Marketing Plan for a Restaurant: Strategies, Analysis, and Suggestions

This report presents a comprehensive marketing plan for a restaurant, focusing on advertising strategies and their effectiveness. It analyzes the current advertising campaign, including the use of newspapers and magazines, and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. The report identifies the target audience, emphasizing social, active, and family-oriented customers, and proposes improvements to advertising media, including billboard advertising and online presence. It explores product offerings, market segmentation, and the product life cycle, providing insights into enhancing the restaurant's campaign through public relations and ICT. Furthermore, the report suggests improvements in distribution channels and sales support, offering actionable recommendations to attract customers and increase the restaurant's visibility and success. The report also includes a discussion on market research and how to conduct it effectively. The aim is to provide a better advertising strategy to increase customers.

MARKETING PLANNING FOR SERVICES

Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Product Offering..........................................................................................................................2
Market Segments offered............................................................................................................2
Product life cycle.........................................................................................................................2
Advertising Campaign (Newspaper, magazine).........................................................................3
Advertising Media, Public Relations and PR Audiences............................................................4
Enhancing client’s (restaurant’s) campaign through public relations.........................................5
Distribution Channels, Sales Support, Information and Communication Technology (ICT).....6
Information and communication technology:.............................................................................6
Market Research..........................................................................................................................6
Where, when, and how such a survey could be carried out:.......................................................7
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

Executive Summary
The purpose of this assessment is to study the various advertising campaigns and to
suggest the best advertising strategy to the operator. In this assignment, we will be working on
the advertising strategies for a restaurant and discuss how we can promote the restaurant to the
right target audience with minimum cost and maximum effects. The strategy which we will be
using within our campaign will focus on social, active and energetic customers, the target
audience we will be attracting will age between 18-45. Our target audience will also include
families with children. Our focus will be to communicate our market offerings to the customers.
Conveying our message to the audience about our products and services that we would be
offering. We would also give out some promotional offers and scheme which will attract the
target audience. Since we have used the service of this restaurant, we have liked the food and the
ambience, they have very less customers. After a deep study we have understood that the
problem lies in their advertising techniques and they are not able to communicate properly about
their product and services to their audience. We would be working on the same and suggesting
them a better advertising strategy to increase their customers.
INTRODUCTION
Advertising campaign for a restaurant has become a challenge today when there are so
many restaurants in one street. Hence when we talk about advertising techniques it becomes
important for us to attract the customers who would walking at out restaurant at least once so that
they experience our products and services. We will provide them with good quality food with
authentic taste. We should not rely on advertising but also work on other parameters such as the
communication techniques, information floating to the customers, distribution channels. Chiefs
that we would be hiring in our restaurant etc. The advertisement will be on the front page of the
newspaper so that even the newspaper seller reads the advertisement and generates interest in
visiting our restaurant. In the present report, the Ledbury is taken into consideration. This is one
of the famous restaurant in London. Adopting this restaurant will assist the reader to gain
understanding about the ad campaigns.
Main Body
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Product Offering
The cited restaurant offers various products to our customer’s is good food with multiple
cuisines.We also offer them ambience which has light music in the background and best service
in the city. Being in hospitality sector service is only the main product. Providing the best service
is the motive of out restaurant. Product offerings for the restaurant should include light meals for
the brunch time, tea time snacks, meals for employees during lunch time, attractive snacks for
the students etc. these meals can be divided during the hours of the day to ensure that there is
walk-in of the customers throughout the day (England and George, 2007). The product offerings
have wide range of choices so that the customer can choose their own meal. Happy hours should
be given to increase the audience during certain hours. Presently, the management of the
Ledbury is going to introduce vegetarian sizzler in their restaurant. The stated product is
produced with a motive to enhance the customers to the cited restaurant.
Market Segments offered
Market segmentation plays an important role in restaurant industry. These segmentations include
full service, quick service, eating and drinking place and retail host (Granzin, Kent and Kenneth,
1982). Full service restaurant includes full course meals and served to the customers on the table.
