Are you starting a restaurant business and need a marketing plan? here’s a sample template for writing the perfect restaurant marketing plan.
Your marketing plan gives you direction and a clear idea of how you plan to market your restaurant business. A successful business is customer centric, which is why you need to put your customers first when starting your business. Writing a marketing plan is one of the few ways to make your customers a priority.
If you want to write a marketing plan for your restaurant business, you need to understand that there are four main elements of a marketing plan.
Writing a sample perfect catering marketing plan template
4 elements of a restaurant marketing plan
1.Target customers
This is an analysis of the people who generally need and need food services. These can be corporate clients, weddings, workers, etc. depending on the type of restaurant business you want to operate. You will need to properly analyze these groups of people and understand some basic things about them, for example:
- Who are they?
- What do they need
- Why they patronize food services
There are many categories of people who need catering services, but you cannot serve everyone due to budget or time constraints, so you need to select the category of people you want to serve. You can segment your customers using -:
- Demographic information -: sex, religion, age, profession, income, ethnicity and nationality. For example, if you want to start a Chinese catering business, you need to get demographic information about people who enjoy eating Chinese food in the region where you intend to start your business.
- Geographic information -: It has to do with analyzing where your potential customers live.
- Psychographic information -: This is the type of food that your potential customers love. You will also be able to understand their lifestyle, personality and social class.
2. Positioning on the market
In your marketing plan, you should carefully detail how you want your customers to view your restaurant business. What impression do you want to make in your customers’ minds about your business? ? It is entirely your decision and it is very important that you understand this early in your business so that all of your marketing campaigns, materials and strategy are in line with the image you want to create for your catering. Company.
- Competitors -: you will have to indicate who are your past, present and future competitors, and what impact they can have on your business and the decisions of your customers. For example, if your main competitor enters a 50% price hike, what would automatically mean the end of your business?
3. Pricing strategy
The prices you choose when offering your services are also very important when writing a marketing plan for your restaurant business. The amount you charge for each restoration job will determine whether you have more customers frequenting you or whether you have existing customers looking for cheaper options. Your pricing strategy should be determined taking into account the following factors:
Consumer’s behavior -: You need to know a lot about your customers and their buying habits. What do they think of catering services? Is it a popular business? Are there cheaper alternatives that customers can agree on?
How often do they use these services? How many festivals are there in your area each month ? All of this will allow you to better understand your customers so that you can agree on a price that will be beneficial to both parties – you and your customers.
- Competitive advantage -: What you have, what your competitor does not have ? It could be equipment, polite staff, better cooking skills, or something that keeps you ahead of the competition. It is also a determining factor in the pricing of your restaurant establishment.
- Willingness and ability to pay -: Are the people around you willing and able to pay for food services? Do you live in a high or low income area? How important is it to serve the people in your area ?
- Operating costs -: You must also take into account your costs and expenses of operation, advertising, transport and personnel. etc. before agreeing on the price.
- Competitors -. Before setting your own prices, you need to check what your competition is charging. It doesn’t mean that you should charge less than the cost because your competition is charging less. Rather, you should look for incentives to get customers to patronize you instead of your competition; especially in cases where your fees are higher than those of your competitor and a drop in price could lead to a loss of profit.
- Perceived cost of services -: This is a popular method used by business owners to set the prices of their goods and services. What you need to do is ask your customers how much they think they can pay for your services ? This would give you a basic idea of the estimated customer value of your catering services, and you can set your prices based on that.
4. Promotion strategy
Your restaurant marketing plan should also detail the methods and tactics you plan to use to promote your restaurant business. Promotion is very important because it helps to publicize your services, to influence the decisions of your clients and to encourage them to frequent your services. In your marketing plan, you should analyze the promotional methods you plan to use for your restaurant business. Here are some of the methods that you can use: –
- The advertisement -: There are many forms of advertising today, but for your restaurant business, you should consider newspaper and magazine advertising, TV advertising, radio advertising, social media advertising, creative food blogs, flyer distribution, personalized advertising, reference services and exhibitions.
- Promotional offers -: You can also run promotions and offer discounts from time to time to encourage more people to patronize your business.
- Consultant -: You can hire a consultant to help you market your business and promote your business image. This can be done both online and offline.
- Direct sales -: choose a day of the week or day of the month and call it a direct selling day. On this day, you should start marketing your catering services to as many people as possible: corporate clients, wedding planners, event planners or those who look like a potential business customer. Be sure to make an appointment before that day if you are visiting corporate clients, and remember to keep an eye out for every potential client you speak to.
