Marketing

There is no silver bullet. We all have a circle of influence. People are influenced by those they trust,people do not want to be sold to. They want to interact and be heard,you cannot control the conversation, but you can participate in it From marketing prespective. 4 p’s product, price ,place, promotion 4 r’s relevant, real ,responsive, relationship . Although social media is “one-to-many” broadcast marketing, at the end of the day real results will occur when “one-to-one” relationships are formed. It takes creativity not only in the kitchen, but also in knowing how to market your brand and connect with the customer. Social media is an innovative and cost efficient way Mt.Lab restaurant owners and managers can generate more buzz and create more loyal customers. In addition to a typical blog, leverage social media by the following means: Youtube channel where weekly/bi- weekly posts describe some of the techniques and how-to posts from the blog. Each restaurant news item that would warrant a press release is distributed via the web and posted on the website to enhance SEO(search engine optimization) benefits of relevant, keyword-rich content added frequently. Google news and blog alerts are set up to monitor what people are saying about the restaurant A monthly e-newsletter is sent to an opt-in email list to announce special events, special menus and more.Mt.Lab is not active on Yelp! We recommend going on yelp or local Japanese food review site and include a link on its website to encourage users to leave reviews there. They’ve recently started a Facebook brand page for the restaurant as well. Recommend them to post bulletins, blog posts and events on Facebook Go on twitter and follow people of this place. Get followers on twitter . Currently is running an ice cream(family sundae) giveaway promotion on its Facebook page through November 6. Create online community: Recommend them to setup a community to increase communications between the company and their customers. It serves two primary functions: to respond to the community and to review and promote ideas. Customers join the online community to submit suggestions/comments and vote on others’ ideas. Make Mt.Lab giveaway show, a live broadcast online, where the restaurant’s fans could answer trivia questions in real time by posting responses on Twitter and Facebook . Fans and viewers will post comments on the brand’s Facebook page and write tweets on Twitter with a #mtlab. The owner of Mt.Lab said social-media event will be “encouraging” and “customer retention and loyalty is a big deal, and anything we can do to develop our database of Mt.Lab lovers will go a long way” So where do you start with social media' 1. Listening 2. Local online business guides 3. Twitter 4. E-newsletters 5. Blogs 6. Facebook 7. Youtube 8. Flickr 9. Mobile 10. Social and community calenders 11. Mapquest & google maps. 12. Your own website . Make sure restaurant can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as yelp.com, urbanspoon.com, and tripadvisor.com Twitter : Twitter – sign up for a twitter account. Publish your twitter profile on all documents. Promote giveaways, specials and announcements via your twitter profile. Use it also as a tool to listen and converse with your customers. By all means use your restaurant’s name in your twitter name, but make sure that the people that read your bio know that you’re the owner, the chef etc Twitter tips : Be real. Be yourself don’t broadcast , there’s a temptation to boldly tell everyone in twitter who you are, what you do and what a great place your restaurant is. Don’t. Be an expert. Seek an expert. The best way to engage people is to listen to them. People want to be heard and interacted with. Keep an eye on your brand and your industry Facebook : Facebook fan page to connect with your customers on facebook. Keep it updated with fresh content and always make sure you’re involved with the conversations that are taking place on “the wall.”(events through facebook, twitter etc.) . Create competitions and give-aways among fans to promote your page and create interaction Youtube : Create a Youtube channel of uploaded or favorite videos you can share . Provide a few quick tips and how-to’s from the house chef. Share these videos on youtube and other video sharing sites, as well as your blog.You could even use video to even show where you buy your produce and meats. Flickr :Use photo sharing sites to show images of events, behind the scenes and market days. Let customer see from the eyes of the Chef rather than just the brand Blog:Blogging is a great way to bring the customer into the kitchen. It’s a great way to bring them behind the scenes and make them feel a part. Sharing a recipe, employee profiles, and kitchen tips and tricks are just a few options to break down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.Customers want to be part of something more than just a meal, they want to feel like they belong.Use local magazine and newspaper blogs to promote your restaurant E-newsletter :Email a monthly newsletter with the latest happenings, new menu items, entertainment news, recipe of the month etc. This is also a great tool to collect email addresses for future opportunities to connect with the customer. Listening: Use tweetbeep, google alerts, and even more advanced listening tools to find out what is being said about your brand locally & in the greater metro area. Reading the guest pulse is a great way to monitor and listen to what is being said about your brand and restaurant by customers. Your own website: Your website is the most likely second point of contact with a new customer.You need it to connect,whether it be as a result of a review, a recommendation or even a click-thru from a restaurant aggregator.Without a web site you’re missing out on a valuable marketing tool that requires little set-up and maintenance cost. Remember, that the effectiveness of social media isn’t the tool; its listening, answering questions and connecting with others. These tools are just opportunities to connect your customers to your brand and by connecting with them they’ll tell others about you. You need to get the most bang for your buck and you’ll do that