Marketing your Restaurant to Students

Updated October 30th, 2013

Close to 20 million students are enrolled in European universities. A significant market with new opportunities every semester!

College Students are part of the sought after demographic of 18-30 year olds. Marketing to college students is no easy task and creates many challenges in order to influence this market. The reasons behind this are simple. They are in the mist of their development years where they can often be skeptical and wary, but on the other hand can be very easily influenced. They tend to be transient, strapped for cash, and critical thinkers. However, on the plus side, college students can not only be a marketer’s nightmare, but also a marketer’s dream. Remember, the student community are exceptional at communication and word-of-mouth. This is due to the fact that they see each other often and always require a topic to talk about.

If your food establishment is located within a close proximity to a university, consider implementing the following ideas to attract students:

1. Use social media for promoting your venue. This might sound easy but you hardly find restaurants that are really using the full potential of social media. What used to be word-of-mouth marketing is now possible through social networks. Create positive viral content that motivates your fans to forward to others. If you are well prepared, you can create a very cheap and reliable communication channel that no offline or online media can beat!
2. Work with pictures and videos to let your target market consume content easier. In today’s society, visual content can be created by anyone and today’s students were raised with monitors where the volume of pictures or videos has never been greater.
3. To be effective in driving traffic to your restaurant, be sure to use discounts for students or give them a free incentive as to why they should come and visit your restaurant. Create a viral sharing opportunity and post photos of happy customers at your restaurant. Students love to tag themselves in online pictures, allowing it to be spread further to their Facebook friends.
4. Make sure you are high-tech updated. A solid and good wifi installation for free is almost a must in order to conquer the student market. I even advised one student restaurant to add a professional printer as there is always something to print and students simply do not have the time to have to make another move and get it done somewhere else. There is no aim to become a student business center, just a friendly service that students will talk about ;-)
5. Consider sponsoring student events, their favorite school sports team or their graduation party (If it all makes financial sense to you of course). Students are not welcomed in all establishments because of their age, maybe lack of disposable income, loud, etc....but there are always establishments that behave differently and really make their living from exactly these clients. But as with families, do not expect to be attracting too many other target markets EXCEPT if these students consist of popular people!
6. Be logic in your restaurant concept and the services going with it. Students always try to beat the system, any system! All you can eat concepts are not the wisest strategy nor over-complicated menus. Students like to get a good deal, love loyalty programs and if you listen to their opinion, just to show that you are interested in it, you win fans. Students tend to lack respect as they are studying and then have to work for it.

While all the points above seem pretty easy to be fulfilled, remember that as easy as it seems to become a popular destination for students, it is even easier to mess it up! Students love to talk, gossip, pretend to know better and all of that can go the wrong direction. So be sure to plan your moves well, as you have maybe thousands of knowledge hungry creatures, competing for a position in society and will do anything to make themselves look better first and then you.

Written by Daniel Grossmann

How to bring Families to your Restaurant

Updated October 28th, 2013

Obviously families are a complex target market as various tastes and preferences need to be satisfied. Therefore restaurants aim at satisfying parents and children at the same time while such family friendly concepts are very difficult to sell to other target markets.

One of the most interesting group projects during my education at the Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne was to evaluate how to promote restaurants to accept families in the Lausanne area. We developed a lot of excitement for this project until the tough facts brought us back to reality. As harsh as it may sound here are some facts:

1. Family restaurants are ONLY interesting for families...nobody else wants to be there because of the resulting chaotic noise or mess. It is a good hearted idea and for sure, as an owner, makes you feel good to do something for families, but just do not expect that others will share this view by visiting your family friendly restaurant.
2. It is not an easy undertaking as the entire concept needs to be safe for children and you can go very far in order to ensure that your restaurant is safe in all aspects for families.
3. Family restaurants require much more space. From parking lots, entrance doors, tables, around table space, playground and for sure other details I am not thinking about now, all requires more space and needs to be maintained as such.
4. The simplicity of what kids actually want for food does not require amazing chefs but trends indicate that parents will ask for more and more health conscious dishes for their kids and at the same time themselves. Obviously, you will never get kids to go for nouvelle cuisine but kids have adapted to Sushi and will always like Italian. How the tasty and healthy Italian food is prepared, is up to the Chef.

