New Internet technology is revolutionizing the way independent restaurateurs think about how to market their establishments. If restaurants don’t adapt quickly, they’ll lose clientele to competitors that continuously refresh websites, grow customer databases and creatively reward loyal visitors.

Web presence is becoming more of a necessity than a marketing bell-and-whistle for restaurants. The avenues of direct marketing and market analysis as well as the means of establishing mindshare through more frequent customer contact make the world wide web an invaluable, sleepless tool to help build your business. And those who don’t believe that better wake up and smell the mint purée. 

Compared to traditional avenues of marketing—magazines, flyers, television—the web is the most affordable and effective 24-hour marketing solution available to independent restaurants. Customer databases and email marketing have the potential to make return-on-investment soar. According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA) survey of Technology Trends in Restaurant Operations (2002), 52% of restaurants grossing over $5 million used email to improve communications with customers, whereas a mere 20% of those grossing less than $500,000 adopted email as a marketing tool.

The power lies in their ability to capture customer information and tailor promotions to those very customers. It allows owners and managers to strengthen relationships with their customers even when they’re not in the restaurant. Timely updates through newsletters turn happy customers into loyal customers.

As a measurable medium, web-based marketing allows for direct customer targeting via email campaigns, RSVPs for special events and promotional coupons. Web statistics tools such as Awstats (Advanced Web Statistics) or Urchin Stats can be used to plot data into dozens of manageable and informative tables and graphs, and allow for detailed analyses of sites’ activities by geography, time of day, browser type, referring pages and more.

Buckhead Life Restaurant Group of Atlanta, GA, applies the email strategy very successfully. The group sends out sharp-looking HTML email newsletters in an effort to cross-promote all 11 of its restaurants. The newsletters focus on special offers, wine-tasting events and venue updates. Buckhead's commitment to high quality and regular newsletters acts as a mirror to their dedication to customer service inside the restaurants.  The group demonstrates that web marketing is not simply displaying menus and information on the web. It’s about creating strong relationships and enhancing customer service.

The display of menus, photographs and general information is of course a valuable aspect of a restaurant website. The NRA survey highlights one key point however: restaurant operators are often unaware of which aspects of their web marketing initiatives drive the highest returns. The tight email/high revenues correlation (page 34, Table 1) goes unnoticed by restaurant operators who in the same survey ranked email as the lowest valued function of a website (page 34, Figure 1).

This obvious disconnect behind the realities of web marketing and the perceptions is a reflection of how this industry lags compared to others in capitalizing on web-based marketing. The hands-on nature and long hours of the restaurant business leave little time, budget and energy for marketing activities.

The Incredible Tightness of Being
The primary reason restaurants aren’t able to develop and maintain quality websites is the lack of financial and physical resources to dedicate to web marketing. Trust is often placed in a brother, a friend or manager who is familiar with surfing the net and is willing to take a shot at creating a site for $500. Marketing initiatives such as websites and email newsletters need commitment to succeed; they have to be nurtured and have to evolve with a business. Even high-quality sites that are developed by freelance designers or small web development shops for $1,000 to $2,000 don’t provide the post-development commitment to site maintenance and enhancement. There is simply no need for a full-time director of marketing, let alone a full-time webmaster. Such resources are simply too costly. It is usually cheaper to find a part-time supplier.

Trusting a freelance designer who knows little about the restaurant business, or relying on your web-savvy bartender who may quit the next week is risky. As a result, many restaurant sites either never materialize, or if they do, remain nothing more than expensive Internet addresses, lacking purpose, customer value and bottom-line impact.

The answer? Today there are a number of restaurant-focused suppliers who are knowledgeable and passionate about effective web marketing for this industry. They are beginning to demonstrate dedication to continuous commitment to their clients’ websites. Restaurateurs are demanding better quality designs. As the spread of broadband technology begins to drive more of the general population to the web, visitors may very well make their decision to eat at your restaurant based on the quality of your website. Choose a restaurant-focused web partner as if your business depended on it, because more and more, it does.