Home Grown Marketing vs. Network Marketing

Home-grown marketing efforts are not only a good idea but essential to the success of your restaurant. You have to make sure that you're getting the "work" out to as many people as possible on a regular basis. Business may be good now but if there is a slow down of any kind, you can't be caught off guard. Some examples of home-grown marketing are flyers and/or menu distribution days, coupons for slower times/days, updating your website with current events, etc. Also, commenting on sites like Linkedin, Facebook, etc. will put your restaurant name out there. Network marketing is what we do. We don't own a restaurant but we promote them using a national directory that shows local results. The power of a directory like ours is worth its weight in gold. The exposure you get is much more than flyer distribution or a standard business directory because we're delivering restaurant content. When our users open a menu, they're either looking to be convinced to dine in your restaurant or they've decided but just want to confirm what they'll be eating. Now compare this to traditional advertising. Newspapers, magazine, etc. have circulations statistics matched with readership numbers attached. For example, a local newspaper may have a circulation of 100k but a 2.2 person readership. That means 2.2 people can read one copy (on average). The concern for you should be out of all of these numbers, how many people are reading/seeing my restaurant ad and how many will be a "buyer"? Network marketing is less expansive and gives you the "buyers" - not readers. You want people that are looking for a restaurant. You want people looking for a coupon. These are your current and future customers that will dine MORE than they have in the past. They need reasons to do so. Lastly, network marketing can help you market your restaurant to those new customers that don't know your restaurant's name or even that you exist. If a network directory can bring 50-100 new, recurring customer's each month/year, what is that worth to you?