Kulture Konnect Blog

It is very common for companies to outsource their marketing tasks and activities to an outside service provider. In most cases, companies do not possess the staff or the expertise, instead relying on an outside agency, especially in the case of any graphic design companies, giving them an edge.

However, there are certain principles and methods of best practice that must be adhered to for companies to extract the most benefit. Many a times, clients will approach agencies with various assumptions that only reveal its bad side once the work starts. This affects projects and also results in the client-agency relationship deteriorating.

There’s always a lot of competition in the restaurant industry. To succeed, restaurateurs have to make sure to stay up-to-date with food trends and how they impact their menu, day-to-day operations, marketing and more. If you have to juggle so many things in the air, how do you ensure your restaurant’s success?

We work with some small and medium size restaurants nationwide and we asked them what, in their experience, the biggest challenges are in the restaurant industry. We were able to identify these four marketing and three operational challenges:

Is your restaurant marketing team struggling with Instagram?

Nowadays, with social media, restaurants have access to an array of resources to reach their patrons and prospects in real time. But some times social media can be a little overwhelming.

With social media, restaurants can not only share their restaurant information, but also create a community for the restaurant and its patrons to communicate and interact. However, as any other marketing effort, your chance of success without a strategy for its execution will be slim. There is no point in just creating a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account and expect to increase your restaurant foot traffic. You'll need to spend time creating content and monitoring your social media strategy as well as your competitors'.

If you can‘t figure out why your marketing efforts are falling flat then it's time to either take a good look in the mirror or make a new hire. You have to be brutally honest if you want to grow your business and that honesty must begin with your people. Who you surround yourself with from here on out will determine your success. Make sure your marketing manager possess these 4 qualities to catapult your business to take it to the next level.

Have you checked your restaurant Yelp reviews lately? If so, have you received any bad reviews from any of your patrons or an unhappy ex-employee?

Current technology allows everyone to share their thoughts and experiences in real time, this means that we can all express openly our opinions about your restaurant for everybody to see... And it doesn't matter if such opinions are true/fair or not. 

More and more, consumers tend to check reviews before they make the final decision of buying from any business, and that is not different for restaurants. According to research done by Pew Research Internet Project in 2010, 58% of Americans have researched a product or service online and 24% of American adults say they have posted comments or reviews online. Have in mind that this was done 2 years ago, numbers are certainly higher today. 

Outsourcing to a graphic design studio can reap huge rewards for your company. This is especially true if you are careful to choose the right firm. But first you have to decide! If you’re struggling with the decision, we’ve outlined ten advantages that contracting to a design firm will bring you.

 1.  You will save money. We all know how expensive employees are, especially in California. You can eliminate the burden of employment costs by hiring a graphic design studio that won’t require benefits like healthcare, unemployment insurance and retirement.

 2.  You will save time. Good design firms work fast. They are highly efficient businesses that leverage experiences on past projects to quickly arrive at solutions.

If lately you've been telling yourself: "I'm spending too much on my restaurant marketing," it's time to dust off your restaurant marketing strategies and take a look at what businesses in your industry are doing. 

The key is to watch for those restaurants that are successful as well as those that are not, so you can learn, what works and what doesn’t.

I’m here to let you know about a few ways that will help you in re-vamping your marketing plan. If you're spending too much on your marketing, I can provide you with ways to cut some unnecessary efforts that can potentially increase your marketing budget for necessary efforts. 

Restaurant marketing isn’t the same as it used to be. Traditional methods continue to be the preferred way to approach a restaurant marketing plan, but since the birth of the internet, and especially social media, it has become critical that restaurants embrace Internet marketing and cultivate a presence online. But how much online and how much offline should you do? What can you cut from your online and offline strategies? 

Food is a powerful way to bring people together. In one way or another, food conditions our daily experiences everywhere, from work and family events to how we are introduced to new cultures, lifestyles, traditions and more. Our points of view, our memories and our lives in general can easily be influenced by just one meal and the experience surrounding it. For a restaurant, having guests sharing their favorable experiences can mean more business.

How do guests share their food experiences?

Through social media, of course.

Relevant phenomenons such as foodstagramming have people taking and sharing pics of their food at their favorite restaurants. Real-time feeds such as Facebook Live or Periscope allow for an even more intimate way of sharing with your followers through live feeds. The sensation is all around us… and it can’t be stopped, so, why not join?

Video courtesy of Uberflip

Responsive web design is no longer a luxury that only big corporations can afford… It is a technology that is reachable for any business and that is not considered as optional for your online presence. This has been true years ago and it's definitely more true today!

New websites built today are now responsive by default. If a website today is not responsive, they will suffer tremendously negative effects such as: poor rankings in SERPs, high bounce rates from users and wasted costs.

If we wanted to identify one of the most tangible aspects of an economic recession, we would certainly have to turn our heads to the sight of empty, closed restaurants. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Great Recession started in 2007 and ended in 2009, but we can still see and feel its big shadow over our heads, and especially over restaurants.

Nevertheless, restaurateurs maintain a positive attitude and, according to The Spring 2012 ReCount study done by NPD group, by March 2012 nearly 1,000 independent restaurants and over 1,800 chain restaurants opened. Now, the question is: does this trend give us some hope or are new restaurants doomed to fail in a still fragile economy?