when they're deciding where to go out to dinner next. But I want you to remember something. Getting somebody's email address is not the objective. Building a relationship is the objective. The email address is simply a way to continue the conversation.
[00:33:29] And if every message you send is another discount, you're teaching people that the only reason to listen is just to save money.
[00:33:36] Better to communicate value.
[00:33:39] We can communicate value in a bunch of different ways. We can tell stories. We can simply share what's happening at the restaurant, things that we're excited about. We can introduce them to your team. We can give them a reason to feel connected to this business.
[00:33:52] And occasionally, yes, when it makes sense, invite them to take action. Run a promotion from time to time. But see, retention isn't about trapping customers in some complicated loyalty scheme or just bringing them back every time there's a deal.
[00:34:06] It's about making your restaurant the kind of place they want to return to again and again and again.
[00:34:13] And so now, when those two pieces are in place, now we go get more customers. But again, only after we've addressed evangelism and retention. That's the only time we start to focus on attraction. Because once you've got a machine in place that will get them to come back and will get them to rave about you, well, then you've now you've actually got something worth promoting.
[00:34:33] You've identified your audience. You've defined your brand. You've established your differentiation. You've aligned the entire experience. You've created something that people actually want to be a part of, thing that actually want to talk about. And you've built a way to maintain that relationship long after that first visit.
[00:34:51] So now, with all that in place, we're ready to introduce more people to your business.
[00:34:56] And here's why that order matters. Imagine you spend a thousand bucks to attract new customers. If those customers visit once and disappear, well, then you have to keep spending money to replace them because it's all first time diners. But if some of them become regulars and some of those regulars introduce their friends, the value of that initial marketing spend can extend well beyond the first visit. In business, we talk a lot about the cost of acquisition and lifetime value. Cac to ltv what does it cost to acquire a new customer? And what's the lifetime value of a customer? Somebody who comes in once, eats and leaves is a pretty expensive customer. Costs a lot to get them and they don't spend a lot, you know, over their lifetime. But somebody who comes in and comes back and comes back and raves to their friends and brings their parents and all of that, well, that's, that's a customer that is incredibly value valuable to you. And see, that's the relationship between the three sides of the triangle. Attraction introduces people to the business. Retention builds that relationship. And evangelism helps expand your reach. It invites others to do some of the marketing for you. And obviously each side supports the other sides. Now, before we move outside the restaurant and start talking about things like advertising, I want to spend a few minutes on something that makes all three sides of this triangle possible. And that is your team.
[00:36:23] When it comes to your people, I want you to think about your employees as a really key part of your marketing strategy.
[00:36:31] Think about the people who have the most contact with your customers. It's probably not you. It's your servers, your bartenders, your bussers, your managers, right? All of those people are frontline employees. They're the ones actually delivering the experience, right? Answering the phones, making recommendations, recovering guests when something goes wrong. And they're the people who have the opportunity to create those memorable moments we were just talking about. And so here's my question to you. Do they know what kind of experience that you're trying to create?
[00:37:02] Have you clearly articulated your brand to your team? Have you explained who your ideal customers are? Have you told your employees what makes your restaurant different?
[00:37:12] Have you trained them to communicate those things through their actions? Or are you simply hoping they'll figure it out? Because hope is not a training system. So let's say you want to be known as the most welcoming neighborhood restaurant in town. Awesome. But what does that mean?
[00:37:28] What does a host do differently than she did at her last three jobs? What does a server do differently here than they did at the last job? What does your manager do differently? And how do you recognize a regular? How do you welcome a first timer? How do you handle complaints? How do you make Somebody feel. Feel like they belong.
[00:37:46] So you have to turn that idea into specific, actionable behaviors. And then you have to train those behaviors and reinforce them and recognize the employees who execute them consistently. And do it really well. Because if your brand exists only in your head, I promise you it doesn't actually exist in your restaurant. And see, this is where leadership and marketing actually come together. Your employees need to understand what it is you're actually trying to build, and they need to buy in. They need to believe in it, and they need you to provide them with the tools and training to bring it to life.