These customers expect full service and expect high quality service because they do not have
rush. When we talk about quick service, it usually includes buffet and take out service. Here the
customers are on self-service and they serve themselves with their own choice. Eating and
drinking place gives catering facilities to their customers. Example the restaurant will prove food
service to a company for their meal. Retail hosts include franchise in other cities. The owner of
the restaurants has handful of restaurants in the nearby city which includes few of eating and
drinking places and quick service outlets. The newspaper advertisement will float to all the cities
which will create an awareness about the restaurant upgradations to a huge target audience of
many cities (Granzin, Kent and Painter, 1999). This advertisement will include their extended
services and retail host addresses. The stated organization will segment the market on the basis
demographic factors. Here, the eating habits of the people will be analysed and people with the
age of 17 to 40 years will be targeted.
Product life cycle
Product life cycle includes 4 main stages. Product life cycle helps the company to
understand in which phase they are currently in and what is required to improve it. The
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restaurant is in the maturity stage currently and it is important for them to maintain it. They
should take appropriate measures which will help them maintain their standards and do not enter
the decline stage.
The four stages of product life cycle are:
 Introduction
Introduction stage is the stage when the restaurant has just started initially.
 Growth
In this stage the restaurant experiences increase in sale with increase in time. Many
companies achieve their breakeven point at this stage and the restaurant has also achieved the
same.
 Maturity
In the maturity stage the growth in the sale is somewhat stagnant. This is a very crucial
stage for the restaurant. It is important for the restaurant to maintain its standards so that they
maintain themselves in the maturity stage and do not decrease their sale and enter the decline
stage (Williams, 1998). All the changes and upgradations are to be made in this stage to ensure
that they maintain their standards.
 Decline
Decline stage is the stage where the restaurant experiences drop in its sale with due
course in time. When a company enters this stage, it experiences losses and many of them must
shut down.
Advertising Campaign (Newspaper, magazine)
 Form of Advertisement: The cited restaurant has placed its advertisement on regional
newspaper. Providing the advertisement in newspaper or magazine is the traditional way
of advertising which is not much beneficial for the restaurant in this fancy and modern
edge (Haley, Russell, 1998). People mostly got attracted towards the business through
attractive posters and billboard advertisement. The advertisement is not printed on the
first or last page of the paper; instead it is on the middle page and also takes half page for
advertisement which is insufficient to notice.
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 Content and style of the advertisement: Though the advertisement seems attractive due
to the font style and images used in the newspaper printing but the black and white print
of the ad does not leave much impact on readers’ eyes. Today, it is a world of doing
attractive things in more sophisticated way and here, the black and white advertisement
doesn’t leave much impact
 What message has been conveyed? One of the most significant elements of
advertisement is the message conveyed by advertisement for its target audience. The
restaurant advertisement printed on newspaper has meaningful and to the point contents
(Kenneth, 1991). It stated just what customer wants to know or what in a restaurant. Food
provided with the delightful environment and inside pictures of restaurant looks sufficient
to attract people toward restaurant.
 Target Audience: It is a quick service restaurant and targeted families, middle income
people, employers and students by providing variety of foods with reasonable price.
Older people also prefer to visit the restaurant due to delightful environment and healthy
and nutritious food available at restaurant and there is special seating arrangements for
people need privacy or candle light dinners and all.
Advertising Media, Public Relations and PR Audiences
Advertising plays a key role in preparing restaurant’s marketing plan and to attract the
targeted customer base, restaurant must engage in the advertisement medium that promotes its
product and services in most effective way. Advertisement help to gain publicity and customer
attention but at the same time it can open door for criticism. The organization can drag into
criticism if they caught providing any false claims in product promotion. Customer satisfaction
research is important to conduct for restaurant and there are various reasons behind it. The
restaurant has selected newspaper and magazine advertisement as a media to promote its
products and services. Advertising through newspaper is a traditional way of promoting
company and also has its own advantages like can reach towards the more audience (Henry,
Walter, 1976). But, today, increasing use of technology and online media the readership of
newspaper is declining. This is especially true in current conditions where more and more people
are switching towards online publication from print publication. Another problem with the
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newspaper advertisement is poor printed image quality which I already stated as a drawback for
our restaurant’s advertisement. Next is no control over ad placement.
