Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show that teaches you how to overcome burnout, embrace freedom, and drive growth
Your host, Christin Marvin, of Solutions by Christin.
With over two decades of extensive experience in hospitality leadership, Christin Marvin has successfully managed a diverse range of concepts, encompassing fine dining and high-volume brunch.
She has now established her own coaching and consulting firm, collaborating with organizations to accelerate internal leadership development to increase retention and thrive.
Each week, Christin brings you content and conversation to make you a more effective leader.
This includes tips, tricks and REAL stories from REAL people that have inspired her-discussing their successes, challenges and personal transformation.
This podcast is a community of support to inspire YOU on YOUR unique leadership journey.
This podcast will help you answer the following questions:
1. How do I increase my confidence?
2. How do I accelerate my leadership?
3. How do I lower my stress as a leader?
4. How do I prevent burnout?
5. How do I improve my mental health?
So join the conversation and listen in each week on spotify and apple podcasts and follow Christin on LinkedIn.
Voice Over, Mixing and Mastering Credits:
L. Connor Voice - LConnorvoice@gmail.com
Artwork by Solstice Photography, Tucson, AZ.
https://solsticephotography70.pixieset.com/
Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth
70: Restaurant Marketing Blueprint
Send me a Text Message. I'd love to hear from you.
Think your restaurant’s marketing is all about posting on Instagram? Think again.
The secret to thriving in today’s competitive restaurant scene lies in leveraging the right mix of strategies and tools to connect with your audience, build your brand, and fill seats—all while staying ahead of the curve.
Our discussion dives into the crucial role of marketing in the restaurant industry, emphasizing the range of effective strategies operators should adopt beyond just social media.
One powerful way to level up your marketing game is by integrating advanced restaurant technologies. Tools like Restaurant Technologies help streamline your operations and provide valuable data that can be repurposed into effective marketing materials, from cost-saving sustainability initiatives to unique back-of-house stories that captivate customers and boost your brand's appeal.
In this episode, we explore essential topics like the importance of customer data, differences between PR and marketing strategies, realistic budgeting for marketing, and actionable insights for independent restaurant owners.
• Importance of understanding the diverse channels of marketing
• Role of customer data in effective marketing strategies
• Differences between marketing agencies and PR firms
• Crafting a targeted email marketing strategy
• Realistic marketing budget allocation for restaurants
• Building strong brand awareness before opening
• Importance of adaptability in marketing approaches
Resources:
Sebastian Stahl
Breadth Marketing
The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap
More from Christin:
Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio
Curious about one-on-one coaching or leadership workshops? Click this link to schedule a 15 minute strategy session.
Podcast Production: https://www.lconnorvoice.com/
Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, with Solutions by Kristen. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching, group coaching and leadership workshops. This show is complete with episodes around coaching, leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting. Sebastian, welcome. Thank you so much for spending a couple hours with me today. We're recording my show and then we're going to turn right around and record your show, which is going to be amazing, so can't wait to talk about that today and all the incredible resources you have.
Speaker 2:Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me, Kristen.
Speaker 1:You bet. So we're going to talk about marketing today. We're going to talk about the impact, the expectations for marketing some really key strategies. But I'd love to you know and talk about your journey and your passion for the industry. But love to start with, uh, your journey and, um, kind of at a high level tell us how you got to to where you're at today.
Speaker 2:So, man, it's been a long journey. Uh, you know, started with, uh, you know, of course, professionally, uh, I come from a marketing background. I did actually work for a big company, started with Leo Burnett, and then I was at the Kellogg Company for some time. But, you know, always wanted to go independent and kind of do my own thing and I was always attracted, drawn to restaurants just because of the. You know the feeling that you get when you go into a restaurant. It's just the. There's a connection with everything that was going on from, you know, the music, entertainment, connecting with other people, that sense of freedom and joy that I would get by visiting restaurants, with being with friends, and so I was kind of drawn into that, the connection, the creative side of it, all of those things. Right? So, after you know, working at these companies, for some time, my two brothers and I, you know, had this idea of you know, working at these companies.
Speaker 2:For some time, my two brothers and I, you know, had this idea of, you know, hey, let's try opening up a restaurant, and we looked at actually looking into franchising at that time. That was a long time ago, 2003. I think that was around that time and we were actually looking into getting the Quiznos subs franchise at that time, which I'm glad we didn't because it would have been a terrible investment, but anyway. So we were going to do that and but anyways, we spoke to some friends, you know, that had more experience that there were. There were the, they had master franchise for Burger King in Central America. So we, you know, we were friends with them and you know he gave us some advice. He's like don't do it. And so we're like, hey, we're not doing this.
