Marketing Advice By Business Type

Marketing a Sicilian Restaurant

Marketing plays a central role in any company. But when it comes to a Sicilian restaurant, your ability to market your brand can be the deciding factor between barely making it and achieving stellar industry success.

Marketing is not a siloed business function. It's a cross-organizational discipline with ramifications for your balance sheet and earnings statement.

It's not hard to convince most business owners that marketing plays a vital role in strategic planning. With marketing pressure at an all-time high, your business needs to incorporate tactics designed to position a Sicilian restaurant at the top of the heap.

Price Matching

In a difficult economy, consumers expect businesses to engage in a certain amount of price matching. The principle is simple: Since pricing is a primary factor in product selection, your business agrees to match advertised competitor pricing. If they can find a similar value proposition from another Sicilian restaurant, buyers will jump on it. Today's consumers are educated and informed. They use social media and other tools to identify the best pricing, making it imperative for small business to consider the value of a well-publicized price matching strategy.

Public Relations Strategies

The beauty of PR is that it can raise awareness of your offerings in a very credible and cost-effective fashion. For example, if you buy a premium mailing list and use it to conduct a direct mail campaign, that's marketing. On the other hand, if the Sunday paper runs a story about your Sicilian restaurant, that's PR. Since PR leverages media outlets, it may cost nothing to acquire media placements that feature interesting storylines about your products and brand. The trick is learning how to pitch storylines to media professionals without sounding too promotional or sales-oriented.

Generating Buzz

Good buzz is a mythical creature in marketing circles. Although it's rumored to exist, it's hard to nail down. You've heard it said before: Word of mouth is the best form of promotion for products and brands. For a Sicilian restaurant, meaningful brand conversations have the ability to transform the impact of your marketing efforts. The process begins with developing communication vehicles and mechanisms that invite discussion. With minimal effort, you can instigate conversations through social media and other communication vehicles favored by today's consumers.

Share this article


Additional Resources for Entrepreneurs

Lists of Venture Capital and Private Equity Firms

Franchise Opportunities

Contributors

Business Glossary