But now to the good side of family friendly restaurants:

1. Families love to eat out, and they typically account for about 56% of food service sales. So the market is HUGE with little competition. Today it is a market worth more than 100 billion Euros yearly.
2. During our analysis, we came up with the final ratio that a well located family restaurant is needed for every 30’000 citizens.
3. While at first, pleasing the parents may seem more important, in fact kids’ opinions have a strong influence on their parents’ decision-making. According to a recent study, more than 75% of parents consider their children’s preference as an important factor when selecting a restaurant. This is why McDonalds has such a success among families. At a very young age, kids are able to remember their experience of McDonalds and therefore seek to visit it more often.

Creating an Atmosphere for Families is really dependent on details. Nothing is too childish, too colourful and looks for creativity, fantasy, fun and out of the box that you could never afford doing in a normal restaurant (most likely). There are two ways to do this:

1. Create a kid-focused atmosphere. You can provide entertainment and designs that are geared towards attracting kids. This could include providing an arcade, games and prizes, as well as decorating with bright colours and pictures. Other forms of entertainment you can provide include: aquariums, outdoor recreation and play rooms.
2. Make the adults comfortable. If you do not want to go to the extreme and create a kid-focused concept, you can still do everything in your power to make parents feel comfortable with bringing their kids to your restaurant. You can try the following:
   
   
   1. Train your servers to be polite and patient with children.
   2. Make sure changing stations, high chairs, sippy cups and bibs are readily available.
   3. Provide children with toys, crayons and paper at the table, but only after asking permission from the parents.
   4. Give families an oversized table to allow them enough room to spread out. For example, if a family of four comes in, seat them at the table for six.

Kids’ Cuisine

Culinary wise, family restaurants are still not difficult to create. Red remains the favorite nutritional colour and tomato sauce is still the hit among kids. They also like to eat with their hands so French fries, burgers, nuggets, or many other things handy are great to satisfy kids.

Major issues with kids menus is not necessarily what is being cooked but the portions served. Obesity is becoming a problem everywhere but we also tend to over serve all day long. It is cheaper for you as a business to offer more adequate quantities and provides a great tool to adapt accordingly the pricing for your clients.

Many kids like to have their own menu and order food on their own. Almost 90% of full service restaurants and 75% of limited-service restaurants choose to develop a separate menu for young children. Any restaurant that hopes to attract families should create a kids’ menu.

Extras and Promotions

The classic example of a kids’ restaurant promotion would be Pizza Hut’s “Book It” reading incentive program. Kids like it because they get a free Personal Pan Pizza®. Parents like it because it encourages kids to read. And Pizza Hut likes it because it attracts business; when kids redeem their free personal pizza, the parents often buy a pizza, too.

Good examples of extras and promotions for kids include the following:

1. Learn from the biggest (like McDonalds) and include simple toys with the food. It is best to include toys that are available in series so that the kid wants to come back to finish the series.
2. On a slow day create a “kids eat free” day. Either they have separate dishes or you create a real atmosphere like a spaghetti party where you offer all you can eat pasta with 4 different sauces.
3. Buffet-style dining for kids where they will feel like they can pick and choose whatever they want, but are unlikely to eat as much as adults.

Find the right balance between your business, parents and children’s expectations and make sure your restaurant is located on a good and accessible spot. These are the basics to be successful with a family restaurant. If this is too much and you would like to have only weekends or a special day for families, this may be a way to see if the market is looking for it.

Written by Daniel Grossmann

How to Market your Restaurant to Senior Citizens

Updated October 25th, 2013

Marketing to senior citizens makes good business sense. Learn a few tips for effectively marketing to senior citizens in your restaurant.

Many restaurants focus their marketing efforts on young people. College-aged adults love happy hour, and young families can bring in decent margins. However it is important to not pass up on the chance to effectively market to an often neglected category of diners that can bring in large revenue gains...senior citizens!

