Restaurant marketing can be defined as the efforts you do to create and generate more sales for your restaurant. Restaurant Marketing in effect is the engine to drive your restaurant business along, just like a car with no fuel a restaurant with no marketing will in effect not go any where.

In order to grow your restaurant sales you need to come up with unique restaurant marketing ideas to make your restaurant stand above the rest. These unique restaurant marketing ideas need to cover a range of marketing distribution channels, these channels are how you as the restaurant or cafe owner will attract your customer to dine with you. In your restaurant marketing efforts you will need to ensure that you have multiple customers coming from multiple marketing strategies and in effect you will then not rely on one income or customer source. Here is what I am talking about;

Say you want to implement some restaurant marketing in your venue to attract more customers, you should in effect target those customer through different mediums such as, email, direct mail, web site, joint venture marketing, database marketing and radio just to name a few. By attacking your market and bombarding your market through many mediums will enable you to find out which restaurant marketing medium is the best for your restaurant.

Restaurant marketing covers many customer generation channels these channels include:

Print advertising

This medium include magazines, newspapers, books, trade books, telephone directories and brochures.

Broadcast/electronic advertising.

This restaurant marketing medium include radio, television, facsimile and internet/email

Display Advertising

Display advertising include outside billboards, bumper stickers, signage, posters and vehicle advertising.

Direct Response

This medium include restaurant marketing direct mail as well as telemarketing

Events and promotions

This restaurant marketing medium include trade shows, fairs, exhibits, conventions and promotion novelty items such as key rings etc

Publicity and Public Relations (PR)

This include press releases, feature articles, internal newsletters, speeches, seminars and sponsorships.

Word of mouth

This medium includes spontaneous word of mouth and restaurant customer testimonials.

Although this list of restaurant marketing mediums is not exhaustive it will however provide you with a list to start from when marketing your restaurant or café. What is important when you start or rejuvenate your restaurant marketing it is to ensure thet you target your market, don't try and be everything to every one. Here is an example, lets just say you were a fine dining restaurant and you wanted to market your restaurant, you certainly would not market your restaurant on a shopper docket (know those ads that appear on the back of your shopping docket receipt). This would be foolish as this is not the market you may be wanting to attract to your fine dining restaurant. You could however advertise in the business section of the Wall Street Journal or Financial Review.

Marketing your restaurant does not have to be a daunting exercise, if you are going to increase your sales you need to do some marketing. Oh.... One last thing if you are marketing your restaurant then make sure you test and then measure the effectiveness of the marketing. There is no use to throwing away your money on marketing that is not working.

Remember marketing is the engine of your restaurant so remember to put some gas in it.