Speaker 2:So we started, went back to the drawing board, started small, just with an independent restaurant. Then my brothers kind of just went into their own thing different businesses and I stayed with the restaurant, and so that was my first experience with the restaurants. I had no experience and we just started like testing recipes. Really we just had this idea of an asian concept, started testing recipes. We bought a stove and in the office space and we had this chef that we hired and she started cooking, making all these tests, and you know, eventually I got into the kitchen because I really loved it and uh, and I just started playing with it, you know, and then for me being a marketer, being a creative as well. Just, uh, just came naturally. So I was in love with that stuff and, you know, put it together Again. I had no clue what I was doing, but that's how it started.
Speaker 2:Opened the restaurant actually did pretty well. I made a terrible mistake of opening breakfast, lunch and dinner, yep, so that was horrible and talk about burnout. But you know, and I was just going through difficult times at that time, but you know, we made it happen, it just worked. And, uh, you know, at some point after that it ended up moving to miami a couple years after that and, um, you know, I, I, I swore that I was never going to get in the in the restaurant industry again famous last words like this is hell, exactly, this is hell like this, like you know just the hours and everything.
Speaker 2:Just, you know physically and mentally everything. But I just couldn't stop myself this spark, this creative aspect of it and just everything that kind of ties into a restaurant. I do love everything about it. And so we opened another restaurant in Miami, and that was in 2011,. Something like that. We opened in Wynwood. It was an up-and-coming area at that time. That was in 2011, something like that. We opened in winwood. It was an up-and-coming area at that time. Now it's like the hot spot, right, it's been for a while, but, uh, we had a great lease, great space. Uh, you know, and I was completely over in, over my head, and but, whatever, you know, we did it. A full bar, full service, you know higher end type of restaurant at that time in that up-and-coming area, which made a lot of mistakes. Um, but uh, so's how we started. We had that for about a year and a half. Again, that area was still developing. It was pretty ghetto at the time. Still, we got robbed a few times there, but anyways, you know, we did it and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Then, after that, you know, we ended that project and partnered with these other guys that had a couple of small restaurants in Miami. We were kind of starting out as well and, you know, just made a call and these guys were interested in the space because it was a great space. We still had a really good lease and then we opened that other concept which was perfect, turned out, it was perfect for the area lower cost, streamlined operations. These guys had a bit more experience, very focused on processes and business, so learned a lot from that and that one did fantastic. It's still there. It's still the highest selling restaurant for the group. We started growing, opening more restaurants, more of the same brand, and then the company acquired this other very established restaurant brand that had about 28 years, 30 years in operation and so we basically tripled or double or tripled in size from one day to the next. So that was insane. And so, you know, started growing.
Speaker 2:I stepped out of operations at some point. I just wanted to out of the operations side and I went back to marketing, you know. So I was. You know we started small and then we just got bigger and opened a bunch of different places and I stepped into, just you know, the marketing small and then we just got bigger and opened a bunch of different places and I stepped into just the marketing role and I just learned how to do restaurant marketing really, really well, because we had to figure that out. It was always a thing of how the hell do we figure an ROI here, how the hell do we make this happen? All of these things specifically for restaurants.
Speaker 2:So that's how that happened and eventually, um, when we were still small, we were trying to hire you know, you know we couldn't hire full team because for marketing you need quite a you know a few pieces there. And uh, so we were looking for agencies and we hired a few agencies but they didn't have any restaurant experience. So it was very difficult to get them to understand how things work and the whole thing with attribution systems. And at that time, of course, all the systems were still way behind. There still are for some for a little bit, but it's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 2:So there was I saw that there was a need there for agencies or for people that really knew what they were doing, you know, in terms of restaurants. So I ended up teaching actually some of these agencies and how to do certain things and I got into the platforms. I really learned everything all the technical stuff, the nerd stuff and I loved it. So that's how this whole idea of what I do now started, of working with restaurants across the US and helping them with strategy and marketing, and so that's how I got here today. I mean, that's the short version of this story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how long did it take you to really build your marketing agency to the, to the point of sustainability?
Speaker 2:Man, listen, from day one it was. It was, I would say, from not day one, but basically after a few months it was already profitable, or at least break even, because I was fortunate that the company that I was part of, they were my first clients. So I got to do that transition, and it was during COVID. I was kind of forced into it. In a way. I already had the project in mind. It was something we were going to do it together with them, but at the end it ended up working like that.
Speaker 2:I just stepped away, you know, because of everything that happened. So they were my first clients. And then I had met other people, another group and and in a some type of convention and, and they called me, you know, they just trusted what I had told them or we've talked about. We had a conversation and those were my second clients and they still are to this day. So that's, that's how it, you know it, started. And then just slowly learning everything about running an agency, because one thing is knowing restaurant marketing, another thing is running an agency, which is a whole different deal. So it's. It took me a few years, of course, to like, get it, you know to, and it's still a work in progress, but to make it, you know, a little bit more stable and and all of that, and we've just continued to grow and just develop better systems and better marketing for for restaurants and and so, yeah, that's that's how we got, that's how we did it.
