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As a restaurant owner or manager ask yourself these four
simple questions. Firstly
if you type your restaurant’s
name and location into Google.co.uk
do you see your web site prominently
listed and above your competitors
in your local area? Secondly
are your customers able to
book reservations at your
restaurant online? Thirdly
do you collect the first name,
surname, email address and
phone number of each and every
one of your customers and
contact them regularly with
special offers and promotions?
Lastly can you calculate exactly
how much your web site contributes
to your business’s bottom
line each month? Food for
thought? Now think of yourself
as a hotel owner. Would you
run a hotel in today’s business
environment without promoting
yourself aggressively online?
Would you be able to compete
if you did not allow guests
the opportunity to book rooms
online? Would you be missing
any number of opportunities
to promote and market your
business online as a result
of failing to collect personal
details for future marketing
promotions? Could you survive
if you could not calculate
to the last penny how your
online presence has contributed
to the business in terms of
bookings and revenues? The
internet has revolutionised
the way in which the hotel
industry operates but its
hospitality bed fellow, the
restaurant industry, has so
far failed to fully embrace
all of the opportunities that
the internet has to offer
in terms of revenue generation
and cost control. How many
hotels that you know take
and record bookings using
a diary and a pencil over
the phone. Now contrast that
with the number of restaurants
that utilise technology to
effectively manage key business
functions such as customer
relationship management, online
booking, and table management?
The UK is now a fully connected
country. As of January 2006,
there were 37,800,000 Internet
users in the United Kingdom
representing 62.9% of the
total population. On average
Britons now spend around 164
minutes online every day -
that is the equivalent of
41 days a year - as opposed
to a mere 148 minutes watching
television. The internet is
now the number one source
of information for the population
of the UK. So why are restaurants
so reluctant to embrace new
technologies and means of
communicating and interacting
with their customers? Perhaps
it is because restaurateurs
like to think that their main
forms of marketing and customer
acquisition have not as yet
been overtaken by the internet.
Many owner/managers list word
of mouth advertising as the
most effective form of marketing
in the restaurant business.
This remains so but what they
may not recognise is that
this form of marketing has
now moved from verbal communication
to digital communication.
In London for example peer
review sites such as london-eating.co.uk,
viewlondon.co.uk, timeout.com
and londonrestaurantreview.co.uk
now act as the most powerful
sources of recommendation
when it comes to researching
a new restaurant. Increasingly
new customers want to read
and digest what their fellow
diners have to say about your
restaurant offering before
they make a booking. This
booking is also pre-empted
by a review of the restaurant
web site. Does your web site
reflect positively on your
business? Are potential customers
provided with the basics such
as opening times, menus, wine
lists, booking information,
location details and accurate
and up to date contact information?
Do you go that extra mile
and provide 360 degree virtual
tours of the dining space,
the ability to book a table
online, photographs of sample
dishes or information on the
head chef and his background.
Or is your web site out of
date, inaccessible and a poor
reflection of the true nature
of your business? Even if
your web site is up to date
and a proper reflection of
the great service that you
offer, can potential customers
find it? In August of 2005
Yahoo! claimed that it could
now access over 20 billion
items on the internet. Ensuring
that your web based presence
is found easily and quickly
by your customers is therefore
an essential factor to consider
when reflecting how much your
web site is contributing to
your business. If you type
in relevant search terms into
Google, the UK’s most popular
search engine is information
related to your service returned.
Try it now take the town or
place that you operate in
and add it to word “restaurant”
i.e. “fulham restaurant”.
Now enter this phrase into
google.co.uk and see what
the results are. Are you listed?
Are your competitors listed?
A great web site is only an
asset to your business if
it can be found by potential
new customers. What needs
to be done then? The internet
can be the most cost effective
means of promoting and advertising
your business available to
you and can save you money
and resources in the long
term when combined with the
ability to allow online bookings
to be taken, to collect customer
data that can be used for
future promotions and to better
manage your staff and floor
space. Like anything worth
while it needs input in terms
of time, money and a will
to really harness the opportunities
available. Start with these
six resolutions and see if
they can make a real and significant
difference to your business.
1) Make the next twelve months
your “Year of Establishing
My Restaurant on the Internet”.
Acknowledge that customers
want to make bookings rather
than enquiries online and
that email marketing and promotion
will return any investments
made many times over. Adjust
marketing spending to take
advantage of the 24/7 online
booking presence that a readily
found informative and well
presented web site can provide
and aim to market directly
to your customers instead
of using commission taking
third parties. Develop a real
interest in your business
and its online presence and
investigate companies such
as neuchi.co.uk who specialise
in assisting small and medium
sized companies with attempts
to make more money from the
web via website optimisation,
search engine marketing and
email marketing. 2) Work with
companies such as restaurantdiary.com
to investigate how online
booking mechanisms can assist
the business and improve yields.
Merge your online booking
channel with a diary management
system and move away from
paper-based booking systems
that offer no method of booking
optimisation or customer data
capture. 3) Ensure that your
restaurant adopts a policy
of customer relationship management
at all levels and uses permission
based marketing to send timely
offers targeted at only those
customers where offers may
be relevant. 4) Aim to reduce
the payments that I make to
third party channels and instead
seek to retain as much value
as possible by directing potential
clients into booking directly
with my business. Promote
my business using loyalty
schemes to encourage my customers
to make repeat bookings. Acknowledge
that bookings from your own
web site are commission free
and so always promote this
channel first and foremost.
5) Recognise that the internet
can provide a stream of customers
to your restaurant web site
and over the next twelve months
strive to dominate the search
engine listings that relate
to your business and/or location.
Examine search engine results
to see what your competitors
are doing and seek to differentiate
your web site through a professional
approach, regularly updated
news and offers, and an inviting
online presence that works
well for both first time and
returning visitors. Learn
new techniques including use
of pay-per-click advertising
as other restaurants in your
area may not be competing
in this way. Alternatively
use specialise internet marketers
such as neuchi.co.uk to improve
your positioning and prominence.
6) Endeavor within the next
twelve months to make your
site as accessible and informative
as possible so that potential
new and returning customers
can find relevant information
about the business easily
and quickly and book online
once they have made a decision.
The internet, like no-other
advertising and communications
medium, rewards those who
invest time and energies into
harnessing the opportunities
that it presents. If your
restaurant could benefit from
an increase in bookings, revenue
and yield examine whether
your web presence is adding
real value to your business
and take positive action to
beat the competition and effectively
market yourself to new and
existing customers. Neuchi
is an internet marketing company
that helps small & medium
sized UK companies to profitably
promote and market themselves
on the internet. |
