Marketing myself to restaurants

[sarahjohnson]

I recently started a web directory of restaurants. I'm from New Orleans so that's where I'm starting but I'd like to expand to other cities (eventually). I started this site about 2 months ago and I'm ready to market to restaurants to pay to be listed.

I'm a computer geek and not a salesperson so I dread this part of the job. I have a unique idea and the traffic my site is getting is proving to me that I have a good idea. Now comes the marketing part.

I'm asking restaurants to pay $275 per year to have them listed which I think is a manageable amount any restaurant can afford.

So my question is what would be the best way to market my site to restaurants? I've tried to go to a few in person but it's time consuming and I obviously can't go when it's their busy time. Would it be ok to fax, email, or call? Would it do me any good? Just drop off in person literature about my site?

Thanks in advance.

Sarah

www.TodaysMenuOnline.com

Edited February 23, 2008 by sarahjohnson (log)

[dcress]

Hi Sarah,

Congrats on the site.

Its going to be a tough sell, but its manageable - - - if you put the time into making sales call.

Depending on how much of your time it takes to sell a membership, you'll figure out (fairly fast, I imagine) how much effort its worth putting into the project.

Your first step should be the creation of a clear cut value proposition for clients.

Perhaps offer a pay-per-view model like CitySearch - this might make it easier for a client to say yes. [FYI - CitySearch uses keyword arbitrage to grossly (and quite profitably) inflate their paid-for page views.]

Best of luck.

Doug Cress

[monavano]

Many restaurants have PR firms. That's where I would start with marketing.

[sarahjohnson]

Many restaurants have PR firms. That's where I would start with marketing.

←

Ah, that's a great tip. I hadn't thought of that! Thanks.

Thanks Doug too for your advice.

[chefadamg]

You might want to try Restaurant Associations..I'm certain all states have them. Also..good "old fassioned" US mail might be the most cost effective way of reaching the masses. A nice effectively written mailer would work magic w/ little effort.

Also..as a side note. There seems to be a need for a web based restaurant "owners association" for the exchange of ideas and information.

[dcress]

I'd call or go in person - in my experience restaurateurs are extremely difficult to reach.

Also, in my experience, PR firms won't pay for advertising.

[Holly Moore]

$275 doesn't seem like all that much until it is related to the $5000 or so of direct sales it must produce for a typical restaurant to break even on such an advertising expenditure.

Beyond that, why would a visitor to New Orleans go to Today's Menu Online as opposed to CitySearch or one of the other similar sites that offer editorial comment and diner reviews? Today's Menu Online's point of difference seems to be a clickable menu. But, as CitySearch lists restaurant websites, that advantage will erode as more and more restaurants get websites.

Maybe a different revenue structure - ads rather than listing fees. Give the restaurant the listing, including its menu whether or not it advertises with you, but open the site up to restaurant and non-restaurant advertising. Give preferential listing to restaurants that advertise with you.

The site will only be viable if there is significant traffic. The significant traffic will only sustain if it has value for site visitors. It will only have value to site visitors if it has full information for all restaurants listed, not just the paid advertisers. Full information, for me incidentally, would include hours open.

Sorry about the negative reaction. But I travel a lot and often find sites such as this when I research a city. There are a lot of them out there. And unfortunately, in most cases they provide little useful information and are tedious to navigate. I give them a minute or two to prove their usefulness and then usually head back to CitySearch.

Edited February 24, 2008 by Holly Moore (log)

[sarahjohnson]

Thanks everyone, lot's of food for thought!

Just to clarify, the $275 is for a year in case that wasn't clear. Can you explain more about the relationship to $275 to $5000 in revenue. I find that interesting but I don't understand it fully.

I do have lots more info that I can, and will be soon, listing for each restaurant, like hours, price range, more menus from the same restaurant. It's just that I wanted to get it started and that's even more work to get the info and type it in. But that's very soon.

I don't know about other cities but probably only 10% of restaurants here have web sites. I was talking to a restaurant owner about my site, I go there a lot and know him pretty well. He was telling me his own experience with how difficult and frustrating it is to find menus online so just because a restaurant has a website doesn't mean that my site doesn't have a purpose.

In addition to having a printable menu, I structured it to be sooooo simple and easy to find a menu. I hate sites that are hard to navigate. I did a test and searched for a restaurant that I know has a website and pdf menu. Other than the search, it took me 3 clicks to get to the menu. If I'd used my site, it would have taken 1 click after the same search.

I had never hear of citysearch before I started this site and that's another difference between me and other sites. I have been advertising in the community with flyers, for now since I'm poor, but I will be doing print advertising once I get going. I haven't seen any of the other directories that are local here doing any advertising. They rely on search engine traffic. In only one week I'm getting 100 to 200 visitors every day and I think that's pretty good for the little advertising I've done.

Also, over half my visitors have added me to their favorites so I know they'll be back and they've been emailing my site to others. I've even had one email thanking me for providing this resource.

I'll have to do advertising if I can't get them to subscribe BUT I really don't want to. That's one of the big annoyances of mine are sites that are all cluttered with ads and popups. That's one of the points I make in my advertising to restaurants. The idea is that people searching the web want information and they want it fast and easy.

Thanks for the suggestion for a 'owners' type web site. That would be very easy to implement. I'll put it down on my to do list.

The blank area in the header is where I'm going to put featured restaurants, I think I'll have it done sometime today. I'm really hoping that's the only additional advertising I'll need to add.