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Speaker 1:Two reduce operating costs. They help you save money by optimizing oil usage and eliminating third party cleaning services. With their auto mist technology, some restaurants save up to $300 per month per location. Number three they help you ensure consistent food quality. Fresh oil means better tasting food every single time. They help you monitor your oil usage remotely with ease. Number four enhance safety. Reduce fire risks and injuries by eliminating the need to handle hot oil. Number five enhance safety, reduce fire risks and injuries by eliminating the need to handle hot oil. Number five promote sustainability Join the eco-friendly movement by recycling used oil into biofuel. And number six maintain a clean kitchen. Imagine no more spills, pests or messy cleanups. The result A safer, cleaner, more efficient kitchen that saves you money and keeps your team happy. Ready to see why over 45,000 restaurants, from small independence to large multi-unit concepts, trust restaurant technologies. Visit rti-inccom to learn more. Dash inccom to learn more. Will you talk a little bit about the difference between what a market marketing agency can do for a restaurant versus a PR firm?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I think PR companies uh, listen, they, they, they are, they can, they bring a lot of value, but to a certain extent and it just really depends on the concept that you have. If you are a shift-driven concept, right then having PR on a consistent basis might make sense, because you're always doing specials, you're creating stories, you're always creating something completely new that PR agencies need to be able to pitch a story. So let's say, if you're brand new and you're opening, you want to get out there, so for sure it makes 100% sense to hire a PR agency so they can get the word out there on a more massive scale. Meaning, you know, get in the main media, bring influencers, do this whole thing that gets you that exposure. Get in the main media, bring influencers, do this whole thing that gets you that exposure. After that initial opening, the issue is how do you consistently create stories that the media will grab? You can get placements, you can get inclusions in whatever listings, but that's not really something that's going to move the needle for your business. Now again, if you're a chef driven restaurant, then it does make sense because the chef is the center and there's always stories that you can create behind it. You know what I mean, if you have the budget for it.
Speaker 2:Now, marketing, on the other hand and it's something that you need to maintain consistently because, okay, once the opening stuff happens, then what are you going to do? Okay, now you start getting guests at the door, right? So the whole marketing is about is how do you continue to speak to these guests that already walk through your door? How do you make that connection with them? How do you get their data? How do you continue to communicate with them about everything that you're doing? And then how do you get to a new audience that don't know that they don't know about you? You know, to come in through the door, right? So marketing is something that I mean. It has many aspects to it, but it's something that will get you consistency in terms of getting your brand, your product, you know, your restaurant out there in front of people and getting the customers that have come to your restaurant get them back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's really, in a nutshell, what it is. But again, pr you can have for some time. Marketing, you know, is essential to keep all the time. Sometimes restaurants fail to see that because they see it as an add-on, as an extra because they say, hey, I'm already, you know my margins are thin, or whatever. They don't even include it in their budget because they think it's an extra until they're you know they don't have enough awareness, their revenue is down or whatever it is. They're like oh, now we need to invest in marketing and it's too late.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But like any business forget about restaurants you have operations, finance, marketing, like everything you know, hr, like everything, is a piece that ties in into the business. So this is a thing, a shift in perception, especially in small operators, that I think needs to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how long would you recommend a brand new restaurant opening that has a chef-driven concept work with a PR firm? Like three to six months?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I mean we've done those before and I think any pre-opening have them, right, you know. So, like two months before you're open, like you probably want to engage somebody so they can get all the stories, everything that they need to go out in time, and then after that, normally we would keep them about three to six months and I think that's enough time, you know, to get all the stuff that you need. Now again, if you're a chef driven concept and there's stuff that you're creating all the time and you're an event and you're on the stuff, then you can keep them for longer. But you know it just, it just depends right on on the concept.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit. Let's shift gears to marketing. I don't know if you offer PR services or if it's just specifically marketing. I don't want to confuse people here. I just was really curious about that question because I've been, I worked with companies that have worked, that have used PR firms in the past, and I've heard they're very expensive I think we were paying $50,000 a year or something, and it was hard to see the ROI on that. We're going to talk about that a little bit, but it was a chef driven concept and, you're right, it was easy to tell stories, go to big. You know publications get on TV, you know, reach wider audiences, so so that made sense. Um, from the marketing perspective, though, and what you do let's talk about. You know, I think there's a perception today amongst independent restaurant owners that, and maybe other people, that marketing today just means social media, and there's so many more channels than that.
Speaker 1:Would, you talk a little bit about. I know you're like laughing, but would you talk a little bit about what all those channels of marketing are?