by focusing your efforts on the three biggies of social media: Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Each has an enormous user base already familiar with and actively participating with their site. Makesure you get an account on each of these services, or in the case of Facebook, a fan page.Between sharing videos on youtube, posting updates on Facbook, and sending tweets on Twitter, the majority of your social media time and effort should be concentrated on these three sites. Create a personality & be worth talking about – as you’re setting up your accounts you need to really think about the “personality” you’ll be putting forth with your social media efforts. If you’re a serious person, then stick with a serious tone and approach in your posts and language. If you’re fun and irreverent, then let that come through. The point is with social media there is no wall to hide behind. In fact, the true allure of social media is that it can offer an inside peek at people (and businesses) that isn’t available in any other form of media. This affords a tremendous opportunity to Mt.Lab to let their uniqueness and differences set them apart from bigger competitors in their marketplace that may have to stick to a corporate script. To really make social media work for Mt.Lab you need to be willing to put yourself out there – your face, your name, your personality and your brand – that is * Concentrate on what will make you worth talking about and make your followers and fans want to share your messages with their friends. Show pictures & tell stories – a common first question from My.Lab is “what will I post to these social media sites'” Owners can be overwhelmed with this question until they start to break down their business and what they do on a daily basis. Do you have daily specials' Tweet about them on twitter. Post a picture of your best special item on facebook. Are you having a super ladies night party' Shoot a short video about it and post it to youtube. Share the highlights on twitter and facebook. Celebrating a special event'offer a wedding venue' Chef like to have it up on the camera' Staff members have a joke or funny story to share' What ends up being the case once you get the hang of it is with so many potential items to share, which are the best ones to share with your audiences, when and how often.A key point is not to have Mt.Lab’s social media posts be 100% promotional in nature. Mt.Lab need to balance its communication between sharing, selling, listening and having conversations. To tell the truth, this balancing act is probably the most difficult skill of managing your social media efforts. Social media is radically different from traditional forms of advertising and marketing, so take great care with your communicating style and messaging. Integrate into your marketing – marketing is a big and important bucket for your restaurant. Social media should only be a slice of your overall marketing efforts. Just how big a slice will depend on your particular operation and budget considerations. The key is that all of your marketing should be integrated. Your table tents should talk about Mt.Lab’s facebook and twitter accounts and invite customers to follow and talk about you there. Mt.Lab’s takeout menus and business cards should do this as well. Mt.Lab should also use it’s social media accounts to drive other marketing goals of the restaurant such as growing its customer email list or birthday database. Don’t forget to cross communicate messages across the web, in the restaurant, via social media, and any external ads or promotions that you do. Test marketing offers – social media is a great place to test a marketing program or idea. For example, a special happy hour promo can be posted at 4pm on facebook and twitter for all of your followers and fans to contemplate. Or what about a twitter tuesday promo with a secret word to receive a special promo. Make the promo interesting. Have fun with it. It doesn’t have to be a huge discount as much as it has to be special and/or unique for your customers. Compare those sorts of instant results with the more traditional cycle of preparing a postcard campaign. It just shifts everything on its head. Social media events – this can be interesting because of what technology people call the “network effect”, which states that the more people connected to a network the more valuable and powerful that network becomes. Take facebook for example – once you have your facebook fan page going, what if you hosted a monday night facebook fan only dinner promotion. First, your current fans are going to feel excited about it. Second, you’ll likely get new fans as your current fans talk about it to friends. Thirdly, and most importantly, after the event (assuming you put together a great night) a large number of those facebook fans are going to share stories,pictures and news about your event. And the average facebook user has 130 friends tied to his or her account. The social leverage of such an event can be quite powerful. And we all know the impact of positive word of mouth. Listen to your customers and interact – another gigantic differentiator of social media is the ability to easily talk, listen and interact with your customers. Yoshi posts a complaint about dinner on friday night via twitter. Well, you’ve got a chance to respond and recover the relationship. Yamada hosting a bridal shower and checking out venues. Nice opportunity to informally talk about your place. You want to find out what beers or wines are the local favorites. You post the question on twitter and facebook and start a conversation. Kohei and Ran are chatting about the best place to watch the big game. You don’t even have a tv in your place, but you recommend your favorite spot. You can bond and create relationships in this manner via social media. You can create the kinds of loyalty and recognition that wasn’t quite possible before. social media offers an opportunity for Mt.Lab restaurant to reach out and connect with both new and existing customers in a powerful way.Make social media an important part of your overall marketing efforts for the year and maximize the best that social media has to offer to drive business for Mt.Lab.