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Requesting NECTS analysis help for restaurant marketing plan

Marketing, social media, advertising

Late Bloomer

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I'm requesting help with a CENTS analysis of the general business concept: provide online marketing services for "Mom & Pop" (local, not franchised, not part of a bigger chain) restaurants, building sites for them and linking those into a lead generation/referrals portal.

My goal is to focus first on evaluating the market opportunity and niche.

After the niche review, unless I see some kind of red flag showstopper warnings here, I'll follow up with more specifics of what I can offer, and how I can offer and fulfill it.

I'll start today with...

Need
  1. Whenever people have even a little bit of disposable income, many people like to eat out at restaurants. That's true for me!
  2. Whenever people can get even a little bit of business funding together, many people like to open restaurants, or to buy out and take over an existing restaurant. Many of these independent restaurants have good food and service but poor marketing. I'd be proud to help them succeed.
  3. Marketing is essential for both diners and restaurants, so that diners can discover new restaurants they might like, and so restaurants can remind diners to come back and give them special reasons to come back, such as time sensitive special offers.
  4. Outside of a franchise or chain with a corporate headquarters, many restaurant operators are flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to marketing. They guess at random tactics and hope they're right.
  5. Online is the modern, convenient, fun, fast way for restaurants to be discovered, understood, and remembered by diners.
  6. Online marketing is a mystery to many small business owners. Even if they have someone technically savvy (maybe one of the kids likes computers), at a small family restaurant they're often too busy to spend any time on this.
  7. Online marketing can provide an excellent return on investment for a little restaurant. Their web page can be the same size on screen as anyone else's, bringing in a few new diners all the time, some of whom like the place and become regulars.
  8. Competition proves that there is an ongoing industry of marketing guidance, help, and services to restaurants.
  9. There are lots of little local restaurants with no web page, and also no Facebook page or any other online presence about their food, price, service and ambiance, unless Google Maps happens to include their info and some reviews.
I feel there's good strong for the market Need. I will continue tomorrow with Effort analysis. Comments are welcome!
 
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Late Bloomer

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Surprised there's no interest in Speedway members helping each other apply MJ's process to evaluate a business.

Entry is the weakest part of this business. there's nothing at all about it that requires a doctorate from MIT!
  1. Many people have enough marketing and sales talent to make a sales pitch to most little restaurants, and close deals with some of them. There is no particular great challenge about this for someone with some interest and skills at promotion.
  2. Many people can set up a basic web page, and can handle a basic social media presence, that's enough for a local restaurant.
  3. Despite the ease, some people would try to sell a web site based on hype, while I'm willing to take some pictures, take home a menu, and actually build the site to show to the owners before asking for their money.
  4. Making a web site have a fresh up to date look, be compatible with current browsers, work well on both small phone screens and full size computer screens, load fast and efficiently, stay up to date with security settings and backups, relocate to a better host if needed: all of this behind the scenes stuff takes some technical savvy, but no more than many web tech geeks can do for any site these days.
  5. These individual little restaurant web sites almost always float around on their own without any kind of larger co-op marketing. Same thing as the individual limo company sites MJ served with his lead generation site.
  6. I could set up a local restaurants portal/directory providing search (by price range, elegance, location, food type etc.); with menus, links, online ordering, coupon distribution, announcement of ongoing specials to a mailing list, etc., that would give diners a reason to keep visiting or keep checking their email subscriptions. This kind of cross-promotion site would increase marketing value for both restaurants and diners. It becomes far more valuable as more people sign up, due to network effects. It takes more business thought and more technical savvy to set this up, than to just sell basic web sites to Mom and Pop at the restaurant.
Comments, anyone? Do you see that I'm applying the principles MJ discussed in Fastlane? Am I missing anything so far? Back next time with a look at Control.
 

Late Bloomer

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Control
I can control
  • my business model
  • my marketing and sales activities
  • my project management and customer support methods
  • my choice of technology platform and hosting vendors
  • my own prices and contract terms, although ceilings are set by how much the client could make (capping the potential ROI of my offer) and by the going rate from competitors for some of the tasks I deliver
  • my expansion plan, for example helping the restaurant use order by fax with businesses, or mailing birthday cards with specials to diners who sign up
I can't control
  • attitude, motivation, business effectiveness of clients - but I can select for good ones
  • a complaint to the domain or web host or social media service that could shut down a client account
  • what competitors do
  • if some trend in society or hyped-up news story, suddenly makes certain types of food unappealing to lots of customers
If I use a model like Andy Black's where I'm in charge of the online presence, I own the site which disappears if the client stops paying me. I think I'd feel more comfortable letting the client have the passwords to their hosting account, so they can go in and put up new lunch specials this week or whatever... but make clear that unless it's an emergency and I'm not around, all support from me stops if they tinker on the technical side, without talking with me.
 

Late Bloomer

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Course Correction
from what I'm learning from other users
I need to try this approach in multiple vertical markets where I have some kind of affinity, and see which ones happen to like to buy from me. Don't get hung up on just doing restaurants.

I need to think in terms of a comprehensive digital media agency, not just the web guy but I'll also include social media, shoot video clips of recipes + testimonials that I put up for them on Youtube, etc.

Maybe I should sell the outcome of lead gen, that is, diners showing up, rather than the mechanics of how I implement it.
 
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Late Bloomer

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Read Fastlane!
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Apr 17, 2018
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Time & Scale seem pretty positive to me.

Time
  1. Initial setup provides ongoing residual subscription income.
  2. As soon as I troubleshoot the operational checklist for what works, I can bring in other people and delegate to them. There are plenty of people who love to be told exactly what to do and how to do it for a paycheck.
  3. I can offer an annual subscription, providing a very low-maintenance residual income once the initial setup is done. Repeat visits to take some new pictures and video clips, chat with the owner, sample some new dishes, as a quality control test take someone else out for a personal date or a business meal where they discover a nice new restaurant and provide a rave review testimonial... all these would be a very fun type of maintenance visit I can efficiently do while running another business, since I like to eat out anyway.
  4. And I can also delegate this process to other team members.
  5. As I discover new types of online marketing features, and play with the code until I see how it works, I can now and then surprise clients with some cool new features that don't cost them anything more but just show up on their site. While your car was parked in your garage overnight, we gave it a turbocharger and a sunroof at no extra cost to you. Whee!
  6. Not all clients will want to renew, but probably many will.
Scale
  1. I can get additional sales reps, tech geeks, and customer support people, on a gig, contract, temp to hire, or direct employment basis, and scale the business to additional towns.
  2. I can offer additional types of marketing and operational services to restaurants as hinted at above. For example, I could sell and consult on implementation of point of sale and digital kitchen ticket systems.
  3. I might have an opportunity through this business to become a co-owner of successful restaurants, or to get involved with a restaurant distributor, a realtor or bank or business broker handling restaurants, etc. There's all kinds of "respected executive with diverse businesess in the local restaurant industry" type of potential for my career growth here.
  4. I can expand my marketing and operational technology company to serve other niche industries.
I would welcome comments!
 

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