[00:38:22] You don't need every employee to care about the restaurant in exactly the same way you do. That's not what I'm saying. But you do need a system that helps them understand what success looks like and gives them the ability to deliver it consistently. And see, when that happens, your team becomes one of your greatest marketing assets. Not because they're constantly trying to sell something, but because they're creating the experience that makes guests want to come back and makes them want to go tell their friends and on and on and on.
[00:38:54] Once you get that right, then it's time to move outside the four walls. Because once the experience is all clicking well, then we've got to make sure then the right people know about it.
[00:39:05] I talk about this in the book. We talk about internal marketing and external marketing. Internal marketing typically is a corporate word for the way that you communicate to your gu to your employees. But I think about internal as four walls. Everything in the four walls, down to the experience.
[00:39:20] So now we get to turn to external marketing, right? It's about getting attention. It's about building trust and ultimately inspiring people to take action.
[00:39:28] Right. Again, those are the three things I want you to remember, and that's the sequence. Get attention, build trust, inspire action. And it's important because a lot of restaurant owners just try to jump straight to the third step, right? They post something on Instagram and immediately ask people to make a reservation. They run an advertisement and immediately ask people to place an order. They send an email and immediately ask people to buy something. And yeah, sometimes that works. But you have to understand that not everybody is ready to transact with you the moment they discover you. Think about the restaurants you pass on your way to work. You probably know dozens of them that exist. You've seen their signs. You've probably even looked in their windows. You know who they are, where they are.
[00:40:10] But I'm guessing you've never eaten most of them. Why not? Because awareness isn't the same thing as trust. Knowing that a restaurant exists doesn't necessarily mean you believe it's the right restaurant for you.
[00:40:24] And see, that's the gap that your marketing needs to close.
[00:40:27] So if we start off by getting attention, right, the first job is to make sure that the right people are aware of your restaurant. And notice I said the right people.
[00:40:37] I don't need you to become famous all across the country if you're trying to fill a little neighborhood joint. I need you to become relevant to the people who can actually become your customers. So then let's talk about where those people are looking. Google is the most obvious place to start. If somebody is searching for a restaurant in your area, I want them to be able to find accurate information about your business, meaning your hours, your location, your menu photos, what the reservation options, the ordering options are. And I want the experience they see online to reflect the experience that they're actually going to have when they arrive.
[00:41:13] To that point, your website matters, right? Should be easy to use. It should communicate your brand, and it should make it simple for somebody to take the next step.
[00:41:23] Now, let's talk about social media. I know you guys, how long into this episode we're like, I don't know, 40, 45 minutes in, and now we're finally going to talk about social media. Let's talk about it, because I know how much time restaurant owners spend thinking about Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. But here's my advice.
[00:41:40] Stop thinking about social media as a place where you have to post something every day. Start thinking about it as a way to simply tell your story.
[00:41:49] Remember the differentiation exercise we talked about those 10 stories that only your restaurant can tell? Well, that's your content.
[00:41:57] Show people the experience, meaning introduce your team. Tell them all about your signature dish. Explain why you do things the way you do. Show them what makes your restaurant worth choosing.
[00:42:08] And listen, don't be afraid to repeat the message. You see a restaurant every day, but your customers don't. The story you're tired of telling might be the story that somebody is hearing for the very first time. Here's another thing. You don't have to do it yourself. Your employees are already inside the restaurant. They're seeing interesting things happen every day. They're the ones preparing the food, serving the guests, interacting with the guests. They are not only part of the experience, but in many cases, they are are the experience.
[00:42:38] So give them guidance about the kinds of moments that you want to capture, and then give them a simple way to share that material with Whoever manages your marketing, see, now you've created a content system instead of just another task that lands on the owner's desk at 11 o' clock at night.
[00:42:53] And look, don't overlook your community.
[00:42:55] Local businesses, hotels, offices, apartment buildings, neighborhood organizations, other businesses that serve the same audience.
[00:43:03] See, sometimes the best way to get attention isn't to reach a million strangers. It's simply to build a relationship with the business down the street that's already serving the people that you're looking to attract.
