This is a very important question that does not have a clear answer. There is no one best anything, concerning restaurant marketing. There are many different choices, and each of them serve a specific purpose: newspaper, radio, television, free standing marketing inserts, magazines, billboards, coupon mailers, like Money Mailer and Val-Pak. These methods of marketing are pieces of Integrated Restaurant Marketing and you may want to do each of them at some specific time. If your sales need a boost immediately you may want to do a coupon mailer through Val Pak or Money Mailer. It is suggested that you do this in a well-planned manner; that you have a strategy, that you can measure performance and that you do it on 100% trade. If they do not want to trade 100%, then don't do it. Salespeople will trade for services in direct proportion to the perception they have of your restaurant. If they perceive your restaurant with a high value rating, you will have no trouble trading. If you are not a "good" restaurant, trade may be very difficult.

Before you place any restaurant marketing of this kind, be certain they match your demographic/psychographic target market ,and then they must also fit into your restaurant marketing strategy. To raise sales during the slow nights: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, you may want to limit your Val-Pak/Money Mailers to this time-frame. This type of advertising will boost sales, but making a profit without a 100% trade may be very difficult.

You need to figure a return-on-investment for every restaurant marketing activity, but your own marketing strategy should be the number one reason to do marketing. If you do not have arestaurant marketing strategy, it is possible that every penny you put into marketing is a gamble.

It takes patience, but you can determine which restaurant marketing campaigns will help you to reach the highest-profit marketing mix for your restaurant. To accomplish this in the shortest period of time, I suggest that you carefully track every marketing event. Look at every campaign that might make sense to reach your target market. Carefully test every one of them. Each time that you have another successful marketing campaign, you gain another way that you can acquire new customers that you can rely on for life. Your customers become a fantastic, valuable asset. It is very important that you understand this very important aspect of Integrated Restaurant Marketing.

Imagine having an opportunity to buy an asset, say a piece of land or a government bond or an antique guaranteed to be worth $100,000 ten years from now - what would you expect to pay for it today? So, a marketing campaign consistently gives you 10 good new customers a month ... the average customer is worth say $100 each, a month, $12,000 a year, $120,000 in 10 years. What should you be willing to invest to get such an asset? If it takes you 6 months of experimentation and $3,000 in expense before you get it working right for you, is that good or bad? What if it takes $6,000? The people who get rich in the restaurant business will take a very sensible, patient "investor approach" patiently getting one marketing campaign after another working consistently for them.

Being more sophisticated in your development of restaurant marketing campaigns, marketing strategies, and media selection is just one of many financial "quantum leaps" you can make. And I want to tell you that the willingness to learn such marketing methods, which are comparatively sophisticated for the foodservice industry, gives you a huge competitive edge - because most restaurant operators just won't bother. As I see it, there are several "positions" that you can take in foodservice One, you can be a self-employed working person and service provider, make good money per hour of your work, but always be dependent on (and worried about) where your next customer is coming from. Two, you can multiply yourself and have people working for you, earn an even better week-to-week income, maybe even build up some equity, but you will still be limited. Or three, you can become a master marketer of your restaurant and be able to get financial leverage, using sophisticated marketing techniques. It's the person eager to be in that third group that I am personally excited about working with. I honestly believe you can net $300,000 a year with no more work than "making" $60,000 a year in the restaurant business. Only you can decide how you want to live your life.

If you are a restaurant owner, then I can name the two things to be a serious student of, if you'd like having very, very big bank balances:

One) self-improvement ... improving your own self-image, self-confidence, communication, training, and people skills;

and

two) restaurant marketing strategy, bringing in new customers and taking care of your regular customers because that's where the real big bucks are.