16 Wiscons in WR Restaurateur • Second Quarter 16

Diners are unlikely to confuse Monty’s Blue Plate Diner and Luigi’s in Madison. One is a classic diner, and the other specializes in pizza.

These and the 16 other Food Fight Restaurant Group holdings are deliberately distinctive in everything from menu to décor, uniforms to music, logos to tone. Establishing a strong personality, the company’s team leaders say, is where successful marketing begins.

“Simply put, everything matters,” says Caitlin Suemnicht, a managing partner at Food Fight. Be consistent and obsess over details. Develop and stay true to a concise mission statement. Boil it down to key words or phrases.

At Johnny Delmonico’s, “steak” and “service” are Food Fight’s priorities for wooing and keeping a mature, educated clientele. There are no cheeky promotions, unlike Bassett Street Brunch Club, where a “glitter chicken” deal for New Year’s Eve paired champagne with a sparkly bucket of fried poultry, plus biscuits and other traditional fixings. It was a perfect match for budget-minded twentysomethings.

Customers who used the hashtag #wishyouwerehere when uploading a photo from the Brunch Club got a chance to win a free appetizer and see their picture posted on a restaurant wall.

At Luigi’s, kids eat for free when brought there on a day when snowfall cancels school. Monday Night Dinner and Nails attracted girlfriends in the mood for a manicure and pizza for one price.

Avoid too many concepts, messages or brands when deciding who you are,

Suemnicht advises. Have a plan and follow through: Food Fight chiefs meet every October to outline goals for the next year, brainstorm promotions and decide who is responsible for each part of a marketing project.

At the early stage of the process, “there are no bad ideas,” says C.C. Jacob, art director at Food Fight, which is big on special events that go far beyond a holiday buffet or fixed-price dinner for Valentine’s Day. “We focus on where our customers are” and organize events ranging from intimate wine dinners to themed meals for hundreds.

“We live in a world that is full of marketing noise,” Jacob notes. Drive home your carefully crafted message with repetition and try to connect emotionally. “Millennials especially want this. They want to know your story, take a peek behind the curtain.”

by Mary Bergin

Good strategy begins with knowing who you are

Marketing Maneuvers:

17Second Quarter 16 • W iscons in WR Restaurateur

Some strategies fit allPeople power, resources and options are much leaner for the average restaurant owner, who wears multiple hats, but basic marketing strategies are the same for any size of business.

Having an active online presence is important. So is getting specific about goals whose success can be measured. You can use Craigslist to find an affordable freelancer or recent technical college grad to help with whatever marketing tasks you don’t have the time or expertise to pursue.

“I’m trying to find new tools to do more,” says co-owner Dan Sidner of Black Shoe Hospitality, Milwaukee. “We’re at a growth point after starting with one restaurant” in 2008. First came Maxie’s, then Blue’s Egg, Story Hill BKC—and honors (with business partner Chef Joseph Muench) as Wisconsin’s 2015 SBA Small Business Persons of the Year.

For other restaurateurs, a “growth point” might mean the addition of special

continued on page 18

Restaurant Marketing Symposium at the Midwest Foodservice ExpoThe 2016 Midwest Foodservice Expo, held March 7-9, tackled the topic of restaurant marketing in a big way with loads of seminars and chat sessions on the topics of marketing and social media. Experts quoted in this article presented seminars at the Expo to restaurant folks eager to learn about how to amplify their marketing efforts and boost traffic and sales.

Mark your calendar for the 2017 Midwest Foodservice Expo March 13-15 which will again feature tons of offerings focused on helping restaurants amp up and refine their marketing acumen.

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18 Wiscons in WR Restaurateur • Second Quarter 16

to them. Adding identities—names, backstories—and promotions to distinguish each area “creates a new buzz and a better story to be told.” It also “allows us to come up with more creative messages directly related to the brand.”

Where to begin? At Food Fight, Suemnicht says “it all starts with the food. For every new Food Fight concept, we let the food be the driving force of the brand, then hone in on details.”