[00:43:14] Next piece of this is about building trust. Because, see, once people know you exist, you need to help them believe that you can actually deliver the experience that they're looking for. And this is where consistency matters, right? Again, your website says one thing, your social media says the same thing. Your reviews reinforce it. The photos reinforce it, the menu reinforces it, your staff reinforces it.
[00:43:38] Everything should point toward the same promise. And I want you to think carefully about that word promise. Because every piece of marketing you create, whether you like it or not, it's making a promise to the customer.
[00:43:52] Maybe the promise is a great place to celebrate. Maybe it's just that it's a fast, reliable lunch. Maybe the promise is that it's a fun night out. Maybe it's an extraordinary top tier dining experience.
[00:44:05] It could be any of those things. But whatever you're promising, the restaurant has to actually deliver on that. And see, when you do that consistently, it's how you build trust.
[00:44:15] Now, online reviews can be particularly useful here because people are often more interested in what other customers say about you than what you say about yourself. So you gotta make it easy for satisfied guests to share their experiences. And you have to respond thoughtfully to feedback every single week. Perhaps most importantly, pay attention to what the reviews are telling you. What do people consistently praise? What do they complain about? What do they say makes your restaurant special? See, all those insights can help you understand whether the experience you're delivering matches the experience that you set out to create in the first place.
[00:44:52] And if there's a disconnect or when you see a gap, you simply fix it. Don't try to improve the marketing, improve the restaurant and see all of that, right? Getting attention, building trust. Then we inspire action, right? This is the final step, and you're finally ready for it. You've gotten somebody's attention, you've given them a reason to trust you. Now simply tell them what to do. Meaning, make a reservation, order online, join us for dinner, book your room, sign up for an event. Whatever the action is, make it absolutely crystal clear and make it frictionless. Make it easy. I want you to think about the last email you received from a business that was trying to sell you something. Maybe it had six different messages, three different offers, four buttons, and a whole bunch of information that you didn't necessarily need.
[00:45:40] What were you supposed to do?
[00:45:42] Probably nothing, because the messaging was confusing.
[00:45:46] So here's a simple principle I want you to apply to your communications. I call it the one to one to one principle. One email, one message, one call to action. Meaning if you're promoting some special event, promote the event. Explain why somebody should care. Give them the details they need, and show them exactly how to book. But don't also ask them to follow you on Instagram or order a gift card or check out your new menu or sign up for your loyalty program.
[00:46:13] Give each individual communication a job. One to one to one. One email, one message, one call to action.
[00:46:20] One post, one message, one call to action. Right? And then you measure whether it did the job. Because marketing isn't just about creating content. It's not just about activity. It's about creating content with a purpose. It's about making something happen.
[00:46:36] The next thing we got to talk about is permission, right? How you build an audience that you can actually reach again and again and again.
[00:46:43] Seth Godin talked about this permission marketing. He coined it, I don't know, 20, 25 years ago now. So I want to spend a little bit more time talking about it, specifically customer info and email, because I think this is one of the biggest missed opportunities for most independent restaurants. Imagine you've got 10,000 Instagram followers. Wonderful. You look cool to your friends. But see, you don't control whether those followers actually see your next post. You don't control the platform. You certainly don't control the algorithm. And if the platform changes tomorrow, your ability to reach those people could change with it.
[00:47:16] Now imagine you've built an email list of people who have voluntarily asked to hear from your restaurant. These are people who have probably visited, people who are interested in your events, people who want to know what's going on. So you've created a direct line of communication, and I can't tell you how valuable that is. I want to be absolutely clear. Permission matters. You don't treat a customer's email address as something you're entitled to simply because they made a reservation. Make it clear what they're signing up for.
[00:47:44] Obviously, give them a reason to subscribe and respect the relationship once they've actually opted in.
[00:47:50] See, maybe you offer early access to special events, or maybe you share behind the scenes stories from the kitchen. Maybe you announce the seasonal menu changes. Maybe you invite your regulars into something special.
[00:48:01] The point is to give people a reason to want to hear from you and then deliver, be consistent over and over and over. Because if the only time you communicate with your customers is when, let's say, sales are down and you're desperate to fill the room, they're going to feel that I want you to build the relationship long before you need to actually ask for something.
