Secret Sauce - The Restaurant Marketing Podcast

We talk about our new Marketing Metrics dashboard, providing detailed information about customers, orders, bookings and Facebook. We look at the Facebook ad grid, with Avatars and Benefits.  Who are the customers that you are looking for in your area.  If you think it is people who like your cuisine in your local area, you need to be a lot more granular to create marketing campaigns that really resonate with your customers.  This is breaking down your customer base into the specific niches. We talk about Duncan Robertson from Duncan's Thai Kitchen.   We go into the Avatars that we created for Rooster Burgers, our test Restaurant and discuss some of the benefits that we would provide those customers.   We talk about some of the ideas to come up with innovative marketing campaigns that can dramatically increase the number of customers that they bring in, along with the segmentation options that are available in Facebook.  Plenty of interesting options that can really help you target new customers very effective

We look at the steps that you need to take to create a quick and dirty Facebook marketing campaign to get an injection of cash for when money is tight. First, we look at the new Loyalty discounts feature in our Free Restaurant OnLine Ordering system. We look at the first Michelin Starred street food hawker.  His commitment to excellence is a really inspiring storing.  Have a quick look at the video. What is the photo that you are going to use?  We talk about the cheapest way to get a decent photo of the food you need for emergency Facebook marketing. What is the offer you should use and who will you targeting with it?  We look at some interesting targeting options that can work well with different types of offers. How much should you spend in your Facebook Marketing campaign. What are the best times to run the ads? We also look at how to measure how well it has worked.  

 We look at the reasons why restaurants fail.  To many Restaurants close, but we aren't talking about that kind of failure.  We are talking about the Restaurant owner or chef who don't have a Restaurant that is meeting the requirements of their personal plan.   They are working too many hours. They aren't making enough money. They don't spend enough time with their family. They can't take time out from the Restaurant for a holiday. That isn't good enough.  Running a small business is hard and stressful and running a Restaurant is one of the hardest and most stressful types of businesses.  Let's look at ways that can cause failure and ways that you can avoid failure and start being successful.  1. Cashflow, leases, cashflow, understanding the P+L and the profitability hospitality metrics that you need to focus on. 2.  How to be objective about your Restaurant.  How can you use open and objective information about your restaurant to make it better. 3. Lack of innovation.  There are so many things that can be

We talk about Pokemon Go and why it is a signpost to one of the fundamental changes that is occurring for small businesses and Restaurants in particular.  Some Restaurants are crushing this change and others are ignoring it at their peril.   Chicken Vindaloo Dim sims.  Just saying..... We look at some great tips to help you increase personal productivity and the way that you work so that you  Look at the activities that you are spending time on, delegate, create procedures, hiring, multitasking the right way, automating systems, look after yourself with sleep and exercise, and last but not least - marketing :). Check out Confluence for a way to store your policies and procedures. Check out Eric Cacciatore's Restaurant Unstoppable podcast. Xero - cloud based accounting system that can cut the time you spend on accounting. Too many Restaurant owners work too many hours for too little reward -  starting to work on your business is the start of making the change to the type of Hospitality business that you want t

Profitable Hospitality is the goal of all Restaurant owners, but it can be very hard to achieve.  We look at 7 areas that Restaurant, Cafe and Take Out owners can impact profitability and we look at ways that you can improve profitability in each of the areas. 1.  Your business plan and the sample P+L.  What are the KPIs that you need to be looking at to achieve profitability. 2. Your Marketing Plan. 3.  Hiring and training.  How much money are you wasting on bad hiring practices and how many great employees leave your Restaurant because it isn't a great place to work.  We will cover one great tip we have used to find the great employees, which is very cheap to use!  We talk about how Nick Sarillo builds a great Restaurant culture. 4.  Wage costs.  How do you look at your wage costs?  5.  Rent.  We cover an interesting way to look at your rent and 1 way that may help you save a little rent per month. 6.  Managing your food and bev costs.  What is the number 1 way to decrease your food costs without decreasing

We look at USPs  - Unique Selling Propositions. Does your Restaurant need a Unique Selling Proposition, because not every restaurant really needs one. What should a Unique Selling Proposition do for your Restaurant? What is the process to create a Unique Selling Proposition? Qualtiy price, product We go through some sample USPs and how they work.   Mentioned in this podcast: Norman Hotel - Brisbane's Worst Vegetarian Restaurant. Coravin Wine System Brooklyn Brewery Bevspot New Managing Director for Menulog - Commissions to increase? Paramount Coffee Project

