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Brook Priest advised on 23 Jan 2012
Expert in Full Service Restaurant Operations, Family Business Dynamics, & Cost Controls
Kyle has provided some very good ideas for marketing your catering services to local businesses. In addition to what he said, I would also recommend that you revise your catering menu online to be more specific as to what your price includes (will you drop off food for an extra cost - if yes, up to how far away? Or is there a delivery charge? Does the per person price include plates, napkins, flatware, condiments, etc?)
Be sure when you are reaching out to businesses that you are dealing with the decision maker. Unlike other purchasing decisions, catering lunches are often times set up and decided by a receptionist or admin person (especially law offices and accounting offices) and so small gifts of appreciation can go a long way in "buying" your way in the door.
For example, a quick google search turns up over 50 (maybe more), law offices within a 2 mile radius of your mall. Consider going around to all these law offices and handing out a coupon for one free dinner, stapled to a catering menu, inviting the receptionist to sample your lunch catering menu. It's very typical for a legal team to have a working lunch or order lunch in during a long deposition. The easier you make it for that person who is responsible for bringing lunch in, the more likely they will call you.
Next, because you are in a mall setting, and a quick google search indicates a lot of catering competition around you in the Arlington area, you might go about this from a different angle. Instead of trying to compete in an already full business catering field, you might consider adding a "take come" catering component to your restaurant. All this would require would be more "to go" containers, some labels, and a refrigerated display. You selected 4 - 6 of your most popular items and package them family style (in servings of 3- 4) and sell them ready to go. So when mom stops by to pick up something at the mall, she can quickly pick up pad thai and curry to take home to warm up for the family. This is a growing segment of the restaurant industry, and can be a lucrative addition to your sales mix. The nice thing is most Thai dishes are well suited for this because they do well when reheated. Assuming your mall has a lot of foot traffic, this might be the easiest way to increase sales without doing a lot of legwork.
Finally, when the season arrives, and you are at those festivals, make sure you have a fishbowl somewhere at your booth, to collect email addresses. Put a sign up that says "We do catering! Enter here to win a party for 12 people", and have people give you their name, phone number and email address. Hopefully you already are doing email marketing at your restaurant, but if you're not, you need to start, NOW. You will want to take those names set up an email marketing campaign through constant contact or mail chimp.
Be sure when you are reaching out to businesses that you are dealing with the decision maker. Unlike other purchasing decisions, catering lunches are often times set up and decided by a receptionist or admin person (especially law offices and accounting offices) and so small gifts of appreciation can go a long way in "buying" your way in the door.
For example, a quick google search turns up over 50 (maybe more), law offices within a 2 mile radius of your mall. Consider going around to all these law offices and handing out a coupon for one free dinner, stapled to a catering menu, inviting the receptionist to sample your lunch catering menu. It's very typical for a legal team to have a working lunch or order lunch in during a long deposition. The easier you make it for that person who is responsible for bringing lunch in, the more likely they will call you.
Next, because you are in a mall setting, and a quick google search indicates a lot of catering competition around you in the Arlington area, you might go about this from a different angle. Instead of trying to compete in an already full business catering field, you might consider adding a "take come" catering component to your restaurant. All this would require would be more "to go" containers, some labels, and a refrigerated display. You selected 4 - 6 of your most popular items and package them family style (in servings of 3- 4) and sell them ready to go. So when mom stops by to pick up something at the mall, she can quickly pick up pad thai and curry to take home to warm up for the family. This is a growing segment of the restaurant industry, and can be a lucrative addition to your sales mix. The nice thing is most Thai dishes are well suited for this because they do well when reheated. Assuming your mall has a lot of foot traffic, this might be the easiest way to increase sales without doing a lot of legwork.
Finally, when the season arrives, and you are at those festivals, make sure you have a fishbowl somewhere at your booth, to collect email addresses. Put a sign up that says "We do catering! Enter here to win a party for 12 people", and have people give you their name, phone number and email address. Hopefully you already are doing email marketing at your restaurant, but if you're not, you need to start, NOW. You will want to take those names set up an email marketing campaign through constant contact or mail chimp.
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Mark Wright advised on 24 Jan 2012
Business consultant to turnaround situations bringing to bear over 30 years of corporate and mid sized company leadership and success.
Make the customers that visit your restaurant aware that you offer catering. Create a piece that your waiters can hand to customers with their bill or have the manager approach customers and make the announcement and hand out a marketing piece to them. Most often people will need someone they can call at the restaurant to determine their menu, cost and logistics. Provide a phone number and email address that is monitored closely for messages. Make sure you have the details worked out about menu and how much food for how many people.
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Carter Hoerr advised on 27 Jan 2012
Experienced Business Manager; National Expert, Online Meal Ordering
Lots of great suggestions from Kyle and Brook!
Two more:
Two more:
- Consider signing up with one or more of the online catering aggregators (Vmeals, Seamless, Grubhub, etc.) to increase your exposure to regular catering orderers.
- Your lunchtime dine-in customers could/should be your advocates for catering; offer them some catering special either at the table or at checkout.
Carter Hoerr commented on 27 Jan 2012
Sorry, just realized I duplicated Mark's good advice on direct marketing to your dine-in customers!
Sorry, just realized I duplicated Mark's good advice on direct marketing to your dine-in customers!
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For some reason, I found myself laying awake in bed last night thinking about this question. Why? Because I'm trying to solve the same question for my wife's catering business right now.
I think that the best form of advertisement for a catering business is word-of-mouth. You have to have happy clients telling others how wonderful your food service is so that they, in turn, will choose to have you cater their events.