[00:48:22] That way, when you have something worth promoting, well, you've already established their trust.
[00:48:29] Next thing I want to talk about is about results, right? Because I want to connect this entire conversation to the thing that ultimately matters. Profitability.
[00:48:39] Because I don't want you doing marketing simply to generate activity. I don't want you celebrating likes while your restaurant loses money. I don't want you running promotions that fill the dining room but destroys your margins. And I don't want you spending thousands of dollars attracting customers who have no interest in the experience you're actually offering.
[00:48:58] Your marketing needs to support the economics of the business. Be very, very clear. The only reason we would bother doing marketing activity is to make something happen. Drive more sales, make more profit. So I want you to make sure that you're measuring the right things.
[00:49:15] How many new customers are you attracting? How many of them are coming back? How frequently are they visiting? How much are they spending on each visit?
[00:49:24] Which marketing efforts are actually producing actual visits, actual orders? And what do those visits contribute after the costs of serving those customers?
[00:49:34] See, let's say you run a promotion that generates an additional 100 covers. Great.
[00:49:38] But were those covers actually incremental? Or did you simply give a discount to people who would have visited anyway?
[00:49:45] Did the promotion fill an otherwise slow period? Did it introduce the restaurant to customers who are now likely to return? Did it generate enough contribution to justify the cost?
[00:49:55] See, those are the questions that I actually want you to ask yourself. Because revenue isn't the same thing as profit.
[00:50:02] Marketing isn't successful simply because it makes the restaurant busier. The goal is to attract the right customers to create an experience they value, to encourage them to return, and obviously to generate profitable sales over time.
[00:50:16] That's why the ABCDs of marketing matter. That's why the experience matters. That's why the triangle principle matters. All of these ideas work together. And if you're trying to improve your restaurant's profitability, your marketing strategy probably needs to be part of that conversation. Not a separate department down the hall, not a collection of random activities But a system that's inside the operation that supports the business.
[00:50:43] All right, so we covered a lot today, and I don't want you to finish this episode feeling inspired and then going back to doing exactly what you were doing before. So I'm going to give you again, more homework. Just a practical assignment.
[00:50:56] I want you to set aside, like an hour this week. Not while you're answering emails, not while you're writing a schedule, not while you're standing in the kitchen doing prep or asking, you know, where the printer paper is. I want you to sit down and actually work on this stuff. I want you to start with the abcds. Write down who your restaurant is for, right? What's the problem you're solving? I want you to define the experience you're trying to create. You're talking about the solution to someone's problem.
[00:51:23] I want you to identify the competitors you have and the alternatives that your customers are considering and choosing when they don't choose you. And then I want you to write down 10 stories that only you can tell.
[00:51:35] And then I want you to walk through the entire guest experience again. Start outside, walk through the front door, sit at a table, sit at another table, Sit at another table. Read the menu, right? Watch service, pay the check, get up and leave. Turn around and look back at your restaurant.
[00:51:50] I want you to ask yourself whether every part of that experience supports the brand that you set out to build.
[00:51:58] Next, draw that triangle on a piece of paper. Label the three sides. Attraction, retention, and evangelism. And remember, you work backwards, so start with evangelism. What are you doing that actually gives guests something to talk about?
[00:52:12] Then retention. What are you actually doing to give first timers a reason to return?
[00:52:18] And then finally, attraction. What are you actually doing to introduce the right people to your restaurant? I want at least one deliberate, specific action for each side of that triangle, right? Something your team can execute, something you can measure.
[00:52:34] Then look at all your external marketing, right? Look over your website, your Google listing, your social media platforms, your email marketing, your advertising, and ask what each channel is actually supposed to accomplish.
[00:52:46] Is it supposed to get attention? Is it supposed to build trust, inspire action? Who's responsible for making sure it happens? And is it actually happening? Because here's where so many marketing plans fall apart. The owner comes up with a great idea, everybody gets excited, and then nobody knows who's supposed to do what.