The 2016 NRA Show in Chiacgo was attended by over 45,000 people.     We spent 3 packed days looking for the best products, ideas and inspiration to help you grow your business.  There was so much to see - but here are some of the edited highlights. We visit 2 great Chicago restaurants -  Nick's Pizza and Pub and Au Cheval with Eric Cacciatore from Restaurant Unstoppable. We finally get to experience the amazing In n Out Burger - the iconic Burger business. What was the surprising thing about Bubba Gump? We discuss some of the reason YOU should go to the NRA show and how it will help you grow your business. There are a lot of suppliers who have a great story - that story can and should become part of your story.  It helps create the experience and where there is experience there's margin! We discuss Kimbal Musk from The Kitchen and the way he creates a great story about his suppliers, Denny Post and the importance of a Signature meal- even if it isn't that popular, as well as a great discussion between Jon Taf

For many Restaurants, the website is the central part We talk about how to compare the traffic for your website against other Restaurant's websites, so you know how well your online marketing is performing. Find out how to make sure that the website is optimised for mobile. How often you are updating the website?  You should be able to make changes on your website yourself, so you can do it frequently without being charged by your web developer every time you make a change. A quick and easy way to grow your email marketing database and how that works with your website traffic. How integrating with Facebook can help drive traffic and customers to your website. Using www.canva.com to create great content. What can Instagram do for your website traffic? Making sure you capitalise on all of the great Public Relations mentions that you get.   Have a listen to the podcast and find more ways for how to increase traffic to your Restaurant Website. For most Restaurants, your website is the hub of your online marketing

We cover the implications of the Menulog data breach on your Restaurant. We look at a great way for you to work on creating a Restaurant Marketing Strategy Plan. If you are opening a Restaurant, you only get one shot at opening night.  If it isn't a success, then you are stuck behind the 8 ball trying to build momentum for your Restaurant.  It can be hard to get past people's impression of your Restaurant being the one that is always quiet because the locals don't go there.  Cash flow is a big thing too for new Restaurants, the sooner you start getting customers, the sooner you will have start getting some cashflow and return on your massive investment in time and money. We look at the importance of your Marketing Budget, and how to get great logos cheaply. We spend some time getting you to understand what it is that makes your Restaurant unique.  This is important as it can make or break your Restaurant.   We talk about how important it is to hire well before you open. Getting the menu right is really import

Bruce Irving, the Founder of Smart Pizza Marketing is one of the foremost experts on Pizza marketing, working with many Pizza Restaurants to help them find more customers and turn them into repeat customers. In this podcast we discuss how Restaurants are using Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and a range of other tools to build their businesses. We also look at what is required to build your restaurant from 1 location to multiple locations and the mindset that Bruce sees in his successful Pizza Restaurant customers. Bruce is a big believer in Snapchat, so have a listen and see how he is using it and how he sees Restaurants using it as well to build a loyal following on this rapidly developing social medium.  Some people are picking 2017 to be the year that Snapchat goes mainstream, which means that if you are looking for something to clearly set your Marketing apart from the crowd, now is the time you want to be building up your Snapchat skills and followers. We talk email marketing and how important it is for R

In this podcast we look at what the Key Performance Indicators are for your Restaurant Marketing.  What gets measured gets managed, so we want to make sure that your are measuring the right KPIs in for your marketing. Remember - you don't want to have the best Restaurant that no one has ever heard of! We will look at some metrics from a business and profitability point of view because they are the start of your marketing plan. We look at how your target market impacts on the types of marketing that you need to do and also we talk about what a Restaurant customers long term customer value is, how you calculate it and how you work to increase it. We'll take a look at metrics for Facebook marketing, email marketing and making sure that your website is working as hard as it can to find more customers and turn them into repeat customers.  

In this episode we discuss some of the ways that successful Restaurants are increasing the number of customers that walk into your Restaurant. If you have a restaurant with a lot of passing traffic, you won't want to miss this podcast.  What is the best way to construct a happy hour offer, what role does your menu play in increasing walk ins and what are some of the mistakes that Restaurants are making with their walk ins. How can you minimise the risk that potential customers face when thinking about coming into your Restaurant?  What is the role of smells in attracting customers and how can you use that to increase customers? Nothing attracts a queue like a queue, so what can you do to attract a queue. We also discuss some great ways for getting feedback on why people aren't coming into your Restaurant. We also look at location as a part of your business plan and how that can impact your marketing plan for walk ins.

