MARKETING: Market Research Tips for Restaurant Owners
With the new year around the corner, it’s a great time to reevaluate your restaurant’s marketing strategy. Part of that is doing some market research to see what’s hot both nationally as well as locally. But how do you go about conducting some effective market research? Our blog will help you with the basics so you can plan for a great 2020.
DID YOU KNOWS…
ELEAGUE & EA Sports Team Up
The ELEAGUE eSports series will be producing three EA Sports FIFA 2020 Ultimate Team (FUT) Champions Cup events this year. One will be held in Atlanta and the other two in Europe. They’ll also be providing EA Sports FIFA 20 Global Series coverage on TBS, leading up to FIFA eWorld Cup 2020. Episodes begin in January and ELEAGUE provide live digital coverage of the events on their Twitch channel, starting with the Atlanta event from January 17-19. This is a great opportunity to bridge the gap between the traditional sports bar visitor and the growing eSports fanbase.
Fed & ECB Keep Interest Rates Steady
Both the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank announced their latest interest rate decision this week, both deciding to leave their respective policy rate unchanged, albeit at different levels. Following three successive rate cuts on August 1, September 19 and October 31, the Federal Open Market Committee under Chairman Jerome Powell decided to keep the federal funds rate stable at 1.5% to 1.75%. “We believe that the current stance of monetary policy will support sustained growth, a strong labor market, and inflation near our symmetric 2% objective,” Chairman Powell said in his official statement.
Slashed Environmental Budgets
Over the past decade, Congress and the White House have cut funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by 16% and eliminated 2,699 jobs. With Trump proposing further budget cuts on several occasions, a study by the Environmental Integrity Project looked into the extent of cuts to pollution control agencies in the Lower 48 states. The research found that 30 U.S. states reduced funding for their environmental agencies between fiscal years 2008 and 2018 with 25 imposing cuts of at least 10%. This infographic shows where the cuts have been deepest.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Why it matters to you: Restaurants are a little know victim of the WeWork co-working space meltdown.
If you haven’t been following it, WeWork, the nation’s premier co-working space system, neared an epic collapse just moments before they were slated to go public. The full story can be read here, but the cliff notes version is that their CEO resigned amid mis-management allegations, their projected IPO price was a pipe dream, and now they are scaling back very quickly to stay solvent. Among the unintended consequences is the shuttering of their division that covered accessing restaurants as co-working spaces called Spacious. We have reported on this phenomenon over the past few years. Spacious was a start-up purchased by WeWork in late August that focused on identifying full-service restaurants that weren’t open during the day as potential co-working spaces for their tenants.
The company announced they are closing down Spacious operations by the end of the year. While this is bad news for the operators that were enjoying day time traffic that was 100% incremental, this doesn’t mean the concept of offering your restaurant as a co-working location should be abandoned.
For example, if you are a restaurant with a separate dining and bar area, and your bar has seating, you can easily offer co-working opportunities to your guests. The elements are easy. Have a solid wifi connection, set up a coffee/beverage station, and charge a small daily, weekly or monthly fee for clients to access. The idea is still a brilliant way to mitigate a slow period and build brand loyalty and awareness for your restaurant. Don’t let WeWork’s failure dissuade you from expanding your brand and filling your restaurant when it would normally be dark.
[Source: Nation’s Restaurant News]
WHERE ARE THE SYSTEMS, LEBOWSKI? [Video]
Why it matters to you: Systems are the only cure for your business needing you too much.
Last week we featured an infographic that helped you determine if you are ready to open a second location. Inherent in that discussion was whether your business will suffer if you are there less. This is an important conversation even if you aren’t opening a new location; this post on Entrepreneur delivers the secret ingredient -- systems. Whether your goal is to spend more time with your family or expand your business implementing systems is a sure fire way to achieve it. The post describes systems in a formulaic manner, which should help you visualize the work necessary to set you free.
Systems = People + Process + Tools
The people are responsible for doing the work associated with the system. The process is a set of steps or guidelines they follow to accomplish the goal and the tools are what they need in order to complete the task.
The post goes on to argue that you must be clear about all three elements of a system when actually implementing one. You will stumble if your people aren’t clear about what is expected of them. Your process will fail, if it is not documented. The tools are useless unless your team understands how they fit into the task to which they are charged. Any successful restaurant manager has experience with systems, but most of those were already in place before you arrived. It’s those managers that can identify opportunities for expanding their systems that will actually attain the freedom of not having to be in their business 80 hours per week.
[Source: Entrepreneur]
