Secret Sauce - The Restaurant Marketing Podcast

This episode has an example of a great Restaurant Marketing campaign from the talented marketing team at Dinner by Heston.  We break down the process that they used and more importantly the way that you can replicate their success.  Check out the show notes which have a lot more detail on the episode and the example of the marketing campaign. We break down the new Lamington Cake marketing campaign, looking at the steps they took in this great marketing campaign and how you can do this in your Restaurant. Disclaimer - these guys aren't customers of ours, we are just fans of their food, their team, their Restaurant USP and their marketing!   For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page. For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with ou

This is the 3rd in our SEO series for Restaurant Websites.  If you missed the first one, have a listen to it first, as this podcast builds on the first and second episodes in the Restaurant SEO series. Check out the Show Notes for this podcast.  This Restaurant SEO Series is designed to help you do your own SEO or at least work out if the marketing company you are dealing with knows anything about Restaurant SEO.  If your looking for help, you can always talk to the Restaurant Marketing Experts! :)  We would love to hear from you!   For more information on this podcast, check out our show notes. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in iTunes.  It really helps us to get the word out and share it on our Facebook page. For Free Tools  to build your Restaurant business, check out our free tools page.  We've helped restaurants around the world build the Restaurant that they always wanted with our tools.  Our free booking tool has taken over $25,000,000 in seats booked.

Check out last weeks episode and our Google Analytics podcast to help you get the basics for Restaurant SEO. We continue on with some of the tricks that SEO companies use, like monthly SEO contracts.  The main thing that a lot of Restaurant Marketing companies do is send through reports, especially SEO reports, many of which are automatically generated. What platform is best for your website SEO? We discuss some of the tools that you can use to make the SEO better.  Remember, we are now talking about technical SEO, not the business SEO.  Wordpress tends to be a lot better for SEO because of some of the tools that are available.  A great example if Yoast SEO, which is pretty much the industry standard for SEO tools in Wordpress.  The more often you create content, the more you need to think about SEO tools. Make sure your Website is secure. Google has made a commitment to try and make sure the internet is safer for people using the internet.  One of the ways that businesses can make the web more secure is to

We talk about why it is super important for all Restaurant owners to take a holiday and some of the tips that we used to take our big Christmas holidays. We talk about the differences between business and technical SEO.  We discuss the technical SEO tips that you need to be thinking about for Search Engine Optimisation for your Restaurant Website.   The first tip is to review any contracts you have for SEO.  A lot of people spend a lot of money on SEO without any real results from their efforts.   We discuss the data that we are seeing for Restaurant websites and we discuss the Return on Investment for individual pages.  We like to focus on the individual ROI for each page on your website.  The ROI can be very high for niches that you are ranking for.  The SEO is all about getting those customers in for the first time.  There are other techniques to get them to come back. We discuss a multi niche strategy which can really help you increase the number of visitors to your website.  We discuss the average numbe

How did you go with the Restaurant Trends podcasts, looking at the trends that we see as being important in 2019? We look at the Restaurant Customer Loyalty Graph in this podcast and how you can drive customers to the right, increasing the value of your average customer in the process. We are now presenting a new view so that customers can see how customer loyalty is evolving over time to have a time based view of customer loyalty.  This is built into FROLO and FORBS, providing a great way for you to see how your customers are becoming repeat customers. Repeat restaurant customers are really important because it increases the average Long Term Customer Value for your Restaurant. Our demo of the Restaurant Customer Loyalty Graph shows how customers become worth more to your Restaurant as they order or book more often. We discuss how your Long Term Customer value graph can show you the success or lack thereof of turning new customers into repeat customers and why for some Restaurants this isn't a problem, bu