We look at ways that Fish and Chip shop owners can find new customers and turn them into repeat customers.   We look at the 2 times that a fish and chip shop customer is looking for a new fish and chip shop and ways that you can target them at those times.  How can you use Facebook to find more customers?  What is the easiest way to build an email database and how can you introduce efficiencies in your shop?   Many fish and chip shops are very busy on Saturday night, with long wait times for customers.  We look at ways to manage this and ensure you don't lose any customers. We also discuss how 1 restaurant owner discovered a database with 1,500 emails that he didn't know that he had. Finally we talk business plans and personal plans.  Do you have them?  Are you on track to achieve your goals.  Lots of ideas not just for Fish and Chip shop owners.  

In Restaurant Autopsy we discuss the negative impact a hacked website can have and just how quickly it can start to drive customers away. We talk about how to set up a Restaurant Facebook Page.  We give you a complete step by step guide on how to get one set up right the first time. We have also created a Youtube video, which also goes through the steps so you can see exactly what needs to be done. Don't forget to check the show notes at www.marketing4restaurants.com/secret-sauce/ for the notes on how to set up your Restaurant's Facebook Page.

We look at the forces that are impacting owners of single location restaurants and small chains. The factors we discuss are the companies operating in the industry, the evolution of the internet and changing consumer tastes. The trends that we are seeing as increasing in importance for 2016 are: Story driven Restaurants Niche targeting - some restaurants do a great job of targettinangiche   Divergence between low cost / profit restaurants and high profit restaurants No bookings Smarter marketing Menu engineering The rise of the celebrity chef Have a listen and see if you are being affected by these trends and how you can better respond to these trends and have a (more) profitable year in 2016 than in 2015.  

Listen as we talk Restaurant Success with Eric Cacciatore from Restaurant Unstoppable.  Eric is uniquely placed, having interviewed 200 of the United States most successful chefs and restaurant operators.  We talk about the critical factors that every Restaurant owner should be thinking about if they want to create success in their Restaurant and in their life.   We talk system, marketing, culture and leadership i this wide ranging podcast which will definitely have something for every Restaurant owner out there to find at least 1 great idea distilled from the experience of hundreds of restaurant owners.

We talk to Tan Terry from Seagulls Greek Taverna, one of our Beta Testers for the Free Restaurant OnLine Ordering system.  He ran an online marketing campaign and spent $50 in one day.  The result - $1,800 in orders.  The night was booming and the kitchen nearly ran out of food.  Find out how he did it and also what he can do to improve those numbers. Marketing your take out orders is going to become more important for every Restaurant as they face increasing competition from Grub Hub, Eat24, Just Eat, Menulog, Zomato, Food Panda and Delivery Hero.  All of these online ordering companies compete against Restaurant owners, including those they represent to get the order so that they can charge the Restaurant that big commission and more importantly, get that email address which is critical for database marketing.  Tan has done a great job at Seagulls.  Not only has he generated an extra $1,800, he has done it Commission free and he is building his own customer database at the same time.  Find out how in this e

The Fine Food Expo is Australia largest trade show for Restaurants and we visited yesterday to have a look for great ideas to help you with your Restaurant.  There are a lot of ways to save money, save time (especially important if it is your time you are saving) and ways to spice up your menu.  Your menu is one of your most important tools in sales and marketing.  We also look at one of the great tools you can use in costing your menu.  We've looked at this in the past, if you haven't costed your menu yet, this is the easiest way to do it.

We talk to Nick Sarillo, authour of A Slice of the Pie, and talk about Purpose and Culture. We discuss what is Culture, how to come up with your purpose and values, how it can help you with hiring and retention.  We also discuss Open Book accounting - what is it, how does it work and how can it benefit your Restaurant.   Nick runs one of the largest independant Pizza Restaurants in the United States and has focused on the Culture at Nick's Pizza and Pub for many years.  He has studied widely in the area and has immense practical experience in building a business with a great culture.  

We visited Alinea to deconstruct the experience and work out what you can do in your Restaurant to make it a better experience.   Innovation is the overarching theme for us at Alinea.  The team at Alinea really are coming up with a lot of great ideas, many of which can inspire you in your restaurant. Presentation - how can you jazz up your presentation. Training - the front of house staff were exemplary. Put all of this that you can do to create an amazing experience because that is where the margin is. We also discuss the movie Tangerine and what it means for your Restaurant and our Instagram experiment.