- Pocket - Sized Brandbuilder
- Hospitality Distribution
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| Select Menus | |
Restaurants need an effective, direct and consistent tactic enabling their guests to remember, refer, and promote their restaurant. Who better to promote your restaurant than regular customers who love what you do? It's said that the gold standard of marketing has always been a personal referral. Yet when we ask restaurateurs what tools they are providing their customers to recommend them, they have no answer, nor do they have a plan. The missing link is an effective tool containing high-quality pictures and descriptions of their restaurant that also is THE RIGHT SIZE. |
Credit cards are sized the way they are for a reason - they are compact, portable and fit easily in a pocket or purse. Phones, Mp3 players and Netbooks are all designed for portability and fitting into our busy lifestyles.
Why should it surprise anyone that large multi-page brochures end up sitting on the shelf unused! Select Menus are the perfect size - small 2.5” x 4”, yet they include photos, a full menu, important contact and address information and an easy-to-use map. These are all necessary ingredients to enable your guests to give a COMPLETE referral to their friends.
Marketing dollars and ROI are both important in these competitive times. Why pay for a quarter page ad that might be scanned, but forgotten moments later. Wouldn’t it make more sense when you can invest the same amount and have a tool that works in so many ways:
1. Display your Select Menus in your Restaurant. Place them at the front podium, at the bar, or in your entry foyer where patrons can see and take them. Use every advantage to publicly display your menu.
2. Insert your menu in every check folder. A guest who had a great experience will always want to recommend you to a friend. What better resource to use than a brochure furnished to them after their meal?
3. Business Card. Why print business cards that just provide your name, address and phone number just like everyone else's? Use a Select Menu that is a fantastic conversation starter offering information about your business, your menu, location, website and hours. Why not give them your full story? Generate maximum exposure at every networking event!
4. Gift Certificate Companion. When someone receives a gift certificate, your Select Menu provides all of the information to make the recipient's experience a memorable event (and the map on the back really makes it easy to find you too)!
5. Catering Events. If your restaurant caters off-premise, our menus can discreetly promote your services generating more referral business. You have a captive audience - utilize that opportunity!
6. Carry out. If your restaurant provides carry out, slip a menu in each package. Why not ensure they think of you the next time they're ordering lunch or dinner?
7. Display at hotels. Hotels guests are looking for local favorites. Forget bulky menus kept behind the counter - hotels don't have the room and menus become torn and tattered quickly. Our menu size makes it easy for hotels to keep your message near the front desk to provide recommendations to guests. Since Select Menus have all the necessary information, hotels love to use them.
8. Display at local businesses. Why not ask your accountant, attorney, hair salon and neighboring shops to display your menu? Our 2-pocket display is small, attractive, yet very visible and convenient.
9. Invitations. Obtain a mailing list of 1000 businesses surrounding your restaurant. Include your Select Menu along with a brief hand written invitation to visit your restaurant. Mail 20 invitations each week. After one year, you will be amazed at the results! No coupons, no discounts - just more business!
10. Restaurant week, charity events, special promotions. Participating in these events is designed to increase awareness for the restaurant while performing a charitable or other service for the community. A take-a-way brochure that is the right size and thoroughly describes your business aids enormously in improving your business' awareness and recognition. Encourage all patrons to share your menu with a friend.
Hospitality Distribution
Hotels have wrestled for years with problems associated with recommending local restaurants to their guests. Most hotels do not have dining options on premise; therefore their guests must leave the property to find a restaurant.
It's a well known fact that visitors prefer local favorites, yet hotels are challenged to provide up-to-date materials for their guests to make informed decisions.
Anti-clutter policies in hotels have eliminated pamphlets, flyers and brochures cluttering the front desk and end tables in a hotel lobby. Merchants, especially restaurants, lost a vital advertising platform. Some hotels provide menus stored under the front counter but they soon become out of date or worse, soiled and torn.
In many cities in Virginia and North Carolina, City Select provides a service for restaurants in hospitality locations. We produce a display system that showcases the great independents in our cities in a way that is compliant with hotel standards.
City Select provides services in over 1,000 hotel sites. We observed that traditional collateral provided by restaurants failed to answer visitors most often asked questions:
A Select menu answers every one of these questions. Since our menus are the RIGHT SIZE, our displays are compact and fit neatly into any hotel lobby. Displays are custom made to match hotel furniture and décor and are available in a variety of styles and finishes. By providing a well chosen collection of restaurants, visitors and hotels alike have a resource they can rely on. It's organized, neat, and regularly maintained ensuring premium visibility in each property. |
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Getting a return on your investment
Independent restaurants are locked into a battle with national restaurant chains for market share. Chains are armed with massive advertising budgets, national name recognition and high visibility locations. They are professionally managed and enjoy tremendous buying power enabling them to offer quality food at reasonable prices.
Each year the restaurant industry loses more independent restaurants to chains. Hotel in-room advertising has become very expensive limiting the size of ads making it difficult to “stand out” from other advertisers in large in-room publications. Further, over the years travelers have come to rely less and less on in-room advertising because of skepticism, never knowing if a restaurant is a good place to eat or not.
A recent State of Virginia study reports that 67% of visitors make their dining decisions once they arrive. This study goes on to state that only 8% of visitors make a dining decision based on traditional advertising (books and magazines). Most surprisingly is the fact that less than 3% decided where to eat based on a coupon or discount.
So, how can you measure ROI from these ineffective advertising mediums if you can't measure results? With our hospitality displays and referral services, you know exactly how many guests were:
Undecided and still looking for a restaurant
Saw your brochure and put your restaurant on their short-list (usually 2 or 3)
Had the right information to make a decision NOW, and took action
Measurable ROI with hotel guests what a concept!
Charlottesville
These gentlemen are long-time residents of Charlottes- ville and have been inspecting restaurants on behalf of visitors for over six years.
Each have extensive restaurant backgrounds and love to recommend and approve of a local restaurant when they perform for their patrons.
"We take great pride in the restaurant selections included in our Select portfolio. We know each of the owners well and have had a working relationship with them for many years; their food offerings span the best of Charlottesville's dining establishments and we personally endorse and recommend all of these fine choices."
Bon appetit!
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