In the next 20 years, the population is expected to grow by 60 million people. Economists suggest that half of that growth will include people over the age of 65. With the baby boomer population aging each year, it's time to consider how to market to a growing number of people who are older, wiser and retired.

Retirees have money. Younger generations will most likely not have the luck of such solid pension funds as this generation. They are financially very stable and on top of it do not have so many options of spending it. Some of their main activities count as eating out, traveling and socializing. They are smarter, more reasonable and do not have to prove anything to anyone. But F&B is a human natural must and they cherish this too.

For seniors, restaurants are not only catering but also socializing opportunities. So cater to their needs by offering them respect, good food, and a comfortable place to gather.

Marketing to this demographic is not as easy as they are used to traditional marketing channels like TV, newspapers, magazines and other offline media tools. But recent statistics show that Facebook growth is led my females between 50 and 55. This trend will go on but considering realistic tools, try out local newspapers and keep an eye on online portals and servers that will take over a significant part of the online traffic. A secret project is for example xy50plus.com and many others like this will come up in the years to come!

Here are some tools that your seniors will like:

1. Offer a Senior Discount - Many establishments offer discounts to senior citizens because it’s proven to work. According to a recent study by the National Restaurant Association in the USA, about two thirds of adults aged 55 and older said that they would take advantage of a senior citizen discount if it were offered.
2. Promote Early Bird Specials - Offer a discount to diners during the early evening. Some restaurateurs discount up to 50% off before 6pm. Not only will this appeal to thrifty retirees, but also to frugal families and young couples.
3. Watch out for your portion sizes - portion size is not the determining factor for this market when it comes to getting a good deal. In fact, the same National Restaurant Association suggests that only one third of people over the age of 65 thought larger portions meant a better deal.

Senior citizens are often neglected by other generations, businesses and even politics. They are the wisest in our society, have the longest experience in so many ways, will soon represent the biggest community on the planet and on top of it have saved up money they have to spend. We will soon wake up and see how significant this market actually is!

Written by Daniel Grossmann

How to market your Restaurant to the Millennial Generation

Updated October 23rd, 2013

The Millennial generation is the largest generation seen since the baby boomers, and they represent a great spending power. What makes them different?

Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are loosely defined as anyone born between 1977 and 1992 (Source). It is an extremely diverse group and is made up of between 50 and 90 million individuals. No matter how you slice it, it is a group with enormous buying power that restaurants would be wise not to ignore.

Although Millennials have been hit hardest by the economic recession, with a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the population, they are also the generation that eats out the most and spends the most in restaurants in terms of volume of sales. Singles, DINKS (Double Income No Kids), career driven, lack of time, travel enthusiasts, showing off success, etc., are all reasons for them to prefer to go out often for meals.

So, how do you get these regular spenders to visit your restaurant more often? Here are some ideas:

1. The Millennial generation is increasingly globally minded. They are interested in trying new, exciting and ethnic foods and view dining out as an opportunity to try something different.
2. For Millennials, eating out isn’t just about eating. It is a time to socialize, eat good food, be seen eating and talk about eating. Restaurants should take the social aspect of dining into consideration, and make it easy for large groups to be accommodated. Smart restaurant managers should also strive to create an atmosphere and environment in which guests feel comfortable staying for longer periods of time.
3. They adopt new technologies quickly. More than a third of Millennials report looking at restaurant menus via a smartphone “often” or “very often”. It is very important to maintain your restaurant’s online presence and ensure that your website is mobile friendly. Millennials report that they check-in to a restaurant via an app. If you want to reach the Millennial generation, use social media marketing and incorporate new technological inventions into your concept.
4. They like snacks. Well, everyone likes snacks. Millennials, however, report patronizing restaurants during off-peak hours much more frequently than other generations. Restaurants that offer special deals during off-peak hours or happy hour snack specials are likely to appeal to the Millennial generation.

Take these Millennial traits seriously as they have a major impact on your long-term success and sustainability! They are the latest trend setters and will be on the market for a while to come ;-)

Written by Daniel Grossmann

Target Marketing in Restaurants

Updated October 21st, 2013

Different consumers have different tastes, and marketing to everyone is impossible unless you market water or you have an unlimited budget which also does not makes sense. Learn how to best develop your marketing strategies to target a specific segment of the population.

