MARKETING: 9 Design Fundamentals to Keep in Mind When Creating Your Website
Designing a quality restaurant website isn’t child’s play. In fact, 70% of US consumers agree that a business’s website design influences their purchasing decisions. With that in mind, here are nine fundamental ideas to keep in mind when building or updating your restaurant’s website.
DID YOU KNOWS…
US Craft Beer Expands Its Market Share
In recent years, many bigger breweries have moved to purchase their smaller, independent competitors. One notable example is Anheuser-Busch taking over Goose Island in 2011. The bigger players certainly have reason to fear the craft beer revolution because smaller breweries are continuing to expand their share of the market. According to the Brewers Association, small and independent breweries had a market share of five percent back in 2010 and by 2018, that had increased to 13.2%.
Teens Fav Social Networks
As the chart above illustrates, Snapchat is still the #1 for teens in the United States in spring 2019, but Instagram is making up ground. According to the latest edition of PiperJaffray’s bi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” survey, 41% of the roughly 8,000 teenagers polled named Snapchat their favorite social media platform, while 35% of the respondents picked Instagram as their platform of choice. While teens might not be your target demographic at the moment, what they use now might still be what they use when they have more money to spend at restaurants like yours. So take note!
ESPN Deepens Ties to Big 12
ESPN has added more Big 12 rights, including every football championship game through 2024. The deal also includes a lot of college basketball inventory to ESPN+. Fox had originally turned down an offer to buy the ’19, ’21 and ’23 football championships. Those games will now air on ESPN and/or ABC. Eight of the 10 schools in the Big 12 will also provide more than 50 exclusive events per year, and at least one football game, any springtime football game, and any basketball game not already on the ESPN linear network. Texas and Oklahoma are not part of the deal, however.
EVERYONE’S A LEADER
Why it matters to you: Staff empowerment is our favorite leadership best practice.
Here’s an interesting fact: stories we have published on leadership are the best performing content we publish in The Daily Rail. That tell us that our audience appreciates and values the role of leadership in successful management. Consequently, we want to encourage you to read this very good reminder piece on Modern Restaurant Management that provides six leadership skills that improve staff retention. While there aren’t any silver bullets, the blog does remind us of the steps involved in proving to your staff you are a great leader. Yes, the piece includes cliché observations like “Lead by Example”, but it also points to more nuanced ways to demonstrate your true leadership skills.
Our favorite is the exhortation to empower your employees. This is among the least practiced methods of leadership and the most effective. If you ever want to have a day off or be able to run an errand during a shift, you will need to empower someone to lead in your absence. Empowerment means allowing them to determine the best course of action when a guest issue needs to be resolved. Empowerment means hearing their ideas and opinions before changing policy or addressing an operations problem. Empowerment means treating your staff as partners in your business and demanding they uphold their end of the bargain. So, read the post and maybe you’ll be alerted to the nuance your own leadership could use to improve.
[Source: Modern Restaurant Management]
WHAT THE HECK IS UGC?
Why it matters to you: User generated content (USG) is the Holy Grail of social media marketing.
The greatest promise of social media has always been guests posting their own experiences at your restaurant. There’s a viable argument that Instagram has been the best thing to ever happen to restaurant marketing. If you provide a pic worthy dish, somebody is likely to snap a pic and post it to their timeline. With that lesson in mind, shouldn’t we be crushing the effort to encourage users to post content that supports our marketing messages? Um, duh!
This primer on how to encourage user generated content (UGC) is brilliant and gives several terrific ideas you can implement now and drive more UGC. Our favorite is the notion of creating an Insta-worthy moment in your restaurant. The post includes an example from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in San Francisco where they created a cool spot where folks can take pics. The defined photo opp has a neon sign back drop that proclaims, “I GOT BAKED in SAN FRANCISCO.” Who among us isn’t enjoying the double entendre and isn’t imagining themselves taking a pic in front of it.
While you may not have the time/resources to make a neon sign for the occasion, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a spot that has equal appeal. From there you just ask guests to tag their location and boom -- UGC that drives your business. Read the piece, steal an idea, it’s as simple as that!
[Source: Toast POS]
