How To
How To: Marketing
The Marketing Mix-Up Marketing is for strangers, not regulars
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By Erik Shellenberger
Pro Tip Social media only accounts for about 4% of what drives new customers into a particular restaurant or bar.
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Bar Business Magazine
We have all traditionally relied on word of mouth spreading the news of a new restaurant opening as our only tactic. Word of mouth is extremely powerful to drive business, no question. As a marketing guy, I don’t have the power to influence word of mouth, but I do have other options at my disposal that are very rarely used. New customers find new bars or restaurants overwhelmingly from two sources—searching online reviews and search engines, which are second only to the power of word of mouth. In my research, social media only accounts for about 4% of what drives new customers into a particular restaurant or bar. (If they haven’t yet heard of you, how would they ever see your social media posts?) Yet social media is considered the most important tool at our disposal for driving business despite it’s main purpose being brand awareness and brand exposure for a business that the
users have already heard of. I know you may be silently yelling, “Yes, but what about paid, targeted Facebook/Instagram ads?” Paid ads are different and do reach this audience if done correctly, which is a topic for another time. Respond Without Emotion and Set the Record Straight. By responding to online reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, Facebook, and Google, we are able to tap into a new customer base that may or may not be familiar with your restaurant and are looking for a “right-here-right-now” purchase decision to be made. Without responding to these reviews—both good and bad—there’s no voice on the restaurants’ end, which is a big missed opportunity. Don’t allow a one-way conversation to happen about your establishment. Responding to reviews can help you with very simple misconceptions. Take,
March 2018 barbizmag.com
All Photos: Shutterstock/ SvetaZi.
hese days, when people think of bar and restaurant marketing techniques, the first things that come to mind are social media, email blasts, database collection, and every other method that relates to marketing to a customer who’s already heard of you. Very little effort, if any, is put into reaching out to new potential customers that have never heard of you before, which is pretty insane to me.