For years, the stigma attached to owning and operating a restaurant, especially in big cities like Los Angeles, New York, London, etc. is that you will fail soon after opening, if not immediately. Many entrepreneurs, and even seasoned business executives, often seem to think that all efforts are for not in subsections of business which entail huge amount of completion. Don’t forget, however, that the primary objective of the marketing aspects to business ownership is bringing businesses closer to their customers and bringing customers closer to businesses.

In the end, there are two types of restaurants that survive. There are the classic examples of mom and pop restaurants which have survived for decades, thriving off of seemingly no marketing efforts, and there are restaurants whose reputation precedes them, literally. In both cases, the fact is that marketing has played a huge role, even in, if not especially in, the case of the prior. Let’s examine:

In the case of the mom and pop, the success is most often due to a fantastic product, highly developed customer base, and word of mouth. The latter example benefits from strategic marketing plans and effective business solutions.

Welcome to the year 2010. In the day and age of computers, customers are well versed at finding the hottest clubs, restaurants, pen manufacturers, and even pet stores online. Enter the importance of SEO. Search engine optimization is the foremost method of maximizing marketing dollars, minimizing advertising inefficiencies, and overall mastering the marketing possibilities presented by 2000’s.

Consider the case of a new sandwich restaurant opening in the middle of Manhattan. With notoriously intense restaurant competition, the new restaurant can plan on dedicating enormous fund to classic advertising methodologies, or they can effectively plan out minimal advertising efforts so as to subtly modify customers’ actions. SEO can do the rest. When a potential customer is looking for the best hoagie shop in Manhattan on Google, effective SEO techniques will promise that the new restaurant’s information is on the first page. Presto—now you just have to learn to make a killer sandwich, so they come back.

Good luck in 2010!

Best Regards,
Casey Winheim

The Brainchild Group is a top marketing and design firm that services restaurants throughout the world. Specializing in Restaurant Marketing, Restaurant Website Design, Restaurant SEO and other internet marketing channels for restaurants for a variety of restaurants, both small and large.