Beverages are part of the megatrend towards healthier options that an increasing number of people are going to be looking for.  Fermented drinks like Kombucha are going to be increasingly popular, with 5x the number of people looking for Kombucha now than 5 years ago.  We discuss where you want to sit in the product adoption cycle / trend uptake and whether you want to be doing the heavy lifting in educating your customers.   We discuss bugs - are they going to be a trend with bugs?  Possibly not.  A lot of people are talking about it, but there is still a lot to do with customer education to make it acceptable and there is also a lot of work to be done with the supply chain for it to become economically sustainable. Delivery + Take Home.  Pizza delivery has been done, probably since the 1950s.  Deliveroo wants to see a dramatic uptake in breakfast and lunch deliveries and will be looking to charge 35% commission.  Breakfast will probably be hard work to find people looking to order their breakfast for delive

We have created our list of the trends that will be impacting (increasing or decreasing) profitability.  This is based on our conversations with our Restaurant customers across 17 countries along with some Google search trends analysis, plus our reading of the  We talk about the impact of being behind the trends, with the example of the Melbourne Burger Wars.  We discuss the winners, places like 8 bit, Huxtaburger and Easy's.   We start by discussing Google Search Trends and what you can learn from it and more importantly, how you can use it in building your marketing and business plan.  This can help with your specials and your menu board. We talk about wages in Restaurants.  Restaurants are looking at the product that they have, so that they can decrease the skills requirements, looking at roster costs. Openings - there will be a lot more openings this year.  As the pressure increases in the industry, there are more experts looking to take advantage of the opportunities that are coming up in the industry. 

This is part 2 of what we've learnt in producing the first 100 episodes of Secret Sauce. 5. We continue with a discussion about Creativity and Innovation.  This is something that we are seeing a lot more restaurants starting to focus on.  We look at food combining and some other techniques that you can use be work on your creativity.  We also discuss innovation and what it means in your Restaurant. We discuss how you should embrace failure in your Restaurant.  It is a fundamental part of the innovation and creativity process.   6.  We discuss how you should be thinking about your customer contact details as a part of your Restaurant Marketing plan.  Having a plan is really important and something that probably all successful Restaurants have.  There is a lot of information that you should be collecting and using to turn your new customers into repeat customers.  We look at the importance of the marketing plan and how you can create an annual restaurant marketing plan.  Planning makes execution a lot easier, b

We review what we have learnt are the most important things in Restaurant Marketing. Thank so much to all of our listeners.  The response to Secret Sauce has been truly amazing and we have learnt so much in producing it for everyone. We review our Top 5 podcasts of all time - these are the ones that have been downloaded the most and that people continue to download today. Our Top 5 podcasts of all time are: 39 - The Secret of Restaurant Profitability - New ways to look at Restaurant revenue and profitability. 1: 8 ways to make your Restaurant busy on a Tuesday night 20 - Your 90 Day Restaurant Marketing Plan before you open your Restaurant 37 - Restaurant Innovation and Creativity 40 - Restaurant Leadership - Steps to help you be a better leader in your Restaurant Technology:  Mobile Phones for photography and marketing, POS machines, IP Cameras, online ordering and bookings management systems, hiring and managing your, and your staff. Team:  Your team is a really important part of the product in your Re

We look at how you can improve your Linkedin Profile.  This is something that you want to do before you start actively posting, because people will start looking at your profile and you want to have the best profile possible. The next step is to start building your Linkedin network.  Who should you connect with and who should you avoid? How can you increase the success rate with the connection requests that you send? What is the importance of having over 500 connections?  Why is this an important metric? How much time should you spend in Linkedin? We look at how Linkedin works for Corporate events.  This can be a real sweet spot, with businesses looking to do Corporate events.  These are less price sensitive and generally run events midweek, which can be really profitable for a restaurant. We look at building multi-channel marketing strategies with Linkedin as one of those channels. Are you a Restaurant Thought Leader? We then discuss what you should be posting up on Linkedin. Creating posts that demonstrate