Speaker 2:Sure, so that's a common misperception, especially with, with a certain type of of uh, you, you know, demographic or people that, uh, social media is marketing and that's, that's all it is. You know, I mean they associate social media because to marketing and that's the only channel and it's and it's tricky, right, because, um, that's what people talk about and that's what it seems that it is, because all the traditional channels of of marketing that were or existed before, like radio tv, which is still there, but, like you know, those traditional media, that traditional media is basically out, right, there's still some importance to that, especially for restaurants at some point.
Speaker 1:It's still really big where I live, sebastian, which is really funny, is it? Yeah, in Tucson, arizona, when I started I'll sidebar for a second but when I started meeting with marketing people locally for my book, I said how do I market here? Because I'm new to the community and I'm coming from Denver, coming from the big city. And they said radio and newspaper. And I said what are you talking about?
Speaker 2:Does that even exist?
Speaker 1:I know Anyway, so continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it has its place right. For example, the morning shows and stuff like that that you can get on at the beginning when you open a restaurant. I mean it totally, it totally makes sense. Or if you're your new concept and you're going to get in those, you know that that have that big push in the national radio or in the sorry, the local radio, where a lot of listeners you know whatever. They're talking about marketing. We're talking about digital marketing because there's different things that you can do, of course, in the four walls.
Speaker 2:Experience. That also ties into marketing, and even your team is your basically marketing channel. So it's everything in terms of the experience of your restaurant, from all the digital channels to all the way to your four walls. Experience and your team are your basically they encompass your marketing. So what we're talking about digital marketing, social media is only one outlet, and then you then that's divided in two things. So you have your organic content. That means everything. That's what people usually associate with that, which is just posting stuff on your channels, right On Instagram or TikTok or, you know, facebook, whatever it is. But unfortunately these days, algorithms and those platforms are kind of screwed up right, tiktok's a little better, and so the type of the reach you're going to get basically how many people you get they're going to see your stuff is extremely limited. So that's only a very or stuff is extremely limited yeah, so that's only a very. That's a long run strategy that definitely needs to be in place, but it's something that takes a long time to build, yeah, and the other thing that we need to understand here is that all the other stuff that you do is going to play in into bring more people to your organic channels, right, because that's that's because you can doing other stuff. So, for example, we'll talk about the other channels. You know it's going to help you drive more traffic there.
Speaker 2:So your channels in a general sense. You have email marketing, right, so that's your customer database. That's what I always preach. Restauranteurs need to be gathering customer data from day one, even before they open Running ads, getting people excited for the grand opening, whatever it is, to sign up for news for that, or when they're going to open it. You give them a freebie or whatever. But that's how you start collecting customer data Because, at the end of the day, the person or I mean the rest of the business that has more business that has more, more customer data. Well, of course, keeping in mind that your restaurant is great, then your marketing is going to be way more effective and it's going to become a lot cheaper. Yeah, now some people believe hey, people still open emails. Email marketing kind of stale, whatever it is in in when it comes to restaurant marketing and even with many other businesses, email still it's almost number one. I would say it's a combination of a couple, but email is still, again, one of the most effective channels and again, it becomes very cost-effective when you have a large customer database. So that's what you want to do.
Speaker 2:Then you have your paid ads right, but you also can use both in social media. You can use google as well for that, and it goes into different channels. Then you have a for restaurants. It makes sense to have sms, because now, that's really you know it's, it's really good to have, especially for some type of concepts. It's very effective, uh. But then you have your google listing.
Speaker 2:You have your website, all your digital channels that need to be tying in and they need to play together to create, um, basically an omni presence or a multi-channel presence, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2:So, like everything that you're doing for your restaurant, you it would be, and all your channels it'll be uniform. So people can, you know, really see, and those are touch points, right. So you need to be everywhere where people are hanging out. You know, some people might be in tech talk, some people are going to be in Facebook, some people are going to be Instagram, some people are going to, you know, they'll just be like looking stuff on Google, like you need to be everywhere. So those are, that's what it encompasses, the different channels of marketing. And last thing I'll say about that is all your channels are irrelevant if there is no strategy behind it, because if you're just posting random stuff and you're putting a little bit of stuff here, a little bit of stuff there, sending an email here and there, you know, for some specials or whatever it is that you're doing with your restaurant, it's just not going to stick. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey there. Podcast friends, I hope you're enjoying these impactful conversations and leadership insights I'm bringing you each week. Before we dive back into today's episode, I want to take a moment and reach out and ask a small favor. That would go a long way in supporting the show. If you've been loving the content I'm providing, please take a moment to leave a rating and review. Wherever you listen to your podcast Not only does it make my day but it also plays a pivotal role in helping the show grow.
Speaker 1:Your reviews boost my visibility, attract new listeners and encourage exciting guests to join me on the mic. So if you want to be part of my show's growth journey, hit that review button and let me know what you think. Thanks a million for being awesome listeners. So let's take a. Let's go through a case study here. Let's say I am a mom and pop independently owned pizza restaurant and I have three locations. So it sounds like if I come to you and say, hey, I want to talk about marketing, it sounds like you'd recommend email. To start, what? What is kind of the review process? What would you? What questions would you ask me? And then how? How would we build that strategy? What does that really look like?
