How to Market your Menu

How to Market your New Menu

So you have created your restaurant menu, now you have to market it. You have to let people out there know about your menu and your chef. You need to create a buzz and you need to keep advertising even though you have been long in the market. You might think that you are already well known but with all the new products flooding the market these days, customers might miss you out. That's why big brands like KFC, McDonalds and other fast food chains spend millions on advertisements yearly. Eventhough people know them. Below are some ways that I use to promote my menu. Hope its of some help.

1. Advertise your menu

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The first and important thing you have to do is to advertise in the mainstream media that you have a new menu.You may need to fork out some money but this will help to create awareness to your restaurant. As mentioned earlier even big restaurants do it.These will include advertisements in newspapers, flyers, banners and brochures. You can also seek help from your staff to help you hand out the flyers around town. My staff was happy to do it for me. If you have a higher budget you can advertise on the radio or tv. Make sure you write something interesting or use an eye catching pictures. Try to go away from the norm, otherwise people will pass it by cause its just another advertisement.

2. Invite the local media to taste your new menu

You can advertise in the newspaper or magazines as mentioned above. You can also go a step further by inviting some reporters to sample your menu. It is always well worth considering inviting the media to your restaurant. To do this you must be really sure that you are ready. You wouldn't want to make a fool of yourself to the people who is going to write about you. You need to put your best foot forward. I suggest you run your menu for one month to work out any hiccups that might occur before calling the press. When you are ready, then only call the press. If you are inviting only a few media people then call up some friends to dine at your place, so the place will look good not like a haunted restaurant.

3. Invite your local bloggers

These days it’s not only the professional food critics that people listen to for advice. Consumers search the internet on information on your place. A recent survey that was done by the hotel I work of how people got to know about our hotel was 45% said that they knew about us from the internet, 40 % was from friends and 4% from the newspaper and magazines. These will show you the power of the internet. Bloggers have their own set of followers and these followers listen to them. Look around at websites of local bloggers. A good way to start is to search for blogs about your competitors, follow them and see what they write. Whether it suits your style. Also note how many folllowers they have. But a word of caution most bloggers write the truth because they have a reputation to uphold to their followers. If your item is not good, don't feature it or you might get some nasty reviews. Once you get a positive review, you can share it with your customers, post it on your site and on your blog and Twitter and Facebook pages.

4. Pictures sell.

In my former hotel where I worked, we created menus with pictures in it. After printing the menus, I used the pictures and created posters of individual food items. Each food item had a catchy tag line like "Sinful Pleasures" for desserts, "What a Hunk of Beef " for beef burgers and "Get Curried Away"for curry dishes. We noticed that customers is more likely to order a dish when he or she sees a picture. So when we needed to clear a slow moving item, we just put a poster of the item. But you need to take mouthwatering shots of your food. Search the net for ideas on mouthwatering images. Follow suit.

5. Upload on your Facebook, Twitter or othe social sites.
Nowadays most business are using the social media like Facebook or Twitter to promote their company or products. If you don't have a Facebook sites its best to create one. Its really easy. You must put important information under the Info tab which includes your restaurant's location, directions, hours of operation and Web address. You can even put your menu in your facebook site. You also need to let your customers know that you have a Facebook site that they can be friends with. This is done by giving out cards with your Facebook address out to everyone. Apart from that you need to also keep your site updated and attractive. Here is when you can get more creative, with the help of the pictures. You can upload the pictures on your site every two days. Do this after you have uploaded your menu. You can feature not just pictures of your dishes, but also the recipe or a video of the chef demostrating how to cook the dish. You can also feature interviews with your customers. Constantly add interesting things, not only trying to sell your product. If you have interesting article on your Facebook page, people will be interested to be friends with.

6.Email
Even though emailing out newsletters or product update is nothing new within the internet world, it is still a great way to build awareness of your new menu to existing and new customers. You won't have to worry about spamming if your customers give you their email address. Normally when someone has given you their email, they are already interested in your place. This gives you a chance to entice them with special offers or highlight to them your new menu. I have wrote in my post "Restaurant Promo Ideas #6- Collect Mailing Address " on ways to get email address from your customers.

7. Create Videos

The use of videos in marketing is still largely underestimated. There is a huge audience on sites like YouTube. Imagine nowadays an aspiring singer can land a huge contract by just a music video on You Tube. But video marketing can also be used as a restaurant marketing tool. You can post your Chef in action, a tutorial on how to set a table or prepare a cocktail. Don't forget to add your link at the bottom. If you video is good and it might go viral and then alot of people will know about your restaurant.