We talk about really hot Chicken Vindaloos! A great little Indian Restaurant with a really hot Vindaloo.  This is a key differentiator for them in the local market and we look at how they have a pretty unusual menu for a traditional Indian Restaurant.  They have a few mini platters, making it easier to upsell customers to a higher average sale value. We talk about why you should be thinking about Linkedin Marketing and we also talk about a way that you can create a Linkedin Marketing process that is quick and simple to do so that you aren't spending too much time on yet another Social Media platform. We discuss how you can use Linkedin to help with building your personal brand, it can help with hiring, corporate hospitality, finding partners that you can do joint marketing, and staying up to date, networking.  It can also help with getting customer feedback. There are half a trillion impressions per year on Linkedin, but only 3 million are sharing content, so there is a lot of impressions going to a small num

We discuss (quickly) the power of Linkedin and how it can help you with your Restaurant.  Check out my profile and connect with me to keep up to date with the best tips for Restaurant marketing. :) We then continue our series of podcasts on how to get great images for your Restaurant. Take a little time. Make sure that the lighting is good enough for the photos.  Dim lighting is your enemy. Look at the shadows. Make sure the lens is clean.  We see too many images with dirty lenses. Use a tripod when needed.  They are cheap and a mini tripod for your phone camera are very cheap. Try different types of framing. Look at the composition of your photos.  Try the rule of thirds. Be on the lookout for great photos.   Learn how to use your camera.   Learn some of the advanced photography photos. Don't use the zoom on a mobile. Use different perspectives. Make sure that the background and the framing is correct.  A clean background draws the eye into the food that you want to photo. Have a think about black and white

We celebrate new customers in France and Cyprus! We discuss GoPros and their use in your Restaurant and the kind of video that you can create with a GoPro. What are the types of images that you need to produce for your Restaurant Marketing? There is a process that you can take to get the kind of images that will help you convert better from prospects to customers and customers to repeat customers.  What are the photos that you need? Who is in your value chain and what part can they play in your marketing?   What is your role in the Restaurant?  What role can you play in marketing?  Should there be photos of you in your Restaurant?  Sometimes it is important not to be in the marketing of your own Restaurant.  We talk about those situations. Do you market your team?  Are they in your Restaurant photos?  Team photos can have a big impact on the restaurant and we discuss the benefits you can have in sharing images of your team. Photos can really tell 1,000 words and in your marketing plan those 1,000 words can be

Customers first eat with their eyes, so the photos that you use on Facebook, Instagram, and your website are really important when you are trying to convert prospects into customers. Before we get started with Restaurant Photography, we look at a little bit of marketing innovation that is working really well for one of our customers. We look at how you can get the images that you need for your Restaurant marketing. We talk about Professional Photographers and the best way that you can structure a brief for your photographer.  How can you get the best value from your photographer and what tips are there for the kind of photos that you need?   Not everyone has the budget for a professional photographer, so what are the alternatives?  We have some great ideas around how you can get some great photos on the cheap. How can you drive your customers to take photos of your food and of your Restaurant?  User Generated Content from your customers is a great way that you can increase the amount and strength of the word

We start out by talking about Adriano Zumbo's Patisserie, which went into administration.  We look at this as an example of how you need to be careful about your Instagram marketing.  It is hard to get people out of Instagram and even harder to create revenue from it, so we look at some ways that you improve the profitability of your Instagram marketing.   Adriano even sold his house, possibly to try and keep the Restaurant business going, so this is a real tragedy.  Was it related to Fancy Nance?  Could the concept have been better tested with a popup? Are you selling Restaurant Gift Certificates? Should you? Does your GC system feed into your CRM? We look at how important it is to identify your high value gift certificate customers.   Gift Certificates can be a great way to improve the cash flow of your Restaurant.   What is the breakage rate of your Restaurant Gift Certificates?  Not every Certificate gets redeemed.  This is added profitability for your Restaurant.  Too high and you could be creating upset

