With the New Year well on its way, it is import to take a step back and review your status, and think about what you would like to accomplish during the year, and initial steps to turn that goal into a reality. One of the most common goals among restaurateurs is always increased sales and customer base. We have put together a list of marketing objectives that might help you reach your goal.

Attend an Industry Event: While it might be difficult to take the time to participate in industry events/seminars/training, it can often create the inspiration that breathes new life into a business. Industry events usually contain, not only some of the most successful companies and individuals in the industry, but also the newest ideas and technology. Tradeshows and industry events are a great place to see what others in the industry are doing to differentiate themselves and how well those ideas are succeeding, all while outside of your local competitive market. A great event in late March is the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas.

Start & Keep up with Social Media: We have said repeatedly that social media is here to stay. It’s a hard beast to tame with the plethora of social media applications out there, but it is a necessary part of branding and promotion. While setting up an account might be easy, it is crucial to include constant updates, promotions, pictures, stories etc so that you stay current in the customers mind. It is hard to make the time, and sometimes even harder to know what to say, but do make a point of updating your social media platforms on regular intervals.

Create More Promotions: Promotions are great business builders, and can lead to an increase of short-term business as well as long-term customers. Although a promotion might be the last thing you want to do with limited margins, they keep customers coming back. Our suggestion is to hold a promotion on a ‘monthly special’. Your pizza special or pizza of the month that has a new recipe or some out of the box ingredients would warrant charging a premium, thus any promotion that you might run would be mitigated with the higher price.

Connect More with Staff: Staff member involvement in your marketing goals can be a huge benefit. Younger staff members would be eager to help assist in a social media campaign, while kitchen staff can come up with new and exciting recipes for special pizzas. Give more responsibility and put more trust in your staff and they will be able to look after your location while you attend some industry events.

Listen to Customer Suggestions: Lastly, while it is great to be very proactive in your marketing strategy or outbound marketing, it is also very wise to take control of inbound marketing. Customer suggestions can often be very thoughtful and should never be discarded.  These suggestions may re-invigorate your marketing and you might just be surprised at how well your year takes off.

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