Target Marketing is a marketing strategy that should attract the customers that you want in your restaurant, whatever your reasons are. As opposed to mass marketing, which aims its advertising and promotions to a general majority of consumers, target marketing focuses on attracting a specific type of customer.

Market Segmentation

You probably already know what kinds of customers you want in your restaurant, but it is important to tailor your promotions to these specific consumer groups. Different market segments – or groups of customers with similar characteristics and needs – will respond to different types of marketing strategies, so you should make sure to gear your promotional techniques toward the segments you want.

It is very common to target customers based on their age or income. This allows businesses to adjust the pricing of menu items according to their customers’ disposable income levels. However, you may also choose to develop promotional strategies that target one or more of the following segments:

Teens, students, young adults, generation X, generation Y, families, seniors citizens, DINKS (Double Income No Kids), Tourists, Vegetarians, Eco-conscious people, Business people, Sports fans, Gay community, after-work crowd, happy hour crowd, etc.

Targeting your marketing allows you to select the appropriate communication channels to distribute your marketing content, which again should result in a controllable or measurable ROI. This will allow you to determine whether your marketing is successful or needs to be improved.

Here are some common issues that restaurants come to realize. Ignoring them does not help at all. Accept and correct if possible and if needed, even consider radical changes instead of continuing an obvious mistake. But before I list some general mistakes here is an important note:

Targeted Marketing includes Marketing and not just waiting for sales to happen. During my consulting career, I saw too often small restaurants and even magnificent hotel restaurant concepts do no marketing or wrongly targeted marketing activities, leading to bad results and finally spend a fortune on changing the restaurant concept instead of fixing their marketing issues. There is fierce competition out there and with social media, online or offline advertising, you simply cannot expect to be competitive with letting bricks and mortar speak. (I think this is worth another article ;-))

But here, as mentioned, are some general findings when marketing is targeted and ROI is measurable:

1. Wrong Location - Perhaps you are not in the right location to attract the kind of customers you want. Always remain up-to-date with the demographics. Attitudes and trends in your area can change, and your restaurant needs to change with them or move to another place.
2. Wrong Concept - While customers like variety, it is important to consider from a business perspective the nearby competition. It is possible that your concept is failing to attract the customers you want or they are looking for another concept.
3. Attracting the wrong customers - While most restaurants are happy to see any customers, we are talking here about the quality of your marketing activities. If you target a specific audience and this audience is not coming, you are spending money for nothing. However, if the marketing campaigns are attracting another type of customer, then it is up to you if it is accidentally a positive outcome of a bad campaign or a strategic mistake having targeted the wrong customers with a specific concept.
4. Wrong promotion- make sure that you are using the right promotions for your target market and never hesitate to consult with professionals regarding this matter, as mistakes get very expensive with possible long term effects.
5. Ignore additional segments - Targeted Marketing is not about deciding for one target market and blindly just chasing that one. You may have a venue that is popular for business people at lunch time, families come in the afternoon, popular singles hang out and dining place in the evening and after 22:00 it changes into a dance club. I know this example may be a little exaggerated but I hope you got the point.
6. Avoid customers that clash - simply said you will never put business people and families into the same venue at the same time.

If you have the right location and concept, and you choose a good target market and the best promotional techniques for that segment, your restaurant will be far more likely to succeed. When accompanied with proper restaurant management and operation, a good target marketing strategy will make a considerable difference in your profits.

Written by Daniel Grossmann

Restaurant Marketing – Demographics & Psychographics

Updated October 18th 2013

The people who live and work around your restaurant are likely to share certain characteristics. By analyzing their age, income level, size of household and other factors that may influence purchasing decisions, you can decide the best way to market yourself to them. These factors are all demographic or psychographic elements.

Demographics and psychographics provide measurable characteristics to your target marketing strategies. What used to be “people”, “citizens” or “tourists” is today being analyzed into more details so you can adapt your product, marketing and pricing to the market(s) you are targeting.