So, how do you get word-of-mouth advertising started? Well, what some people try to do is to give out free samples. So, for instance, these catering services might look up the first 10 local business in their phone book and cater lunches for their workplace. The problem with using a shot gun approach like this with such little research is that you don't really know if these businesses will ever need your catering service or if there are connected enough to anyone else to be able to tell them how awesome your service is.
So, tweak the method a bit. Make it smarter. Give out free samples of your catering, but only when you know it will have the most impact. I recommend finding businesses who will often have catering needs and who are well connected with the business community. Better yet, find sets of these business who in the same network and are connected to one another. Then when the businesses talk with one another, you'll seem to already be everywhere in that community and you'll create an illusion that you are more established than you already are.
So how do you find these sets of well-connected businesses that regularly need catering? That might be a little tricky. I'd recommend that you find and insider who would be willing to clue you in on who's connected to who. Reach out to local entrepreneurial and business communities, start shaking hands, and see whose names keep coming up. If there is a community event planner, then they are probably the most connected member of the group, (and coincidentally, the most in need of your catering services), ask them to help you identify these groups and often they'll be glad to help.
I think that the best form of advertisement for a catering business is word-of-mouth. You have to have happy clients telling others how wonderful your food service is so that they, in turn, will choose to have you cater their events.
So, how do you get word-of-mouth advertising started? Well, what some people try to do is to give out free samples. So, for instance, these catering services might look up the first 10 local business in their phone book and cater lunches for their workplace. The problem with using a shot gun approach like this with such little research is that you don't really know if these businesses will ever need your catering service or if there are connected enough to anyone else to be able to tell them how awesome your service is.
So, tweak the method a bit. Make it smarter. Give out free samples of your catering, but only when you know it will have the most impact. I recommend finding businesses who will often have catering needs and who are well connected with the business community. Better yet, find sets of these business who in the same network and are connected to one another. Then when the businesses talk with one another, you'll seem to already be everywhere in that community and you'll create an illusion that you are more established than you already are.
So how do you find these sets of well-connected businesses that regularly need catering? That might be a little tricky. I'd recommend that you find and insider who would be willing to clue you in on who's connected to who. Reach out to local entrepreneurial and business communities, start shaking hands, and see whose names keep coming up. If there is a community event planner, then they are probably the most connected member of the group, (and coincidentally, the most in need of your catering services), ask them to help you identify these groups and often they'll be glad to help.
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Some great ideas on how to improve your catering sales business can be found here: whinot.com
But for your specific situation, it sounds like you just need to formalize your marketing for the catering side of the business. One type of catering customer which you didn't talk about are businesses who bring in catering for lunch. Reaching lunch catering customers should be easier than your dine-in or take out operations. Why? Because business to business prospects are easier to identify than consumers. Here's what I would do:
This process will generate awareness with these businesses, but you will have to call back on a periodic basis to stay top of mind. The first order will come when you are top-of-mind when someone is making lunch plans in a hurry. Repeat orders will come when you become the go-to restaurant for that business in the future.
But for your specific situation, it sounds like you just need to formalize your marketing for the catering side of the business. One type of catering customer which you didn't talk about are businesses who bring in catering for lunch. Reaching lunch catering customers should be easier than your dine-in or take out operations. Why? Because business to business prospects are easier to identify than consumers. Here's what I would do:
- Generate a list of businesses in Arlington with over 5 employees who would be likely to order lunch in for their customers or employees (e.g., Advertising companies, Architects, Consultants). You can pay generate this list through a service like Experian (www.experian.com) for about $350, but I would start with combing the Arlington VA Chamber of Commerce website (www.arlingtonchamber.org) for these businesses.
- Pick ten of these businesses and call them. Ask them a few questions: Do you order lunch in? Who do you typically order from? Is there a formal process for new restaurants to be considered? Could I drop off a menu for you?
- Create a catering specific menu, if you don't have one already. Focus on a few of your top selling items and sell by the number of people, not the dish. Be sure to have a few vegetarian and non-spicy options.
- Drop that menu off at the businesses who agreed for you to do so.
- Try and get a few orders to learn from these businesses about what they liked and didn't like about your lunch catering. Fix the things that they didn't like. Focus more on what they liked.
- Go back to the list of businesses in your area and either put together a mail campaign or call them directly like you did with the first ten. You don't have to spend a lot of money on this. You can engage your family or friends to stamp envelopes or make phone calls.
This process will generate awareness with these businesses, but you will have to call back on a periodic basis to stay top of mind. The first order will come when you are top-of-mind when someone is making lunch plans in a hurry. Repeat orders will come when you become the go-to restaurant for that business in the future.
t...@yahoo.com commented on 25 Jan 2012
I appreciate the advise. They are all doable and cost nothing.
I appreciate the advise. They are all doable and cost nothing.
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you can think about targeting the specific communities. Example you can provide tailor made thai foods for Europeans/Asians/Americans. For example, some of the communities who do prefer catering may like Asian foods and one or two dishes in Thai whereas other dishes from other Asian communities. You can partner with them for a catering where you can take care of Thai specific food. And there by increase the client base in catering business.
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That was supposed to be "Take-Home" catering!
Thanks. Do you think at the festivals I should solicite email addresses since they may not in my targetted market?
Interesting, I made an assumption that the festivals you participate in are in your local area.
Here's my suggestion, ask for a zip code in addition to the email address. After each festival, only add those names that are within your market to your email list. Keep the rest for future reference. Pick a name randomly for the prize. Worse case scenario, you pick a winner that is too far away and doesn't redeem the prize and you end up with a bunch of names that have no value. Best case scenario, you end up opening a second restaurant a year or two from now and you start with a list of names of potential customers that you know love Thai food!
The great thing is this costs almost nothing to do, so there is no downside.