We discuss the Just Eat half year results.  Our advice is always to try and negotiate on the rates that they charge.  There can be a big variation between the commissions that they charge different restaurants - so negotiate and see how much you can save.  (Or you can get Free Restaurant OnLine Ordering with FROLO) :)   This episode covers People and Processes so that you can take a holiday. People.   We've talked to some experts on Restaurant hiring and culture, like Nick Sarillo from Nick's Pizza and Pub in Chicago and Carrie Luxem, from Restaurant HR Group, about how to hire right for your company and how to retain great people.  Getting the hiring right is a big part of building a strong team and a strong team is a team that can function when you are away on your holiday. Process The last P in the 3Ps of taking a holiday is process.  How do you do everything in your Restaurant?  Clear communication about what the job entails and how it needs to be done. We look at a couple of examples around how proces

As a restaurant owner, when did you last take a holiday?  We is your next holiday planned for?  Do you have a holiday planned? Too many Restuarant owners aren't able to take even a short holiday from their Restaurant and I think that is really sad.  It leads to burn out and people falling out of love with their Restaurant and if you don't love working in your Restaurant, how can you expect your employees to love coming to work, and when no one loves coming to work, your customers aren't going to love coming in to eat. We talk about Foodora leaving Australia.  There was no surprise here, especially with their 2 court cases coming up in Australia.  There has been a big backlash from Restaurants struggling with profitability and from customers as well. We talk about some of the tricks that Restaurants are using when they are using Deliveroo or UberEats to retain some profitability. The look at the 3Ps of Restaurant Holidays. Profits - you need profits to pay your wage and the costs to go on holiday! People - Gr

Knowing what is going on with your website is an important ingredient in your Restaurant's Secret Sauce. We look at bounce rates and then we move onto the dark arts of Restaurant Marketing - campaign tagging with the Google Analytics campaign builder.  This is really important because it helps you keep your marketing accountable. Website speed and page load time is a really important part of the SEO for your site.  This is more important for mobiles and most Restaurant customers are on mobile.  Check the speed with the Google PageSpeed Insights page. What are the 2 types of customers who will be using Google and how do you treat each of them? What can you discover from the Behaviour and site content pages?  There is a lot of information that you can find here and some of it is very important. We finish with the Secret to Restaurant SEO.  This is what most SEO companies don't want you to know, we share it with you so that you can come up with a great SEO plan to increase web traffic, increase customers, increa

Did you check out the episode on how to fly like a celebrity chef?  The good news is that I have been practising what I preach and I've been lucky enough to make Platinum with Qantas.  There has been a bit of travelling around the world, visiting Restaurants and being Platinum certainly makes things a lot nicer.  How can you craete a loyalty program that makes your regularly customers feel really special? We go through each of the tabs on Google Analytics about the key metrics in Google Analytics.  This will help you to understand how people are finding your website and also give you the insights to improve it.  This is the most important part that you want to be thinking about. If you don't have Google Analytics, here is a link for how to set up your Google Analytics account.    We go through each of the key metrics and what you can learn from the metrics and how each one of them fits into the Restaurant marketing process.  Not only what does each of the metrics mean, but how you can increase them.  General

Many small Restaurants use Credit Cards to pay for a lot of bills.  With some really simple changes, you can make a really big difference in the kind of travel that you can take. We talk to Steve Hui from I Fly Flat.  This is something that we do a pretty good job of, and I was able to get an upgrade to Business Class last year for our family as we flew from Melbourne to Singapore in December last year.  This was an Epic experience flying Business Class with Qantas. Steve discusses a range of tactics that you can use fly in style around the world, just by changing some purchasing habits and maybe just even changing your credit cards. Travel is a really important part of life, I think.  Experiencing different places, different cultures. To pick the right card, you want to match it to your suppliers.  We talk credit card surcharges and some ways that you can negotiate down the credit card surcharge with some of your suppliers. Not many small business owners are doing this, but it can be a great way to start tra