You can find demographic information online, at your local library, chamber of commerce or city offices. Sometimes, it is easiest to call the local government and ask if demographics for your city are available on the internet. Make sure you find the most up-to-date information available.

When you analyze your area’s demographics, pay special attention to the following factors.

• Age
• Income levels
• Education and job types
• Marital status
• Size of household
• Housing and rental prices
• Local businesses

Analyzing these factors will tell you a lot about the spending and eating habits of people who live in your trade area. For example, single young adults with middle to high income levels will typically dine out more often than those who are married with children.

Psychographics

One of the main purposes of demographics is to develop an idea of an area’s psychographics – the behaviour, values, opinions, cultures, interests and lifestyles of a demographic group. To learn about psycho-graphics, it may be worthwhile to go to a market research company to find out about the purchasing habits of people who live in your trading area. But as usual, always try to search yourself through the web. Be sure to google all related keywords you come across and you will also have a better understanding on how to approach or what to ask a research company. A marketing company collects data from credit cards, polls and censuses to analyze different segments of the population. You could also purchase this information from a credit card company. But it will be much more efficient and cheaper to know exactly what you are looking for.

If the above options are too expensive, consider doing field research. Go to all the nearby markets, shops, bars, restaurants, cafés and clubs and try to mingle in order to learn about the people in your targeted segments. You can learn a lot about consumers’ product needs simply by being around them, watching and interacting. The smaller your business area, the easier to do. It will of course be nearly impossible to field research New York but again this issue indicates that you need to be more specific about your quest.

Here are some general psychographic statistics on dining out that I found on the web: my comments are in blue.

1. 18 to 24-year-olds eat out and drink alcohol outside the home more often than other age groups.  So promote alcohol consumption related special events by considering other topics that are interesting to this age group such as music style, celebrities or other aspects that are trendy to 18-24 year olds.
2. Generation Y – those born since 1978 – tend to eat more often at quick-service and pizza restaurants.  These are usually those families that have many mouths to feed and therefore aim at such restaurants as everyone in the family needs to be happy. And kids eating foie gras, mussels or showing excitement about Ossobuco is not necessarily common ;-)
3. Generation X – those born between 1965 and 1977 – tend to prefer quick-service or casual establishments with comfort and a good perceived value.  I am in this category and agree completely. I love insider tips where I do not have to pretend or adapt my voice levels so that I don’t feel like I am interrupting others, and enjoy an overall entertaining experience with a good meal. Too much presentation turns me off as I am not visiting a gallery and do not believe that quick-service or casual restaurants cannot cook extraordinary without Michelin ambitions.
4. Smaller households eat out more often than bigger households.  Might sound logic to you and actually seems logic but assuming both households had the same disposable income per person, would this comment still be true? Or is it true and the restaurant facilities are usually just not equipped or provide the right services for bigger households? Questions arise very easily when you want to understand your market and dig deeper into it. Just do not dig too far ;-)
5. Singles and DINKS (Double Income No Kids) eat out more and spend more when they eat out. They typically spend 65% more on dining out than couples living with children.  If this is your market then it may be good to only buy tables for 2 that may be put together and be located in the city center.
6. Singles and DINKS are generally more concerned about the quality of food and the elegance of the atmosphere than the price.  Please understand this right. This category may still prefer quick-service or pizzeria venues but in case they opt for quality of food and elegance, price is not important.
7. People with more income tend to eat out more frequently.  Again a pretty logic statement. Even the success of private chefs or private caterings is not changing it.
8. People who work long hours eat out more than people who have enough free time to cook their own meals.  Maybe special late night offers could be a good thing to promote?
9. Working wives tend to prefer eating out more than housewives.  Here I wonder what their families or partners do and is this statement maybe including lunch? If yes then this is logic as well, but makes me think that I should maybe have a more female offer for lunch which includes more healthy foods, salads, soups, etc.
10. Traditionally, the older people get, the less frequently they eat out.  However, this may change soon, since many baby boomers grew up eating out more often.
11. Seniors tend to eat early and slowly, and they look for good values with small portions.  Remember not everything is so easy to do when you get older, eating is part of it. Not spicy, not chewy, etc.
12. Wealthy, well-traveled consumers, particularly the wealthier baby boomers and the next generation, are more likely to look for ethnic or exotic food when they eat out.  This explains why trend concepts attract a special type of clientele that maybe cannot be explained by traditional demographics or psychographics.

