To many people think that Facebook is just selling stuff, but there is a lot more that you can do with it.
In Restaurant Autopsy, we talk about a Restaurant that looks like it is entering the Groupon Death Spiral :(. There are a lot of things that you can do that are free or don't take a lot of time, or are free and don't take a lot of time, and yet they still don't get done and this is how Restaurants end up using Groupon out of desperation to try and keep the doors open.
We look at the Lobster Cave's Groupon strategy. They are one of the few Restaurants that have a decent discounting strategy.
We look at how to run very cheap and cost effective Facebook campaigns and often the budget is just $3 per day.
1. Sell stuff. Have a think about what it is that you are selling and how you are reaching out to customers and prospects. You can drive people to make an order and/or booking. You can then make your marketing accountable. Our FROLO and FORBS system will tell you where your bookings come from and this can make a big difference in understanding how effective your marketing is. You don't need a discount, it may just remind people about your great food. Don't forget to drive people to call for take out or book, or even as a walk in.
2. Targeting. We show you how targeting can dramatically increase the response rate from your campaigns. There is a huge range of options in the Facebook demographics section of the ad setup. This creates a simple way to run a birthday campaign. If yu don't have a database, you can use Facebook's database with targeting.
3. Retargeting. This is how to target people who have been on your website, you can even target based on individual pages that they have visited.
4. Recruiting. We use Facebook to recruit staff. We have found it to work so much better than using Job Boards. On Facebook, it is a lot easier for prospective employees to see what kind of Restaurant you run and you are more likely to attract the right kind of people. You can target people in the job role that you want. It often works out a lot cheaper to advertise on Facebook than on a Job Board and best of all, the talent pool is so much better.
Stay tuned for the next Episode with the other 4 ways that we work to build Restaurant businesses!
