Branding your Restaurant

Your product is what you sell; your brand is what your product means in the marketplace.

Do you have a potential brand in the making?

Unfortunately, too many business-owners ask far too late or never ask at all – not a good idea in a world full of savvy customers and big companies that have mastered the branding game.

Great brands are all around us and it’s no accident they make us think of certain things. Think Dominos, and you think of pizza delivery, think KFC and you think of fried chicken.

Corporate brands have their own personalities. We like to categorize everything, whether we’re talking about people, printers or pizza places. Test yourself. What draws you to one local business instead of another selling a similar product?

One local restaurant might strike you as cute and inviting; another might make you lose your appetite without setting a foot inside – even though both restaurants serve the same type of food. You’re not alone if you find yourself categorizing each business you pass.

If you don’t have a clear idea of what your company is about, your potential customers will decide on their own – a risky move for a company. Better to have a branding strategy in place before you hang up your shingles.

What is Branding?

Branding is your company’s foundation. It is more than an element of marketing, and it’s not just about awareness, a trademark or a logo.

Branding is your company’s reason for being.

the synchronization of everything about your company that leads to consistency for you as the owner, your employees and your potential customers.

Branding meshes your marketing, public relations, business plan, packaging, pricing, customers and employees.

Branding creates value. If done right, branding makes the buyer trust and believe you’re your product is somehow better than your competitors’.

Generally, the more distinctive you can make your brand, the less likely the customer will be willing to use another company’s product or service, even if yours is slightly more expensive.

Branding is the reason why people perceive you as the only solution to their problem. It clarifies your message. Good branding can help you direct your money more effectively.

At the end of the day, branding is the simple, steady promise that you make to every customer who walks through your door – today, tomorrow and five years from now.

Your company’s ads and brochures might say you offer speedy, friendly service, but if customer finds your service slow and surly, they will walk out the door feeling betrayed. In their eyes, you promised something you didn’t deliver, and no amount of advertising will ever make up for the gap between what your company says and what it does.

Building a Branding strategy is an essential part of your business plan and could never be ignored. Here I share some essential brand building points to build and maintain:

Your business plan should include a branding strategy; which is basically your written plan for how you’ll apply your brand strategically throughout the company over time. At its core, a good branding strategy lists the one or two most important elements of your product or service, describes your company’s ultimate purpose in the world, and defines your target customer.

The result is a blueprint for what’s most important to your company and to your customer. Here’s how:

Step 1.

Think about the intangible qualities of your product or service, on why should people buy from you instead from the same kind of business across town? How will you be different from your competition?

Step 2.

Once you have defined your product or service, think about your target customer. What will your customer demand from you?

Step 3.

How will you show customers everyday what you’re all about? Think about how you’ll fulfil your brand’s promise, and provide value and service to the people you serve.

Some tips on how to manage your brand:

Your ads should be narrowly focused on your chief promise to potential customers, while keeping the message simple and consistent.

Filter every business proposition through a branding filter.

Good brands constantly get rid of things that don’t work.

Think about conducting a simple brand audit at least once a year; this means looking at how your product or service is marketed and branded, analyzing your brand positioning and then comparing the two to see how well the two connect. A brand audit will keep you on track and build on what you already do well.

There’s a lot of work that goes into launching and building a world-class brand, but it pays off. And in today's business world, it almost evil not to have your own brand identity.