These are some of the ways of promoting your menu. If you located at a busy intersection you can hand out sample of your food for people walking by. Do dropby for more Restaurant Promo Ideas.








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Restaurant Promo Ideas #14- Repeat Business with Balloons

Balloon Giveaway To Kids

Recently I joined a family resort as the head of the Food and Beverage Department. As with most businesses, we are always looking for ways to enhance our customers experience thus bringing in repeat business. In my previous post "Restaurant Promo Idea #13-Promote through Kids", I've mentioned that kids choose 50% of restaurant visits and according to a recent study 75% of parents consider their kids preference when choosing a restaurant. So we added a few things like a corner in the breakfast buffet, food ideal for kids like oatmeal porridge, fish fingers. All kids love balloons, so we have incorporated some balloon giveaways in our restaurant. Below are two ways we used balloons to enhance our customers experience, thus bringing in repeat business.

Give out balloons

Most hotels and resorts in Malaysia include breakfast with their room. Ours is one of them. As most families will come for breakfast especially on weekends and public holidays, we took this opportunity to capture the kids. What we did was to have one staff go around giving out colourful balloons on sticks to the kids. The balloons had our logo on them. Kids was happy (I noticed all kids love balloons, my son included) and the parents was beaming. And balloons don't cost much. You can also go a step further by putting in lucky draw vouchers in the balloons. The kids can pop the balloon and claim a prize at the cashier. Prizes can be toys or games for the kids. Have some extra empty balloons on standby cause some kids would rather not lose their balloon. You can give them a replacement one after they pop theirs.

Balloon Sculptures

For dinner which was not packaged with the room, we had to use a different approach. We got a Balloon Sculpturing Tutorial CD, practiced and learned balloon sculpturing. We set up a team of staff that knew a few balloon sculptures. So when the dinner crowd started dining, what my staff would do is go around from table to table making swords or balloon animals. The kids was so happy and it was fun for us too. They will surely remember us as a place that gave them balloons during dinner. And when their parents ask where would like to have dinner or stay they will sure to suggest our place cause of the happy memory they had. An easy balloon sculpture to learn and make is sword balloons and its a big hit with everyone, especially the kids. You can search for balloon sculpturing tutorials on youtube, but if you don't want the hassle of searching just do like what we did. Purchase a video cd. One such site selling this is www.balloontwistingwithsam.com. If you don't own a restaurant, you can also learn balloon sculpturing and be the life of any kids party.

Restaurant Promotion Ideas #11. Menus

Another great promotional tool that is often overlooked is your restaurant menu. Like I have mentioned in my Previous Post “Creating Great Customer Service Culture", first impression counts. Remember that the entire menu will compliment the restaurant theme. If your menu is not appetizing to look at, people will have the same impression of your food. Most restaurants put fancy words to describe their food. But fancy words and fancy fonts to me can be a deterrent for people to order something different from what they know. Most people will not take a chance in ordering an item that they are not sure about or they might not like. Also avoid jargons or terms that only a few people can understand. I have seen some menus that are so beautiful like a works of art, a masterpiece but if your customers finds it hard to read then what's the point. It’s like a beautifully painted house without any door, you can't get in. The menu must also be easily readable, so the size of the font is equally as important as what font you plan to use. The lighting in your place is another factor to consider when choosing your characters. If your place is designed to be dimly lit, then a bright colored font will be great. Usually, dark colored font on a white or light colored paper is much easier to read. I worked in a pub where the words in the menu were luminous as the place was dark. I felt that this is a great idea.


Recently in the Coffeeshop that I manage, I have added pictures of the food to our menu. I recently took up another hobby. Its photography which I took up after our owner gave the hotel a DSLR camera. Reason is he saw that with today's technology we could add food pictures to our printed materials and didn't need a professional to take out the photos for us. We could do it by ourselves and put in on the menu easily. By adding pictures next to the description of the food, I have noticed that the customers were more adventurous. Trying out different items. But make sure your kitchen brings out the food exactly as what is in the picture, or else you will have a lot of problems. Take mouthwatering shots like the pink area of a lamb, the juicy part of the steak. I usually use Google Image to see what other restaurants use to get an idea on how my pictures should look like. In this sense the saying “A picture says a thousand words" it’s true. A beautifully photographed picture of your food is thousand times better than all the description you can write.

Also pay attention to how your menu looks. If it’s old and tattered discard it. A dirty menu will also turn away the guest.

For more of my Restaurant Promotional Ideas, please go to my website Restaurant Promo Ideas