Advantages of billboard advertisement over newspaper advertisement:
Billboard advertisement is a cost-effective way of communicating to targeted customer
base. It also help to reach towards large audience, big holding at rush places like bus stands, on
roads and railway station can took gaze of people and more people get to know about restaurant
(Miller, Kenneth and Granzin, 1999).
Low cost is big advantage of billboard advertisement. Active response is strength of this
advertising medium. People who are viewing billboards are already active in their surrounding
places. Whether they are standing at metro stations, or lining up at the local night club, people
are likely to notice billboards out of sheet boredom.
Enhancing client’s (restaurant’s) campaign through public relations
Public relation strategies help restaurant to save money on elaborate advertisements.
Following suggested methods can be used by restaurant:
Online Presence: Restaurant must have to create a new easy to navigate website which can
contain all the information about restaurant including its products, services, location map,
information about suppliers, location, past achievement, customer response and feedback and
many more information to attract people.
Promotions: Develop special promotions and word of mouth publicity. For example, providing
loyalty cards or coupens to regular customers.
Community Presence: Increase presence is social activity and within nearby community. Take
sponsorship for small public events.
Utilizing the Media: Restaurant can invite food critics from television for a visit. Conduct a
special event at restaurant, including special holiday events.
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Distribution Channels, Sales Support, Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Distribution channels and sales support areas use different mechanism to reach towards
customers or to take product towards customers. Distribution model of a restaurant should strive
to increase visitors towards the restaurant. It is generated through increasing brand loyalty and
reputation within targeted customer segment. It is possible through experimenting with different
distribution channels (Swayer, Alan G., and Stanley, 2003).
Food supplier is first channel in your distribution activity. Quality of your food decides the
multiple visits of customer to your restaurant. In restaurant industry, distribution channel starts
with the food suppliers. Hence, selecting and contracting a quality food provider is key and first
step towards building good reputation. Next, distribution channels are advertising, internet
marketing which we have already discussed in different sections in this report.
Information and communication technology:
Direct and simple relationship exists between ICT functions and business performance.
ICT methodology initiates the use of different software and dataset to store information of
computer. The methodologies used in the ICT impact to overcome the shortcomings of restaurant
and lead the restaurant to create strong brand position with the help of computing technologies
(Schiebe, Karl, 1990). The methodology can be tested in a dataset from hotel restaurant by using
a non-parametric technique called Data Envelopment Analysis. ICT help to redesign and
streamline the operations conducted at restaurant, it increase the billing and other operations
conducted at restaurant, can provide fastest booking services. Customers can book their table or
hall for functions from restaurant website, can make online payment which save time of
customers as well as employees and restaurant can arrange faster services for them.
Market Research
Customer satisfaction research is important to conduct for restaurant and there are various
reasons behind it. It helps restaurant to stay connected with their customer. Obtaining useful
feedback from customers and clients lead restaurant towards building actionable plan or
strategies to improve their performance. One targeted segment is suggested to our client here to
ask feedback and implement changes.
The target customer base with whom restaurant can conduct survey is middle income
families. In the survey restaurant can ask questions to the customers regarding products and
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services offered by restaurant, behaviour of the staff, did they satisfied with the restaurant
environment? Ask the targeted customer base about providing suggestions from their side to
improve quality of food and services.
