Let’s say you’re starting a new restaurant in Pittsburgh. In
the old days, you’d announce the Grand Opening, try to get some early PR and
then advertise in local newspapers, food guides, etc. To get the tourist trade,
you might advertise in one of those hotel-room publications, online food
guides, Fodder’s online, etc. You might try some local TV spots to build your
clientele.
Remembering that only 14% of consumers believe advertising
while 78% believe online reviews, I would argue that advertising won’t really
work for your restaurant.
Yes, you need the Grand Opening stuff, but past that what
good will advertising do?
Restaurants are about word of mouth – and let’s face it,
today almost all business is word of mouth. If you’re food (your product or
service) is great, people will talk about it. Good food, good products get
around much faster than you think… bad food and bad products move just as
quickly.
So how do I get people to my restaurant? Serve good food.
What about getting the word out about my place?
Look… when people pull into a new town they
inevitably rely on their smartphones. The urbanspoon app, for example, uses
your location to search, say, ‘Italian’ restaurants… I don’t even need to know
the name of your place to find it. Then, of course, people read the reviews.
That’s how the choice is made these days. If you were to drop a bundle on
advertising but the online reviews are bad, you’ve wasted money that could have
been spent making the product better.
Recently, my son moved to NYC. He goes online and searches
‘best brunch in New York’. Finds a listing, checks the reviews and ends up in
Chelsea having one of the better meals of his life – which is saying something as
he’s lived in LA for years and has travelled extensively overseas.
How long did this process take? Less than five minutes.
What about advertising? He never looked at any of it.
Bottom line: consumers find you, you don’t find them… and
this reversed process makes most advertising (not all) unnecessary for many, many industries. (Note: a bit of local
advertising and community PR will help.)
