Restaurant Marketing and Advertising

Welcome to Cheftalk Maria.

Yes, I o/o a cafe, and yes, I have acutally heard of social media, and yes, I have been contacted many, many, many times by social media to, uh, "partake".

You'll have to excuse me for bing a crusty old fart, they say the worst cynics are old cops and old priests, I guess old cafe owners rank up there too.  It's just that this is your first post dearie, and you're already flogging your blog (of which the link is broken) and assume that we don't know about f.b. or twit-..

Social media is a business dearie, and it needs advertisers to stay afloat, this is why I have been contacted countless times.  I've had many a customer thrilled with my food and service all gung-ho and write some wonderfull reivews on social media, only to be heartbroken to find that said reviews were taken down almost immediatly.  Why?  Becasue I don't advertise with said website.

Social media....wunnerfull stuff, if only it could get butts into seats...................... 

Moving this to General Cooking forum....

Uh-huh...

Second "cook at home" to tell us how wunnerfull twitter/f.b is for businesses.

lol.

I could see twitter being a good way to keep regular's informed. Generally don't see social media being a super effective way of getting customers.

Grabbed a buritto from a local place tonight, and they were advertising this service where your smartphone would track your visits, and you'd get a freebie for every x visit. It's some 3rd party vendor.

I've got no clue about the facebook. Something like blogspot might be a better platform.

This is a must read

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

A-yup, it's called "group coupons", the anti-christ of all businesses.

Here's the way it works:

A third party has it's "subscribers" or clients who are attracted to this 3rd party, usually via smartphone, because this 3rd party, a Group Coupon Co. ( gc for short) offers tremendous discounts, usually in the range of 40-50%.

Now of course the gc isn't giving this 50% off out of their own pocket, they need a sucker for this. 

Enter the business/merchant..

The business/merchant is conned into believing  that it should give the gc the right to give away 50% discount of their product, PLUS, an additional 25% of the initial product/service cost to the gc.  The clients/subscriers  then pay the the gc the remaining 50 % via paypal or visa, and the gc informs the business/merchant  of to the customer, and can pay the merchant as late as 3 mths after the product/service was consumed.  The  business/merchant has to honour this purchase, which can be as late as 12 mths after the initial purchase date.

The gc's  claim that it is "advertising", "marketing", and "brings customers to your door".  Yes it does bring customers to your door, but at a 75% loss, it is impossible to make any money, matter of fact it's impossible not to loose any money. Besides, the customers are only there for the discount, won't buy anything else, are reluctant to tip or pay obligatory taxes, and take up a lot of your time with reservations and cancellations.  Return customers (that come back and pay full price) of gc's are typically less than 5%

Sh*tty way of marketing.  If you recieve flowers, who do you remember?  The name on the card?  Or the florist who sourced the flowers, put togther the bouquet, and delivered it? 

See, the gc's need the small businesses a lot more than the small businesses need them, as they have no way of offering thier own product/service.

It might work for retailers selling off last year's clothing, or selling milk with 2 days before the expiry date, but restaurants sell a made-to order product and a made-to order service.  2 +2 does not = 5, and it does not make financial or practical sense to use a gc to promote your business.

Basically, it's a con-game

Anyone who argues that 2+2 =5 will never win, and will look very stupid in the process. 

Anyone want to argue that gc's are good for business? 

Nah, it's not group on, at least I don't think so. It's a location tracker thing. So if the system logs tracks you down to Burrito Casa 10 times, you'll get a text saying you've won a free burrito or something.

I'll go there for lunch and write down the name.

Groupon works better for service based businesses, I think.

Just since I kind of find Facebook and Twitter to be a silly way to advertise... I had a radio ad sales guy come in today.  He was "willing" to sell gift certificates for me online, on his own website (which would save me money because I wouldn't have to start my own website - which I never planned on anyway).  The great deal was, he would sell 100 dollar certificates for half price ($50), and then he would give me half of that 50, and keep the other half for himself, for getting to use his website.  So essentially I would be giving 100 dollars worth of food away for 25 dollars.

As you can probably tell I definitely went with that deal.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by thetincook 

Nah, it's not group on, at least I don't think so. It's a location tracker thing. So if the system logs tracks you down to Burrito Casa 10 times, you'll get a text saying you've won a free burrito or something.

 

I'll go there for lunch and write down the name.

 

 

Groupon works better for service based businesses, I think.

It was something called foursquare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foursquare_%28website%29

Quote:

Originally Posted by thetincook 

lol.

 

I could see twitter being a good way to keep regular's informed. Generally don't see social media being a super effective way of getting customers.

 

Grabbed a buritto from a local place tonight, and they were advertising this service where your smartphone would track your visits, and you'd get a freebie for every x visit. It's some 3rd party vendor.

 

I've got no clue about the facebook. Something like blogspot might be a better platform.

 

 

This is a must read

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

Also this: http://neversaidaboutrestaurantwebsites.tumblr.com/