Where, when, and how such a survey could be carried out:
The methods used for measuring customer satisfaction should be based on the
characteristics of customer base and the data restaurant need to gather. The survey should be
conducted as per the time availability of the customers. There is no particular place or situation
required for conducting survey or asking response from the customers and it can be gathered
through variety of ways (Sharpe, Louis and Kent, 2004). First, customers can be asked to provide
feedback once they finish their meal. Feedback can also be obtained from customer focus groups,
customer usage and attitude surveys. Other forms of asking feedback or suggestions from
customers are through telephonic surveys, e-mails, personal interviews. The feedback can be
stored in restaurant database. Common methods of gathering information about customer
satisfaction are group interviews or direct contact between customer and staff, mail-based
surveys.
Surveys and questionnaire are most common methods used to assess the level of
customer satisfaction with restaurant’s products and services. It also helps to determine the
factors responsible for customers dissatisfaction. Also help to compare and rank the provider
with its competitors. Help to estimate the distribution of characteristics in a potential customer
population. Restaurant can determine its service standard through market research.
Recommendation
We would recommend the restaurant to open few stalls in busy areas such as bus stations, train
stations, gardens etc. where the audience can experience the taste of their food. At this stalls they
can have their newspaper articles or flyers which will have their restaurant address so that the
people can walk-in at their restaurants if they are impressed with the food quality and the service.
The restaurants can provide food combos at a cheaper price, this initiative is taken for those
audience who are students with pocket money. The restaurants can keep some “Grab and Go”
pouches for employees who can buy these pouches on the way to their office and have them
during their lunch hours.
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CONCLUSION
This assessment was to improve the advertising strategies of the restaurant and suggest them a
new strategy which will help them to generate awareness in the minds of the people and increase
their sale for their restaurants. Hence we suggested them to go for newspaper advertising with
some free food coupons which will generate interest in the minds of target audience and increase
walk-ins at their restaurants. There will also be some combo offers on the meals that the
restaurants would be offering. Discounts on the eating and drinking places will be given out to
encourage more tie ups with organisations.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Granzin, Kent L. and John J. Painter (1999), “Using Benefits as a Basis for Multi-Criterion
Market Segmentation,” a paper presented at the annual conference of the Southwestern
Marketing Association, Houston, TX.
Granzin, Kent L. and Kenneth D. Bahn (1982), “Personal Values as an Explanation of Food
Usage Habits,”Home Economics Research Journal, 10 (June), 401–10.
Henry, Walter A. (1976). “Cultural Values Do Correlate with Consumer Behavior,”Journal of
Marketing Research, 13 (May), 121–27.
Kenneth W. C. (1991), “Beyond Benefit Segmentation,”Journal of Advertising Research, 11,
(August), 3–8.
Sharpe, Louis K. and Kent L. Granzin (2004), “Brand Attributes That Determine
Purchase,”Journal of Advertising Research, 14 (April), 39–42.
Shaw, Russell E. and David Pinto (2008), “Where's Your Next Meal Coming From?”Nielsen
Researcher (No. 1), 2–19.
England, George W. (2007). “Personal Value Systems of AmericanManagers,”Academy of
Management Journal, 10 (March), 53–68.
Haley, Russell I. (1998), “Benefit Segmentation,”Journal of Marketing, 32 (July), 30–35.
Kabish, Richard A. (1981), Exploring Human Values, Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing
Co
Miller, Kenneth E., and Kent L. Granzin (1999), “Simultaneous Loyalty and Benefit
Segmentation of Retail Store Customers,”Journal of Retailing, 55 (Spring), 47–60.
Schiebe, Karl E. (1990), Beliefs and Values, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Swayer, Alan G., and Stanley Arbeit (2003), “Benefit Segmentation in a Retail Banking
Market,”Combined Proceedings of the American Marketing Association, 1973, Spring
and Fall Conferences, 124–27.
Williams, R. (1998), “Patterns of Behavioral Characteristics as Indicants of Recreation
Preference: A Canonical Analysis,”Research Quarterly, 49 (May), 135–45.
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