Caterer February 2008 - Restaurant Marketing

How much should I be spending on marketing and what sorts of activities would I get for my money?

In today’s competitive restaurant market place marketing is essential to attract new customers and remind old ones to return. But how much of your budget should you allocate? The general industry yardstick for marketing is 3% of turnover. Obviously every restaurant is different - those in a prime location with lots of passing trade may be able to spend less whereas a restaurant on a back street may have to spend more, but most establishments should be spending 3% to maintain a healthy business. There are many ways of spending this money some good and a lot a waste of time. It’s essential to constantly review your marketing strategies to figure out what works for your business. A lot of restaurants rely just on advertising in the local paper – but with limited returns. Other popular strategies include fliering, discounting to certain target markets (ie a big employer in the area; students), internet marketing. Advertising starts around £400 / £500 in the local press and goes a lot higher! The cost of fliering is very cheap – you can get fliers designed and printed for under £200 and use some of your existing restaurant staff. Advertising on search engines such as Google is very reasonable and can easily be controlled by setting daily budgets. An effective marketing strategy that costs next to nothing is to build up your restaurant database and send out a monthly newsletter. The monthly fees of most specialist marketing and PR companies (such as Captivate Restaurants) start around £1,000 for a basic package and rising to £2,000 for a fully comprehensive marketing package.

Guy Holmes, Captivate Restaurants