New Restaurant Marketing

[prospectbake]

I'm in the process of lease negotiations on a site for a bakery/cafe/provisions concept in Los Angeles. This is my first place and have been debating back and forth over marketing techniques. I've been using social media (facebook, twitter, blog), but since I'm "new" I'm wondering if I should invest in a marketing firm. I've only relatively recently moved here from NYC, so I have limited connections, and while foot traffic in the area is good I don't think it will be enough. I'm working on a lean budget, and building out my kitchen, so I don't want to invest any money where it's not absolutely necessary. I'm hoping for any advice that will help me in the decision, I'm pretty "on the fence" at the moment.

[heidih]

Local food bloggers are huge here in Los Angeles so I think they are your cheapest friends.

[Lisa Shock]

I don't think you need it. Buy your url -cost is about $10. Get a basic 5 page, template type website at a place like GoDaddy for $50 a year and build it yourself -it's easy. Set yourself up with a Yelp listing, a Google Places listing, a Bing Local listing, a Yahoo Local listing, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. It takes a couple weeks for some of these to go live, but, once they do, people will find you. Make sure to announce your opening and events in the New Times online calendar section, and put something on Chowhound. People will find you, really.

And, I've seen way too many people trying to sell themselves as professionals at this stuff when they themselves just got into social media a year or two ago.

[IndyRob]

Do you have a residential area around the location? Is there a neighborhood you can target?

[prospectbake]

Thank you for the advice! Our primary target will be corporate catering, there are a fair number of apartments/lofts in the area, but its not really residential.

[Edward J]

Corporate catering is a solid gig, invest a lot of time into each customer, and you will have repeat business for years, just don't get "greedy"; only deliver to one place a max of 3 times a week. No matter how good your food and service are, the customer will tire of it if they have it every day. In this way, we were able to keep "good" customers for years.

Social media is a very tricky battle ground, remember this fact: Both social media sites and "professional" bloggers are businesses--they need to earn an income. This is where you come in...

A non-pro blogger will blog about your food/service and be happy, a pro will want some kind of compensation, and many pro bloggers also offer "other" services like business consulting, marketing expertise, etc. Many times these services are intertwined with a simple favorable blog. I hope I've put a fine enough point on this.

In the past 3 months I've had several customers who were "over the moon" about our food/service, and promised to give us favourable reviews on sites listed by other posters in this thread. And they did too, gave us 5 stars, but the reviews only lasted a few minutes before they wre pulled down. I don't know why this is, but I have to say, I don't advertise with these sites or have listings with them. Again, I hope I've put a fine enough point on this.

I hope this helps you...