Speaker 2:sure. So first, um, well, if if I mean a piece of the strategies is, yes, email, it's just a piece of it I would ask you if you have a customer database. First thing I would ask you, because I'm going to know if I'm, if email is going to be even useful or not. If you have 500 people in your database, I'm going to tell you you're lost because it's going to take you a long time to start getting the data that you need to use it.
Speaker 1:What if I don't know? Sebastian.
Speaker 2:If you don't know what you're, if you have a database, yeah. Okay, I'll ask you do you have a reservation system? I'll ask you because, whatever, if you have a reservation system or people are making reservations through your site or through open table or whatever it is that you're using, then you have a customer database and it happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what if I don't have a reservation system?
Speaker 2:So if you'd have a reservation system, I'll ask you what POS system are you using? Okay, because if you're using a POS that collects customer data, then we can look into that and see if we can pull the data from there. Now, the problem here is that people aren't opting in on your POS, but the database has more users than just email. Once you have a customer database, it's not just for email, but it's also for creating audiences on Facebook, on your Facebook ads manager, not just on Facebook, but you can create audiences there. So you're going to be able to reach not only those people that you have on your database not every single one of them. It needs to match the data that's collected by the platform, but you can create also lookalike audiences. So people that are going to match the type of audience that you already have in that database is going to create an audience similar to that, with similar interest, similar age range, all of that stuff. So whenever you're running ads, you're going to get in front of the people that are most likely to engage and to come to your restaurant. So that's where I would start now, but that's I mean, that's just a piece of it. But to really start, I need to start analyzing what's going on with your restaurant. You know in terms of what are your pain points when it comes to. You know your revenue centers, what day parts are slow. I need to understand your menu. I need to understand you know the flow of people to identify opportunities where we can grow right. So, let's say, I mean, if it's a pizza joint, that would be difficult. But let's say you're a different type of concept, like a full service restaurant and you have online ordering, you have catering, you have private events, you have, of course, dining. So you have all of these revenue centers. So we need to understand where you're at with those and where can we grow and what can we do to get to that growth. So if you had private events right, if you have private event spaces even if you don't have them if you can section out your restaurant to create like spaces for events, then we can still do that. So then we have a very specific strategy that we use. You know that for our clients, that is lead generation for private events. So, because that will put money in your pocket pretty quickly and the ROI is pretty big, because these are high ticket items, especially now with labor costs and all of that stuff, you know, and food costs being so high when you have an event, you can control those costs in a much better way. So that's just one approach to that.
Speaker 2:Now, online orders can we improve on that? We got to see, depending again on the concept, because if it's a steakhouse and you have online ordering, it's fine, but it doesn't really travel that well. So probably your percentage of online orders is going to be very it's not going to be big. So it doesn't make sense to invest a lot of money in trying to push online orders because even if you push it, it's not going to work. So you have to understand the concept on this, understand what revenue centers makes sense to push, and understand you know how complex it can be or how expensive it's going to be to get you there. If you don't have a customer database and you're leaning only towards you know, then you have to lean towards ads, right, and ad spend, which means your marketing at the beginning, is going to be a lot more expensive. So expectations need to be clear that for you to get there it's going to take some time. You know what I mean. So, anyways, I don't know if that made sense, but no, no, it's great, Um, no.
Speaker 1:So when you're saying like it's going to take some time, are you talking 12 to 18 months?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So first you want to set the system, place systems in place, so you start collecting customer database, customer data. So first there's different ways to go about it. If you, if your concept makes sense to have a reservation system, then implement it. It doesn't have to be open table.
Speaker 2:We like open table just because of the functionalities that it has and you can create unique tracking links and you can actually track whatever reservations come through your ads on everything that you do. It's your email or your platforms. But you can use resi, you can use talk, you can use, you know there's a lot of different systems that are great. Then you, if you don't have a reservation system let's say you're a fast, casual joint then what can you do? Okay, so then there's a reward system, so it's, you know, a loyalty system. So there's a bunch of platforms out there that have, you know, integrations with Toast or with any system that you have. And then so then you create incentives, incentives for people to sign up. Now we see a lot of this stuff that people just use like generic incentives like get a hundred points, to like join, and nobody joins that crap.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Because it's like what am I going to get for a hundred points? They don't even understand the value of a hundred points. So you gotta, you gotta, you know, you gotta get more creative with that stuff. And, you know, give stuff that's still going to be low cost for you but are going to be attractive for people to sign up. So you always have to think that, again, this is the winning. The winning, the winning strategy is just getting more data in any way you can. You can run contests, also on social media, to get people to do it. You can leverage influencers to push the contest out so you can get people to sign up. You create a landing page or something simple where people need to sign up to participate and they've got to get something big, because for people to give you their data, you've got to do something.
