Out of Site

Web sites are strong allies in an operation's marketing arsenal and invaluable when it comes to communicating with guests.

Restaurants and Institutions

Erin J. Shea
Associate Editor

Years ago, Here to Serve Restaurants was seen as cutting edge when it came to the Web. The Atlanta-based multiconcept operator had a home page on the Internet helping computer-users find its restaurants. Fast forward to today. With explosive growth in technology and Internet usage, a single static page is of little value.

Besides basic information—where, what and how much—diners look to restaurant Web sites to provide a knowing glimpse of what they might expect in terms of personality and style. For operators, a well-designed site promotes the brand and builds business as well.

“Before we revamped our Web site it was just a basic page telling visitors who we are,” explains Sari Bernstein, Here to Serve’s director of marketing. As the group grew to six restaurants—Prime, Twist, Noche, Goldfish, Shout and recently launched Peri Peri Chicken—the Web was an ideal place to promote the whole portfolio of concepts.

“The www.heretoserverestaurants.com site was developed to market each operation,” she says. “Now when someone checks the site for Prime, they’ll come across the other restaurants’ sites.”

Packaging all brands in one spot and using each operation’s logo as a navigation tool allows the group to introduce each concept. Clicking a logo leads to a brief description, menu items, professionally staged photos, as well as directions and online reservation capability.

Evolving technology—and the foodservice industry’s adoption of it—has opened more online possibilities for operators, resulting in a new generation of Web sites geared to providing entertainment and interactive communication as well as information.

For example, Chef-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s site (www.jean-georges.com) credits the composer (messj) of its background music. In addition to menus from each of his restaurants, Daniel Boulud’s site (www.danielnyc.com) recently promoted Boulud’s upcoming appearance on a television show, “Making It Big.” Click the “Kitchen” link on the site for St. Louis restaurant Eleven Eleven Mississippi and watch full-motion video of Executive Chef Ivy Magruder rolling pasta.

Many operators use sites to promote special events such as wine dinners or catering capabilities, both of which can become important revenue sources for restaurants. Merchandise is another avenue that operators are exploring, from prepared foods bearing the restaurant’s name to T-shirts, rocking chairs, music and more. The possibilities, like the technology, expand almost daily.

Information Supertollway
In 1999, the creators of www.Bostonchefs.com viewed their Web site as a simple way to bring together members of Boston’s restaurant community. Now a subscriber-based portal for Boston-area restaurants, Bostonchefs .com invites restaurants to join its group for a monthly fee. Visitors have access to more than 60 restaurant Web sites designed by Paul Schiavone, president and general manager of the site, and his team.

Each restaurant has a unique online portfolio. The site allows guests to tour menus by showcasing specialties via pictures and descriptions while biographies tell the story not only of the chef but provide a glimpse of the restaurant’s history and supply contact information. Bostonchefs.com generates 75,000 unique visits a month.

Foremost, Schiavone says, the site is a marketing tool for all of the restaurants, designed for each operation to capitalize on traffic that results from search-engine queries. “With Bostonchefs, a consumer can visit not only their specific restaurant but be exposed to others as well.”

Papa’s Got a Brand New Brand
Creating a Web site that serves as a portal is a common trend in site development for operations with more than one concept. Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (www.leye.com), the Chicago-based multiconcept operator, uses an interactive survey on its site to familiarize users with all its operations.

The Tempt Your Taste Buds survey takes a visitor through a series of questions based on the various dining options, price points and cuisine choices available in the LEYE family. At the end of the survey, a list of restaurants is provided that mirrors the answers. Hyperlinks to the menus of each restaurant make it easy for the user to make a choice.

Later this year, LEYE plans to relaunch its survey under a new name and include photography of menu items and music. “The survey is one of the top features of our site that visitors use,” says Jennifer Leber, LEYE’s manager of public relations.

Gifted Ideas
Terri Rivera is happy with the most recent changes to Flat Top Grill’s Web site (www.flattopgrill.com) although she already has another change in mind for the next update: capability for online gift-card ordering.

“If only the phone calls we take could go through the site,” Rivera, marketing specialist for the Oak Park, Ill.-based chain, says of a recent rush of gift-card purchases. “It would be more efficient to direct people to the Web site to order gift cards.”

Qdoba Mexican Grill’s (www.qdoba.com) recent Web-site overhaul added online buying for a newly launched gift-card program. “We added more bells and whistles,” says Karen Guido, vice president of marketing for the Denver-based chain. “We wanted the site to include an option for gift-certificate sales.”

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You've Got E-Mail
“More important than having a Web site is having an e-mail newsletter,” says Paul Schiavone, president and general manager of Bostonchefs.com “We send out a newsletter twice a month and I encourage all our clients to create one.”

These newsletters, for which customers voluntarily subscribe, serve as what Schiavone describes as an “active marketing tool.” Limited-time promotions and special deals, including coupons and new menu items, are common inclusions in the e-newsletters, though their content is limited only by the operator’s imagination.

Steve Hickey, senior vice president of marketing for Minneapolis-based Buca Di Beppo, says the launch of its Buca eClub, was born of a desire to build closer customer relationships.

“We wanted something that would allow us to communicate regularly with our existing customer base,” he says. “E-mail seemed an ideal way to maintain a routine relationship and promote our business.”

Michael Friedman, interactive marketing manager at Red Lobster, says e-mail marketing is one of the most effective ways an operator can target a desired customer base without investing a lot of money.

“E-mail is so much more efficient than a Sunday circular or coupon,” he says. “And you can have informal dialogue from time to time with the consumer through e-mail. If I’m raising my hand to be communicated to, I’ve got to like the restaurant. Consumers don’t give their e-mail address to every single restaurant they visit.”

Friedman recommends that marketers stay true to their message. If they advertise a weekly newsletter with specials, the e-mail better deliver. Beginning with a distribution list of 35,000, Red Lobster has grown its newsletter base to 785,000 active members, establishing a two-way dialogue with guests. Today members actively are involved in polling and surveys the company conducts to determine the the concept’s direction.

E-newsletters also serve to gauge participation in programs and events on the site. One feature offers guests the opportunity to send online invitations to friends for parties at Red Lobster restaurants.

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So You Want to Build a Web Site?
John Yesko, a Chicago-based Web site designer, shares advice for operators looking to build or expand a site:

• Include basic information, including phone numbers, directions to the restaurant, and hours of operation.
• Menu descriptions are helpful. “People want to know what the food is like before they arrive,” Yesko says.
• Don’t spend too much time talking about the history or events of the restaurant. “Those things are not important to the huge majority of visitors,” he says.
• Make the site accessible and easy to navigate. “There is a temptation to use every piece of technology available, like sound and animation, but people tend to view these sites from their offices and that can be intrusive,” Yesko explains.
• Use simple descriptive language instead of marketing jargon. “When people are looking for a link to learn what jobs are available at a restaurant, they’re looking for the word ‘jobs’ not a fancy moniker,” he says.
• Anticipate the stresses on staff and the marketing budget that creating and maintaining a Web site demand. “An operator has to ask, ‘Do I have a site because I want one or because I want to make it an integrated part of my communications?’” Yesko says. “There is a whole continuum of how big of an effort you want to make.”
• Understand company-wide marketing efforts so the Web site reflects those efforts.
• A Web site should give a visitor a feel for the restaurant so that when a customer walks into the restaurant, it doesn’t seem different than what the Web site advertised.