Targeted Marketing is generally much more successful after your homework on demographics and psychographics has been done. In any case and any minutes spent on this research will allow you to apply the right strategy on where to search, how to reach and what to tell your target market in order to consider your business next.

Written by Daniel Grossmann

Top 10 Tips for Marketing a Restaurant to Generation Y

Updated October 16th 2013

Discover tips on how to market to the generation that eats and drinks outside of the home more often than any other age group.

People who are born between 1978 and 2000 are popularly called “Generation Y.” These young people eat out and drink alcohol outside the home more often than any other age groups. In particular, young adults tend to enjoy quick-service or casual full-service restaurants.  So if you are running a quick-service restaurant or have a trendy, fun concept, you should make sure you take this demographic into account.

1. Consult a young person. The best way to determine if your marketing, design and operational strategies appeal to young people is simply to ask teenagers or young adults what they think. Ask for specific suggestions on what is going well and what could be improved. Apply this to offline and especially online ideas.
2. Try email and text message marketing. Young people are communicating with each other digitally and increasingly via mobile. Implement a direct email and text message marketing campaign. Just be careful not to annoy your young customers.
3. Maintain a website. Any restaurant that hopes to attract young people should have a website. Generation Y is also known as the “Net Generation” because young people grew up with the web and are more internet savvy than previous generations.
4. Focus on value. You do not want to be perceived as cheap, but your menu items need to be a good value. Teenagers and young adults are not necessarily penny-pinchers, but because they generally have limited disposable income, they want to feel that what they buy is really worth the price. Their ability to access any kind of information or data online, makes them expert researchers and communicators. Whatever displeases them has the potential to reach millions online.
5. Avoid exaggerated sales talk or slogans. Young people today are very independent, know how to access or find information and they do not want to feel pressured. Present your marketing messages in an educational or entertaining form, rather than as a traditional sales blah-blah. Be as honest as possible. If young people suspect that you are exaggerating or over-promising, your advertising will have the opposite of the desired effect.
6. Implement viral marketing. Enlist a few students or young adults with lots of friends and social networking potential to be part of your marketing team and spread the word about your restaurant. Think about what message would be forwarded to a colleague, friend or family member. You can also consider Email campaigns but for this use professional tools like Mailchimp, CREDEMA or Infusionsoft.
7. Hold events at your restaurant. By hosting concerts, sports events, karaoke or other events, you can attract students and teens and give them a good reason to keep coming back. The more events you host, the more likely your restaurant will become a “hotspot” for dining out or a social hub to meet up, even on nights without events.
8. Do not overdo your cool messages. Generation Y want to be taken seriously and also treated as such. Whatever you find on MTV is not necessarily the same content they want to come across when they have to decide where they should spend their money. You are not YMCA nor some youth club. Remain real and low-key and you will be doing good. Even this generation likes to have their own insider hotspots but did not support chain concepts like HardRock Cafe or other Franchise concepts that used to be cool in the past. Let your restaurant speak for itself.
9. Get onto social networking sites. If your restaurant has its own Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter account, use it to inform customers of new promotions, special events and any changes in your menu selection or services. If you decide to opt for any of those, make sure you maintain it well and update it regularly with information. Find out what the posting times are, use a lot of pictures and videos and use related social networking sites that are specialized in applied content formats.
10. Choose your music carefully. That means Generation Y is more easily annoyed or offended by music they dislike. If you hope to attract a broad range of visitors it is best to choose music that is neither too radical nor too conservative. Avoid music that tends to polarize people. It is generally safe to stick with alternative, classic rock, pop or background lounge music. On the other hand, if you have a specific target group in mind, choose music that matches their demographic.

Generation Y are the future high rollers with Internet proficiency. Make sure you are well represented online, be visible, be recommended, don’t be aggressive but speak through your offering and venue.

Written by Daniel Grossmann