Speaker 2:You can also host events. So, for example, let's say you host a really fun event with live music, all this stuff. Yeah, you're going to spend money, but then, depending on which state or city you're at, you can give out different incentives. In Miami, you can give away a free drink, it doesn't matter, like it's okay, you can do that. So you know you use Eventbrite or something like that and ask people to RSVP for a free drink and you get a ton of RSVPs for a free drink. So you're going to drive traffic for that event and then you know your cost is going to be really low because liquor cost is low at the end of the day, for whatever you're going to give for a free drink. And now you have 500,000 contacts.
Speaker 1:It just depends on what you invest in it. So let's talk a little bit more about email marketing. What content are you putting in the emails? How often should you be sending them out so that you avoid that burnout and people unsubscribing? What does that strategy look like?
Speaker 2:So first you need to have a marketing calendar in place so then you understand what needs to be going out each month. So, because you need to be able to plan the content depending on what you have going on, you always like PR, right that you have to give them stories. We have to give stories to our guests. Hey, here's this new special. Hey, I'm doing a Mother's Day special. Hey, we're doing a Valentine's Day special special. Hey, we're doing a tequila day special. Whatever the hell that you're going to come up with, it just depends on your concept. So then you have you lay all that stuff out right on your marketing plan and on your calendar and then. So then you kind of you follow that. Yeah, so each month you know what's coming. So then you're organized, you know what's coming, you know what's going to be a value and again, all of these are going to be. You're also testing, because when you're running these you need to see if it works or not and then you can see if you can repeat it next year. So again, once you have your calendar, then you create a calendar specifically for your emails. So ideally what you want to do is send out a monthly newsletter, right, which whatever's happening during that month for your restaurant. And then after that, if you're doing a specific event, for example, let's say you're doing, or special, let's say you're doing a Mother's Day special. You know that has a beginning and an end, so I mean that's that particular event. So you're going to send email reminders for that specific event because people need to hear about this quite a few times, like any sale, which now it requires actually more touch points. There's about 16 touch points, 12 to 16 touch points to actually get somebody to be interested in whatever you're offering. So you're going to be hitting them up with emails. But you're also going to be hitting them up through all the different channels. So if you have their data right or they've been to your platforms, then you can retarget them through ads. So we can be hitting them with email. You get them through social. You get them through Google, you get them through all these different channels. So then you get enough touch points for them to remember and want to go to your restaurant.
Speaker 2:Now, with email is also a little bit different in terms of the touch points, because if you have their data, if they are already your customers, the chances that that may want to go to your restaurant are higher, again, depending on the occasion. If it's a Valentine's Day special and you're not a higher end restaurant, your neighborhood restaurant you might not want. You're not going to expect that right, because they're going to go to the higher end places to, I mean, not not all the time, but you know, normally the couples I want to impress and I'm going to take her out to a great place, whatever. So those restaurants, that's where they go. So, um, but email, again, it's like the touch points are you're not going to require as many of them and you don't. You definitely don't want to overload them with, you know, emails because they're going to unsubscribe.
Speaker 2:So normally, let's say, if you, if you needed a um, a standard, I would say just as a guideline, or you know you could say a rule of thumb, send them the newsletter if there's this particular promotion that you're running or event, I would do up to, depending on the timing when you go out, you should really be out promoting your event at least three weeks out of that event so that there's enough time for, you know, to get in front of a lot of more people. So you know between three and four emails for that is enough. You know what I mean, and so that's just a benchmark. If you wanted to kind of, you know, do that. It's going to change again by concept, by event and what type of initiative you're promoting.
Speaker 1:If you have. So let's go back to the pizzeria concept here. Three restaurants all in the same city. Is it best to pool your database and market to everyone, or are you creating three separate email campaigns, one for each location?
Speaker 2:So, depending again on if you're pushing out the same promotion at the same time with the same data, it's all the same. You know, sending it out to everyone, it's fine, At the end of the day, it's just, it's. You just keep the economies of scale right. But, um, when you're building your data, your database, you definitely want to have them separately, because you never know if you're going to do something specific. I would say you will know because you want to do something specific for each location, because each location might have different needs. So it's super important to have your databases split. So if at some point it makes sense to be emailing people or locations separately, if you're doing something particular for that location, then yes, that's the way it should be done.
Speaker 2:The same thing with the ads. If you're running ads, you're not going to run them for, like you know, just everywhere in that city You're going to be very granular in how you're going to be targeting the area like, let's say, two to three mile radius around that restaurant, five miles if it makes sense, depending on the type of city that you're at, you know. So you have to get very granular in terms of targeting and, for sure, if it's something specific to a location. You know, do that. Now again, we work with a bunch of multi-unit restaurant groups and I was also part of this multi-unit restaurant group and for sure, where it makes sense, having that capability of sending it out to the entire database and just different locations in the city, it's great. It just helps reduce the amount of work.
