Restaurant Marketing That Works An Interview with Matt Plapp
Restaurant owners ask me about marketing all the time. Like I always tell them, I’m not a marketing guy, I’m a systems guy. For this episode of The Restaurant Prosperity Formula, I brought the restaurant marketing guy on the podcast to talk all things restaurant marketing. My guest, Matt Plapp, runs a restaurant marketing business to help restaurants acquire customers and build relationships with those customers through marketing that has an ROI! He is also a speaker and author as well as a coach for other marketers and restaurant owners. I’ve spent a lot of time with Matt, and I think you’ll get a lot out of this conversation. Together we take a deep dive into his new book, Restaurant Marketing That Works, and how you can implement his system for attracting customers while maximizing your marketing dollars following his ABR system.
Matt started out in radio advertising sales and picked up some independent restaurants as clients, who didn’t have big radio ad budgets, nor did he think they really needed to have them. He used his creativity to help them get ad time, which included a lot of trade, allowing these restaurants to get great advertising time using a small cash investment and the showcasing of the very product they were advertising.
He also ran an online boat and RV dealership with his brother and father, which led him to accidentally figure out marketing via through the Internet, including selling directly to boat and RV enthusiasts through chat rooms, well before anyone else had figured it out (predecessors to Groups on Facebook).
This experience combined with the needs of his former restaurant owner clients and timing led him to create a marketing firm in 2008. As video came to be the most popular format for all the apps, he took his creative vision in the middle of the pandemic and started traveling around the country showcasing restaurants across America via video restaurants. His vision is to have 50 vans, one for every state, traveling around to restaurants and giving them a platform to explain to people why they should eat at that restaurant. He and his crew taste menu items and offering the summary of what makes that restaurant amazing.
Matt’s vision is to be the host of this show, America's Best Restaurants. Right now he’s on pace to have 10 vans by 2022 and wants to put a megaphone for these restaurants on all the social media platforms.
Throughout our conversation, Matt explains his approach to marketing, the importance of focusing on retention and the systems to use to be successful with your marketing for the least investment. He also shares:
- Ideas that have worked restaurants in the past
- The core marketing tool every restaurant needs
- What to consider when investing in your marketing
- How the pandemic has forced restaurants to get serious about marketing
- Why targeting your customers differently is so important
- Why his book is a must read and an easy read
I’ve developed a great relationship with Matt over the last year. He reached out cold and shared a lot of really great examples of his work with me to get me on board. He shares a lot of great information in this conversation. Please let me know if you have any questions – visit my Facebook page and send me a message. Find Matt’s book here: https://dsp.coach/Matt-Platt-Book and find him on Facebook and Instagram.
Click the podcast player above to listen in, or you can watch the video on YouTube, click here to download the latest episode.
