Approaching Restaurants

Hi guys,

How would you approach a restaurant (far from me) into considering some advertising services?

I have a perfect area with lot of searches and low comp. However, I am far from there and cannot go in to talk to the manager / owner directly... is that doable ?

send them an email with some good solid information on what you are offering. They would like to see numbers. Those are facts they would understand.

Thanks... but I know most of these restaurants are privately-owned and not franchises or corporations so I am not sure they even have a website up let alone an email to reach them.

Like I mentioned Carlito, I am nowhere near that area.

Why would you want to talk to them without knowing any information yet? ie you dont know if they have a website? Shouldn't you know that stuff? Any restaurant you want to contact do a bit of leg work on it and find out what they have, what they dont have, and what you want to offer them. THEN contact them by your means of choice. Since they are far away you are limited to email and phone. If you do email, I recommend trying to stand out a bit. Subject line is key if its just a general mailbox and not the owner directly. If its just a general mailbox I would make an inquiry to find out the owners contact details - pretend you are a pissed off customer or something. Whatever it takes to find out the owner name and email. Or at least their name. Then address it to them in the subject line if you can only email the general box, asking them to call you regarding their restaurant. blah blah blah. whatever it takes to get past the gatekeepers. If you do have the owner email address and name, then be sure to not sell to them in the email. Dont mention seo or website if you can help it too early in the email - they have been spammed to death about those topics already. To stand out from the crowd try doing a video. Introduce yourself and what you do and how you can help them make more money. Thats usually what they care about most anyway :/
By using a video and introducing yourself, you can sorta establish that relationship so you feel like the guy down the road or in the city, as opposed to someone far away they will never meet.

Did I ramble there or did at least some of it make sense? Hope so.

Totally agree with wiredmom. Just wanted to point out that wiredmom is going to be offering Google Places Rankings services soon Keep an eye out!

snail mail.

I dont think emailing is a very good idea. I think many of you forget that not everyone is on board with "the internet" and even if they have an email address they may never check it.

For example, I have a local pizza place close to my house and I wanted to see if they had a menu on their website. I found the website and saw that they also have coupons. I printed these coupons out and called them up but they wouldnt take the coupons because they said they were from their grand opening three years ago. The next day they had the coupons removed from their website. That tells me that they started a site when they opened the business but completly abandoned it.

My mom is actually a sales rep for a food distributor in NYC. I talked to her about email marketing campaigns and she said that most of the people she deals with dont even have computers. They are people off site owners or they are chefs/cooks in the back.

The best way to market to them is;

1) by going there with something you can show them and leave with them.
2) Speak with a manager and ask for the owners name if possible.
3) send a follow up thank you note thanking them for their time.
4) In a week or two give them a follow up phone call to see i they have given it any thought.
5) Keep in contact howvere you can because when they do decide they need your service they need to rememeber who you are an what you offer.

Hope that helps.

okay guys,i myself work full time as an executive sous chef ,restaurants LOVE new customers and want to be busy all the time from open till close,you CAN sell any type of advertising services to them if you present your service professionally,howewer DO NOT cold call them ever,we do get cold calls every day aswell its very anoying,people in catering trade dont really have time for this and they WILL tell you off,try to arrange an appointment via email for a phone chat if you cant go there

Restaurants from my experience are very hard to approach via email. You have to do it Face 2 face or send a letter directly to the owner. Or call. But emails are a no-go. I sent a very well converting email campaign to around 400 restaurants and got...wait for it...0 responses :S

You guys are missing the part where he says he CANT meet in person.
Obviously thats the best way.

Snail mail - ehhhhhh 50/50. Depends on your presentation. If you can make it look pro - not flashy - and stand out from junk mail - you got a chance.

Make a package with a screen shot of google results for "[type of food] restaurant city" - highlight the top positions, attach a post it note saying that you cant find them on there or something like that and that you can fix it.
Another screen of total monthly searches would be good to include as well. Duplicate the set of printouts x 10 or 20 and send em out.

maybe fax should work better since it's pretty sure they read them

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. I will follow WiredMon's advice Will post results back.

vrodriguez305 said:

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. I will follow WiredMon's advice Will post results back.

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Any results to report? I'm probably going to be contacting some restaurants soon about advertising, so I'm interested to hear how you came out.

Yes I'd love to hear back on your results and how you ended up marketing it to them

vrodriguez305 said:

Thanks... but I know most of these restaurants are privately-owned and not franchises or corporations so I am not sure they even have a website up let alone an email to reach them.

Click to expand...

This is soooo true. I was doing design a while back and I cannot tell you what nightmare this is. These people know how to cook and maybe keep their book. Beyond that, you have to approach this knowing you have to educate them.

Yeah, A lot of these guys are old-timers too. I currently build/host and maintain 3 local restaurants. They literally call me during the week to see how many "hits" the website has lol. They call me to say that a customer said the site looked nice when they "pulled it up on the word wide web" lol...

But, I had to do a lot of face to face talking. I brought in a mockup that I made and went over the different options available for coloring and "setting the theme". I then told them I would need to take photos, submit to directories.

I pushed the fact that I would make the sites available to be viewed on cell phones since a lot of people look for places with their phones etc.

I can't really imagine this happening over the phone. These guys are business owners.

No real advice there, but just sharing how I did it. But yeah, these people haven't even seen a computer before. They think you are a magic wizard, seriously.

~Z.

what if you sent real mail to their business address but have a nice envelope/parcel with handwriting on the cover of it - just write "manager" on the front and it should go straight to them. They will surely open this to see what it is. inside the letter have personalised info and really explain how well your services can work

visiting them in person is the best. bring easy to understand diagrams and explanations. and even show them what you can do for them.