Marketing Strategies By Business
Marketing a Dessert Restaurant
The value and earning capacity of a dessert restaurant largely depends on the quality of its marketing efforts. But great marketing takes a lot more than hanging a shingle and hoping for the best.
For a dessert restaurant, exceptional product quality is only part of the struggle to meet revenue goals.
Thinking about opening a dessert restaurant? It's a sweet business, so why not?
What to know the characteristics that distinguish leading dessert restaurants from other businesses in the industry? Most of the time it's not the quality of their product offerings -- it's their ability to communicate granular marketing messages to their customer base.
Public Relations Strategies
Marketing and public relations are two distinct promotional disciplines. While marketing flows blatant advertising messages to audiences, PR takes a more educational and informative approach. If you want to send unrestricted marketing messages to your audience, buy a mailing list and perform a direct mail campaign. But if your strategy calls for sophistication, media buy-in and thought leadership, hire a PR consultant. Since PR leverages media outlets, it may cost nothing to acquire media placements that feature interesting storylines about your products and brand. The trick is learning how to pitch storylines to media professionals without sounding too promotional or sales-oriented.
Loss Leaders
The majority of dessert restaurants understand that more customers will walk through the door if a few products are priced at less than full retail value. Although you may lose money on one product, you can make up for it buy selling a higher volume of other products. But to be effective, loss leader marketing requires planning, especially in product selection and price points. For dessert restaurants, the real benefits of loss leaders emerge through the careful marketing of other products, usually offered at a much higher margin. Whenever possible, piggyback a loss leader approach with the purchase of bulk merchandise that can be bought at a discount.
When It's Time to Rebrand
There are many reasons why it might be time to begin a rebranding initiative - but a lack of alternative tactics is not one of them. Rebranding is an intentional marketing technique designed to deliver long term results. For a dessert restaurant, owners are often inspired to rebrand after analysis has demonstrated that the current brand is losing its impact in the marketplace. Unless you are confident that you possess the skills necessary to rebrand your business, we advise consulting with a professional marketing firm before you introduce a new brand to your customers.
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