[00:53:05] So what happens? The idea never actually gets implemented, or it happens once and then disappears. And see, that's not a system, right? I want you to identify the Goal, assign responsibility. Establish the process and measure the result. And listen, don't try to fix everything at once. Identify the biggest opportunity. Start there. Or follow that marketing triangle and work backwards. Right? Maybe your biggest problem is simply that nobody knows you exist. Okay? Maybe it's that people are aware of you, but don't understand why they should choose you. Okay? Maybe it's that your guests visit once and never return. Maybe it's that you're delivering a perfectly good experience, but nothing worth returning to or talking about. Find the constraint, address the constraint and measure the results of your actions. And then you simply move on to the next one. See, that's how you actually build out a marketing strategy in real time. Because most of you are flying planes already in midair. It's not like we can get things perfect and then take off. You are already on your way. That's what it means to be working on a business that is in business, right? But by doing this, that's how you build a business that doesn't depend on the owner constantly coming up with another promotion to fill the room. You become the answer to someone's prayers.
[00:54:23] All right, that brings us to the end. In closing, I want you to build a restaurant that's actually worth marketing. I want you to build a restaurant that's actually worth returning to again and again and again.
[00:54:33] To bring this home, I want you to. I want to bring this back to where we started. Right? Remember. Remember this guy, Dave, this restaurant owner who is posting on Instagram, running Facebook ads, hiring photographers, wondering why he still couldn't get enough customers? See, he thought he needed better marketing, but what he really needed was a better understanding of his business.
[00:54:52] See, he actually needed to know who he was serving. He needed to understand why those people would choose his restaurant over the one down the street. And he needed to make sure that when they finally walked through his front door, that the experience lived up to the promise that brought them there. He needed to invite them back. He needed to give them something worth talking about.
[00:55:10] And see, here's the thing. You cannot market your way out of a restaurant that doesn't know what it wants to be. You can buy attention. You can pay for clicks. Yes, you can convince somebody to come give you a try.
[00:55:24] But you cannot be buy their loyalty.
[00:55:27] You have to earn that. You earn it by knowing who your audience is. You earn it by building a brand that means something to them. By understanding the alternatives they're considering and giving them a compelling reason to choose you.
[00:55:41] You earn it through every detail of the experience because remember, the ABCDs lead to E, and E stands for everything.
[00:55:51] So you earn it by understanding that marketing doesn't end when a customer walks through your front door. That's where some of your most important marketing begins.
[00:55:59] Why? Because you got to give them something worth talking about. And you have to give them a reason to return.
[00:56:05] Then once you do that, you go find more people just like them.
[00:56:10] That's the triangle principle in a nutshell. It's how we build marketing plans within the P3 mastermind. See, when you build your strategy in that order, you stop treating every visit as an isolated transaction, and you start focusing on building relationships, right? You start focusing on how you build reputation.
[00:56:29] You start building a restaurant that people remember. And guess what? A restaurant that people recommend.
[00:56:35] So here's what I want you to do. Before you spend another dollar on advertising, before you hire another influencer, before you sit down to write another Instagram caption, ask yourself, have I built a restaurant that's actually worth marketing? Not a perfect restaurant, there's no such thing. But a restaurant with a clear identity. A restaurant who knows who it's for. A restaurant that makes a promise and actually delivers on that promise over and over consistently. Because when you get those things right, marketing stops being a desperate attempt to convince strangers to give you their money. It becomes something much more powerful. It becomes the process of introducing the right people to an experience you already know they'll love. And that, my friends, is how you actually get more customers, and it's how you actually keep them coming back.
[00:57:25] If any of this has resonated, I hope you put it all into action. If you haven't read it yet, the restaurant marketing mindset is available on Amazon or anywhere you get books. I'm incredibly proud of that, of that book and the content of that book. And if you need help implementing this, if you need help with the tactics, the playbooks, the actionable pieces of marketing your restaurant, that's exactly what we do in the P3 mastermind. Go to RSPro profit.com to learn more about that program. Watch a quick video, grab some time on the calendar, Chat with me or someone from my team. As always, I'm Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. I want to thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time.