Dana Arnold Director of PR and Social Media/Partner with Hiebing, an integrated marketing and advertising agency, emphasizes that “The basics still matter. If you’re not winning offline, you’ll never win online. It only magnifies what you already do.”

For the established restaurant

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events, or weekend breakfast service.Advertising is just one part of the

marketing equation, especially in this increasingly complicated digital world. Speakers at the 2016 Midwest Food Expo were awash with advice about database growth, customer loyalty, social media chatter and more.

Research at Brandmuscle, a marketing software company, concludes that one-third of restaurant operators spend less than 10 percent of their time on marketing, and two-thirds spend less than $10,000 per year. About 10 percent don’t have a website.

“Longtime habits don’t die easily but maybe should,” says Clarke Smith, Brandmuscle’s chief strategy officer. “Yellow Page listings get low satisfaction ratings, but these are things people feel they have to continue to use.”

The perception, he notes, is that

traditional marketing is too expensive and social media too complicated. “We’ve gone from six to 60 options for marketing,” Smith notes. When to use what depends on intentions, but first you need to know who you are.

What’s the story?“You all have an elevator pitch,”

says Michael Armeli, president of Integrated Brand Group, Delafield, although the degree of clarity and effectiveness varies wildly. Good marketing means “telling the story of your business at a deeper level,” and without a story, “you really have no direction or focus.”

If a private club has unnamed dining rooms, Armeli notes as an example, members don’t know how to refer

“Ninety percent of consumers who read a review and visit you will agree the review is accurate.”

– Chris Brubaker, Upserve.com presidentHe asserts that a restaurant averaging five stars from consumers online can charge 40 percent more than a four-star restaurant.

“To not give tweets feedback is bad form. You want to continue the conversation.”– Kay-Tee Frank of Engaging Results Communications

What good are hashtags when tweeting? Adding an established hashtag, such as #foodcritic, to a tweet “is a way to engage with people who are cross-promoting and to share social media audiences,” she says.

“Seventy-five percent of consumers are more likely to visit a business found ‘near me’ in their online search.”

– Clarke Smith of BrandmuscleHe also says Google estimates $10.3 billion in sales is lost because online business listings are missing or outdated.

“Social media is in a tumultuous place – use it effectively. Look at where your demographic is, interact with them as a friend or family and find things that tie in to your brand.”

– C.C. Jacob of Food Fight Restaurant Group

“Combine art and science in your writing. It’s not just what you say but how you say it.”

– Dana Arnold of HiebingWhen using social media, “connect first, broadcast second.” That means engaging your audience with topics they care about.

Quick Quotes

“The basics still matter. If you’re not winning offline, you’ll never win online. It only magnifies what you already do.”

Dana ArnoldHiebing

19Second Quarter 16 • W iscons in WR Restaurateur

operator, get a reality check by listening to how customers describe your business. Is it their home away from home, a date-night destination, a place to take the kids without breaking the bank? These unfiltered observations “get at the heart and soul of your brand,” Armeli says.

“We forget to stick with a formula and make it simple,” he adds. A bonus, when brand marketing is done right: Customers turn into eager ambassadors for your business, helping—for free—to build a bigger base of fans and data.

Spreading the wordConsumers also can yank your

image in undesired directions. Don’t let your business or brand be driven solely by customers, warns Kay-Tee Frank, president of Engaging Results Communications, a marketing agency in Madison. She counts food and restaurants among the most shared topics on social media.

Be alert to online chatter—

continued on page 20

compliments and criticisms—about your operation and respond promptly, she advises. Set up online business profiles at TripAdvisor, Yelp, Bing, Google+ and Facebook. If these profiles already exist but are out of date or inaccurate, aim to set the record straight.

At That’s Amore Italian Café, Greenfield, “our job is to find a way to say ‘yes’—that sign was hung up in our kitchen” this year, says Kitchen Manager George Kosier. Learning “how to control that brand message and get it out to the public” is his goal and challenge.

