A Common Market Brand
When several independent coffee shops in Philadelphia felt threatened by plans of a national chain (guess who) moving into their neighborhoods, they banded together and found that they actually made more money in cooperative competition. By sharing marketing, promotional events, and promoting the unique characters and events at each shop, they generated more customers. They didn’t “steal” customers from one another. They kept customers who liked the unique characteristics or location of their shop and got more customers who were curious and wanted to sample the ambiance of the different shops, or who were in the area and had learned about the shop via the common marketing and promotions. (abstracted from a Main Street 2009 National Conference Presentation)
Closer to home we are beginning to see the impact of such cooperation and common branding with our publication 101 Unique Places to Dine in WV. Already we have received requests for 20,000 copies. The WV Tourist Bureau reports it is the most popular brochure they have. We have heard back from a couple of restaurants that they have seen an upswing in business since the pamphlet was published.
What about you? What ideas do you have for promoting restaurants and dining in WV?
Working in a Down Market
Across the nation, casual dining restaurants are trying to adjust to changes in customer behavior brought about by the recession while at the same time trying to counter the upscale food and beverage offerings of fast food/quick serve restaurants. QSR magazine web page reports that national chain casual dining restaurants have turned to smaller portion and value priced meals in the $4 to $7 dollar to generate traffic. Some offer discounts only for the lunch time crowd while Applebee's offers two for $20 dinners to bring in the evening traffic. Sales of appetizers are off by 24% to 40% but is being offset slightly by an 6% increase in higher margin alcohol sales. The emphasis is to generate traffic. Others report that customers are not moving to down-scale restaurants to save money, but they are dining out less frequently.
Tid Bits
When several independent coffee shops in Philadelphia felt threatened by plans of a national chain (guess who) moving into their neighborhoods, they banded together and found that they actually made more money in cooperative competition. By sharing marketing, promotional events, and promoting the unique characters and events at each shop, they generated more customers. They didn’t “steal” customers from one another. They kept customers who liked the unique characteristics or location of their shop and got more customers who were curious and wanted to sample the ambiance of the different shops, or who were in the area and had learned about the shop via the common marketing and promotions. (abstracted from a Main Street 2009 National Conference Presentation)
Closer to home we are beginning to see the impact of such cooperation and common branding with our publication 101 Unique Places to Dine in WV. Already we have received requests for 20,000 copies. The WV Tourist Bureau reports it is the most popular brochure they have. We have heard back from a couple of restaurants that they have seen an upswing in business since the pamphlet was published.
What about you? What ideas do you have for promoting restaurants and dining in WV?
Working in a Down Market
Across the nation, casual dining restaurants are trying to adjust to changes in customer behavior brought about by the recession while at the same time trying to counter the upscale food and beverage offerings of fast food/quick serve restaurants. QSR magazine web page reports that national chain casual dining restaurants have turned to smaller portion and value priced meals in the $4 to $7 dollar to generate traffic. Some offer discounts only for the lunch time crowd while Applebee's offers two for $20 dinners to bring in the evening traffic. Sales of appetizers are off by 24% to 40% but is being offset slightly by an 6% increase in higher margin alcohol sales. The emphasis is to generate traffic. Others report that customers are not moving to down-scale restaurants to save money, but they are dining out less frequently.
Tid Bits
- Restaurants turning to take out and catering to generate more sales.
- A trend in Catering is to do away with the buffet table and substitute smaller portion tasting stations featuring specialty or ethnic cuisine and stand up tables vs sit downs.
- Restaurants moving to smaller portion sampler plates.
- Buy local / locally grown is still big trend. A new term has been coined to describe the buy local consumers - Locovares
- Menu items for special customers catching on. Special kid’s nutrition meals, gluten free, vegetarian,etc.
- Beer gets respect. Beer is being used more in recipes and competing with wine as the beverage of choice with the meal. Move over Sommelier and make room for the Cicerone.
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