And unfortunately, in most cases they provide little useful information and are tedious to navigate

EXACTLY!

Thanks every, any other ideas?

Sarah

[rancho_gordo]

As a small to medium sized business, I would expect a lot for $275. I'm not clear what I'd be getting for the money.

My gut reaction is you might want to hire a graphics person. The list part makes sense if you know what you want (Bill's Cafe lunch menu, for example) but I think a good graphics person could somehow convey that this is **the** place to go for food in NO. I'm actually going to NO soon but I don't have time to click through all the names to see if someone appeals to me. I would ask an expert. And then maybe check for a menu to confirm that this.

Is there a blogger with reviews you could team up with? That strikes me as a real source of info.

[pennylane]

I wish there were a website like this here in Paris!

[sarahjohnson]

I'm actually going to NO soon but I don't have time to click through all the names to see if someone appeals to me. I would ask an expert. And then maybe check for a menu to confirm that this.

My target audience is more along the lines of people at work that are asking each other what to eat and they can't decide. I've done this a million times myself. So you get the folder that has a bunch of menus in it and thumb through them.

If they went to my site, they could filter the list down to their part of town or zip code so that would make a much smaller list and see restaurants, most of which they're familiar with, to make a decision.

I forgot to add, my original idea was to make a site where restaurants could update with their specials for the day or week. My brother-in-law puts out a bi weekly menu, something I've been putting up on my site. I'm going to be doing this soon.

To the other poster about France, I was thinking that this could easily go national and even international, ala craigslist. I never think small.

[rconnelly]

I'm actually going to NO soon but I don't have time to click through all the names to see if someone appeals to me. I would ask an expert. And then maybe check for a menu to confirm that this.

My target audience is more along the lines of people at work that are asking each other what to eat and they can't decide. I've done this a million times myself. So you get the folder that has a bunch of menus in it and thumb through them.

If they went to my site, they could filter the list down to their part of town or zip code so that would make a much smaller list and see restaurants, most of which they're familiar with, to make a decision.

I forgot to add, my original idea was to make a site where restaurants could update with their specials for the day or week. My brother-in-law puts out a bi weekly menu, something I've been putting up on my site. I'm going to be doing this soon.

To the other poster about France, I was thinking that this could easily go national and even international, ala craigslist. I never think small.

←

The only thing I see that might bite you in the but is that there are so many rest listing sites that cost nothing!

Ads would work better but you might want to check into what ads cost in a certain city. You might be able to charge more say in Chicago rahter than Cleveland/

[dcress]

To the other poster about France, I was thinking that this could easily go national and even international, ala craigslist. I never think small.

←

there's some good competition in the space: menupages.com and allmenus.com

[sarahjohnson]

there's some good competition in the space: menupages.com and allmenus.com

←

Not really, menupages.com is New York and surrounding areas, I'm in New Orleans. Allmenus.com, for New Orleans, has less than two hundred restaurants listed and I looked at about 15 of them and only found two menus. I have over 450 restaurants listed and 230 menus.

[ghostrider]

there's some good competition in the space: menupages.com and allmenus.com

←

Not really, menupages.com is New York and surrounding areas, I'm in New Orleans. Allmenus.com, for New Orleans, has less than two hundred restaurants listed and I looked at about 15 of them and only found two menus. I have over 450 restaurants listed and 230 menus.

←

I was going to suggest menupages as a model for graphics &navigation but I see that you know it already. I for one use it frequently. The functionality is terrific. You seem to have something similar going.

I don't know how they run things but if you can find out anything about their business model, I bet the information would be valuable.

My one suggestion would be to add an option like menupages' "On Screen Menu." I find the PDF load & navigation irritating, as I think some other folks may. The formatting of that On Screen Menu makes it much easier to get a sense of a place quickly & decide whether it should go onto the short list for a particular occasion.

Good luck! New Jersey could use a site like yours!

Edited March 3, 2008 by ghostrider (log)

[Jisho]

There are some things you could do to spruce up your site, obviously. What people like these days in a site is something that aggregates the data that they need. Some suggestions to make it more appealing (and worth more in ad and yearly fees):

- I second the graphic designer notion. You really need to have something simple and eye-catching, that speaks of your brand. The banner at the top looks, I apologize for saying, like something from a pre-packaged template. A small 'menu' graphic that really highlighted your brand is really all you need

- Look into the Yelp API. Yelp is a "hot" website right now, and offers user reviews of restaurants that can be directly integrated into your site. And if the restaurant is missing from Yelp, part of your $275 could include sending their site in for addition, or encouraging your readers to review the sites via Yelp!

- Provide multiple links to reviews of restaurants. Be willing to do 15 minutes of work for each site: Create a link to Citysearch (you aren't competitors), call for their operating hours, find their latest local review online (if they've been reviewed AND it's positive).

Be warned, all of these are fine lines. When you add reviews to the mix, you run the risk of a restaurant getting a bad review, which makes them wonder why they gave you $275 to begin with. You may just want to add restaurants for free, but strategically offer both google and sponsored advertising. If you spread out beyond NO, your revenue from ads will only grow as long as you set it up to serve ads for local restaurants.

[misstenacity]

Check out the page in Firefox, as well - the graphics do not line up correctly for me.

Some SEO work is desparately needed - you have a pagerank of 0!

Good luck....

Andrea