Having a presence online is no longer optional for business owners, Frank says. It is crucial to success. Establish an audience on multiple platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram—and entice people to follow you.

Give customers easy access to WiFi, Frank advises, because they are looking to “share inspiration” but will hesitate

if they must dip into their cell-phone data plans to do it. “The perceived cost of data will prevent some people from posting a photo from your restaurant” in real time.

Real time—as it happens—matters. Get restaurant news to customers in real time—via an email blast or social media posting—instead of hoping a newspaper, magazine or online media outlet will notice what you are doing and tell others. What used to work effectively a decade ago might be unrealistic or ineffective today.

Frank used to get 80 percent of recipients to open an email blast, but says 5 to 8 percent is more common now because more online options compete for consumer attention.

“Understand where your customers are looking and be there,” advises Chris Brubaker, president of Upserve.com, which provides restaurant management assistance.

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20 Wiscons in WR Restaurateur • Second Quarter 16

revisit you online and in person. “Ask for reviews and respond to

them. More reviews are better than less. Recent reviews are better than older ones,” he says. Velocity counts: One review a day is better than seven on a Monday.

Post photos and other teasers to provide an insider look at new menu items or events. Place staff, guests and events in the spotlight. Ask your chef to write a short, weekly blog. Ask and remind customers to share reviews.

“Find nontraditional ways to use traditional media,” suggests Brandmuscle’s Smith. Maybe that means buying a sticky-note ad to

affix on a newspaper, or shifting your ad budget from metropolitan to neighborhood publications, or ethnic radio stations.

Set goals, measure successRegardless of the approach, know

what you are trying to accomplish. Is it to get more customers on a Tuesday? To increase profits from an annual event? To attract more first-time or repeat customers at a specific promotion?

Brubaker considers it critical to build a customer database—names, emails, phone numbers—through meal reservations, loyalty programs “and by just asking.”

He is not a fan of deep discounts: “The math on these is terrible” because they usually won’t produce repeat customers. “Run the numbers to see how many new repeat customers you’d need to break even.”

Smith of Brandmuscle agrees: “It’s not hard to create a coupon, but how do you get them in the hands of people who will help grow your business?”

Loyalty programs are “a good way to build a database,” Brubaker says, but less successful for fine dining than a sandwich shop that someone might visit a couple of times a week.

Better, he believes, are special events that target a restaurant’s uniqueness, strengths and goals. Food Fight personnel visit Chicago and Minneapolis restaurants for inspiration, then “work with restaurant managers to come up with promotions that speak to our brands,” Suemnicht says. “We also follow select restaurants on social

continued from page 19

media, not to copy them but to get ideas.”

Whatever you decide on as a strategy and goal, be strategically persistent but not annoying or obscure, warns Jacob of Food Fight. “Don’t abuse email marketing, and avoid paths that seem generic,” like “all-day happy hour.” An occasional “killer discount” increases the likelihood that messages will be noticed and opened routinely.

Jacob notes the “rule of seven,” the number of times someone needs to see or hear your message before taking action on it. These touchpoints include everything from flyers and posters to word-of-mouth advertising and website action points (“click here,” “view menu”).

A special event requires more touchpoints, Jacob says, and the more expensive the ticket, the more time you should allow to promote it. Involve restaurant staff early on because their enthusiasm and knowledge, or lack of it, help make or break your efforts.

“If you know what your baseline is, you’ll know when you’re doing better,” says Arnold of Hiebing, regarding marketing campaigns. Find ways to track a marketing campaign, so you know how to measure success, when to adjust your course or scrap it.

“You can’t expect success 100 percent of the time,” Jacob says. “What you learn from a failure can ultimately lead to your successes.”

“There is only one deadly sin,” believes Chris Brubaker of Upserve.com, “and that is ‘Thou shall not provide bad hospitality.’” WR

“We also follow select restaurants on social media, not to copy them

but to get ideas."Caitlin Suemnicht of Food Fight, Inc.

Managing Partner