Restaurants and Recessions

Local store marketing, being the Mayor of Mayberry, is a great tool for good times. If you have a lot of customers coming through your doors, you're almost sure to get 10, 20, even 33% more money from the same volume of customers. Increased frequency and higher ticket average being the chief reasons.

But local store marketing was really made for gaining new customers with very little money. And in a down market, like now, or when opening a business, there are very few marketing philosophies that offer the benefits of local store marketing.

When times are tough, there's a great opportunity to grab both market share and share of wallet. Market share being new customers, share of wallet being frequency of visit. In a down market, some restaurants don't make it - you can be there to pick up the slack. In a down market, when people are more conservative with their dining dollars, consumers tend to choose restaurants where they feel at home, where they know the owner.

In a down market, increasing the frequency of your message almost always leads to both higher revenues now and higher revenues when the worm turns and things get better. Study after study shows this to be true in every recession since WWII.

In a down market, surrounding your customers, increasing your presence, leads customers to believe that you're strong in tough times. It reminds them that you support what they support. Plus, since other restaurants are decreasing their advertising, you're now the only voice speaking. Advertising is actually more effective in a down market.

But it's also true that you have less money to spend on advertising. So do what great Mayors do: get out of your four walls and shake hands and kiss babies. Amp up your customer experience so every customer feels loved every time.

There is ample opportunity to make lemonade out of the lemons from the economy. And a solid local store marketing plan is the perfect vehicle for making it happen.