Speaker 1:So are you creating all of this content for the restaurants?
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. So really, the way we do it is what I, what I was explaining. We build a strategy for restaurants that require full service. In terms of marketing, so, yeah, we build a strategy, we build out their marketing calendar and then so we're just, you know, basically executing everything that's there. We build their designs, we build their their, you know their campaigns and you know, and it's their integrated campaigns, because it's not just the email but everything, all their digital channels.
Speaker 1:So if I'm a single operator, what does this process look like as far as me getting content to you? Are we jumping on the phone once a month and kind of talking through strategy? Is this a weekly thing? Am I just emailing you the details around the specials? What's that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it just depends again on your budget. It's going to go down to that as well. You know it doesn't make sense for for single unit operators. You know there's some services that we that we offer that make sense for for single unit operators. But you know, if you wanted a full service, the full gamut of services, and for us to take over everything, it, it wouldn't make sense.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to communication, we build out the plan, we present the plan once we're in agreement, of course, we need to get all the information that we need from the operator when it comes to, you know, content, if they have it, because a lot of them don't have the content. You may need photos or videos or whatever. So we need to coordinate, uh, a shoot right, a photo shoot or a video shoot to get that content. Uh, we help them by creating a shot list because we know exactly what we need for each campaign. So we send out a shot list to the photographer, we coordinate that with them. We have a pre-production call, we show them exactly what we need. So they just go to you know they go to the restaurant, get the content and they bring it to us Now to get more information on the specials. Yes, it's an ongoing communication because there's always okay.
Speaker 2:This is coming up in the marketing calendar. What are you guys going to do? Because we can't make that decision for them. It's based on their concept and what they know. Let's say whatever they're going to be offering for a special. If it's a Mother's Day special, what type of menu are you going to offer? What are you going to have? We'll give some insights into what we think could work and things that we see working, and not only that, just my overall knowledge in the business.
Speaker 2:But it's really going to come down to what they can and what they want to do. So that communication flow is normally of course we'll have, depending on the restaurant client. Again, the top tier clients will have meetings every other week or every week. It just depends on the size of the group and what's needed. And we just touch base with that and we share the information and we just go from there. But usually we'll just send them also basically a creative brief where we ask them hey, I need when, what, where. Give me the links to your stuff, like whatever we need, so they can provide it, so we can develop everything that we need.
Speaker 1:If you were going to open a restaurant again and I knew, I knew you were going to say that, I knew it Hypothetically if somebody you knew was going to open a restaurant, at what?
Speaker 2:stage of the opening. Would you recommend they start working with the marketing team Before they open, because they need to, and this is we see it all the time they come to us after you know the opening they come after.
Speaker 2:They're struggling. They're like oh, we just opened a restaurant three months ago and our sales are not where they need to be. Well, first my advice would be you need to be patient, because most restaurants are barely breaking even in the first year. We've gone through that experience many times. The second thing is your marketing budget needs to be built on pre-opening. There's a pre-opening marketing budget and then there's a post-opening marketing budget. Pre-opening budget is going to be much higher.
Speaker 2:You need to consider at the beginning nobody knows who the hell you are, so you need to invest a lot in marketing. That means, depending on the concept, I would invest in PR and marketing. So both budgets. You need those two things. But I know, I understand that some restaurants or some restaurant owners won't do that. They're just not considering these costs at the beginning when they're opening a restaurant, and that's why, you see, you know also, it's just harder, you know, or it's a big failure. The failure rate is due to many things, not just to that, but that's part of it. You know they're undercapitalized and you know to open, and I made that mistake, you know, when I was opening my first restaurant in Miami, I thought I could open it with $500,000. I thought that was going to be enough to get us, you know, to where we wanted, uh, or where we needed, and that was not even close to what we needed, you know, and that's the truth.
Speaker 1:What's? What's a realistic budget? Again, single operator, mom and pop opening up. I mean, how much per month do you think they need to set aside for the marketing budget?
Speaker 2:So they should set aside on, you know, anywhere between on a realistic sense, normally it's between one, I would say 1.5. Ideally you don't want to go less than that. Honestly, it's just not going to do anything but 1.5 to 3% of your gross sales. Now a lot of operators are going to tell you that 3%. I'm crazy. But honestly it just depends on your concept and what makes sense. But let's say you know a single unit operator. If you look at any franchise, you know you're paying 1.5% in marketing anyways, right, so that's kind of their structure. That's just. You know a normal, pretty standard number. But depending on pre-opening it's going to be higher. And you don't even know your gross sales. So you just got to shop around in terms of, okay, what's going to a PR company is going to cost me Budget again three to six months for that, and then so it's. You know PR companies run between 2,500 to 5,000, $6,000, 10,000. It just depends on which PR company you're hiring. But that's around. You know pretty standard. You know ballpark number.
