Many times in business, and in life, we over complicate the easiest things. What makes things even more complicated is the massive amounts of information available to us everywhere we look. When it comes to marketing it seems that everyone claims to have the best ideas, newest strategies or a fail safe system to grow sales. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. That is really the essence of marketing. Testing ideas, measuring their success and evaluating whether they generated the results you were looking for.

At the end of the day, when you’re done filtering through all of the “latest and greatest” marketing programs, remember that it can all be boiled down to just 4 indisputable ways that you can actually grow sales. Any other way you can imagine is just a variation of one of these 4.

Here they are:

New Customers: Increase the number of new customers that visit your restaurant and make a purchase.

Lost or Inactive Customers: Reduce the number of lost or inactive customers so that you are always gaining more customers than you are losing.

Frequency: Increase the number of times a customer visits your restaurant in a given period.

Spend: Increase the amount of money a customer spends each time they visit your restaurant.

Sound too easy? If you can start from this basic framework you can then begin to build a complete “full circle” marketing campaign. One that starts from a very simple place and then guides you to create a marketing program that touches all of the critical areas of sales growth.

It is important to address each of these areas in any ongoing marketing plan. Each area can present both opportunities and pitfalls. Ignore any one of them and you can see your sale erode along with your profits.

Learn more on this topic in the Resource Center as a Member of Restaurantpartner.com

Become a Member Today! Secure Online Enrollment Form