Speaker 2:And then for a marketing agency, depending on the services that you're going to get, you know, because if you want this agency to manage your social media, your paid ads, your email, like everything you know from the beginning. It's going to cost you quite a bit as well. You know there's. You know agencies range from anywhere depending on the services 2,500 up all the way to like $10,000 a month. Just depends on what you're requiring them. And if it's single unit operator, you're probably going to be spending around 3,500 bucks to 5,000 bucks a month on an agency because there's a lot of stuff they got to be doing.
Speaker 2:Now the marketing. Honestly and this is not because I'm selling it you want to keep you know as an operator. We knew that we need to have it, and so what happens? Okay, either you hire an agency or you hire in-house, but hiring in-house is going to be a lot more expensive and one person's not going to be able to do job because they got to be doing content, they got to be doing email marketing, they got to be doing paid advertising and they don't have the knowledge and the set of skills to do it properly and they just can't cover that much ground.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. You have so many resources. I saw you did a live training on um. You know some some tips on how to plan for events for the holidays and things like that, but you've got a tremendous amount of resources um on so many different platforms and formats. Would you talk a little bit about each of those?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, um, I mean, we do, we do live trainings every single month. You know we touch on different subjects about. You know, when it comes to restaurant marketing, you know from trainings on Facebook ads and how to run them. We do trainings. This last one that we're doing was on, basically, our blueprint on how we generate leads for private events. You know, we just give this stuff away. If you can do it yourself, then awesome, then go ahead and do it. You know what I mean. It yourself, then awesome, then go ahead and do it. You know what I mean? Um, we do trainings on.
Speaker 2:We're doing one that's coming up for how to create your marketing plan for 2025. Uh, you know, for your restaurant marketing plan, and we go through the exact same process that we go through with our clients and that you know a lot of the stuff that I was, that I'm bringing from my restaurant, from my restaurant experience. You know when I was, you know, part of this group where we were doing these marketing plans for all of these concepts. So we do a lot of that stuff. You know we have also, you know, as you know, podcasts that you know we just interview different people in the industry and we talk about leadership and we talk about, you know, marketing. We talk about all these different things, you know, just because we just want to bring value to you know, to our audience. Additionally to to you know, to our audience, um, additionally to that, you know, there's, uh, well, other resources.
Speaker 2:Well, there's a marketing book that I wrote and just, uh, basically it's the, it's basically the blueprint that we use how to, you know, in doing restaurant marketing. It's, it's, it's not. Those are not like quick gimmick tactics. This is just like the stuff that you want to do if you really want to do it right. You know strategy and how to do that properly and you know the pieces that you need. And we give advice on, if you want to hire a marketing agency or if you want to go in-house, what you're going to need for an internal team. You can outsource as well, you know, and you can hire people remotely if you would want to. Now, managing that team is a whole different story, but anyways, we just go through everything basically to help, you know, restaurant owners, you know, not suffer, you know, kind of go through the avoid some of the pain points that I went through and all the experiences I've had.
Speaker 1:So tell me the name of the book again.
Speaker 2:So it's called the Restaurant Marketing Insider. Okay, and then the name of the book again.
Speaker 1:so it's called the restaurant marketing insider okay, yeah, and then the name of the podcast is restaurant leaders unplugged restaurant leaders unplugged yep, okay.
Speaker 2:And to find the trainings we sent out. You know they can register on our website, breathmarketingcom, and to the newsletter there and they'll they'll start getting all this information, um. And we have, of course, the trainings. We set them up there on the website. We also set them up on YouTube. They can look them up there and get all those free resources.
Speaker 1:I love it. Sebastian, thank you for all the value that you're offering Restaurants. Thanks for walking me through that little case study. I love it.
Speaker 1:It comes up a lot in conversations that I have with clients. I want to do marketing. Where do I start? And it is just so robust. We usually talk about let's talk about what's happening operationally in your four walls and what your experience looks like in your service, but what you provided is just such a robust framework and there's so many avenues and I think marketing is so broad and it's so intimidating and it's so specialized. I graduated with a degree in marketing in 04 and and everything's changed there's no social media.
Speaker 1:I feel like I don't know anything for sure, and it's still changing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you know what I mean it's. Uh, we gotta stay on our toes and kind of figure this thing out every every day.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm grateful for you and thanks again for coming on the show. Everybody, please go check out yeah, check out Sebastian's work. Sign up for his newsletter to take part of those trainings, grab the book, take a listen to the website and, as always, share the show with anybody that you know in the industry that you think could benefit, and we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2:All right, sounds good. Thank you so much, kristen.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:All right, bye-bye.
