Comments on: Catering Marketing: The Ins, The Outs and How To

By: gina at cateror

gina at cateror — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:18:08 +0000

Great post! The only thing I would add would be a comment about information accessibility and websites. Too often on catering/restaurant sites I see Contact Information buried in either sub-pages or footers, where it won’t conflict with the design. Clients and customers, especially those who are looking to connect with local companies, may not be willing to wander around a website trying to find out exactly where the business is located.

By: James M

James M — Sun, 15 May 2011 16:17:59 +0000

Some top advice here, and I agree it is extremely important to diversify your marketing strategy, don’t just focus on one channel.

Working in marketing I come across umteen businesses that just do the opposite of your advice re stay local. They don’t even consider it, they just broadcast their message without thinking how to focus on their target market, and even better, their local target market.

What Patrick said in his comment is a good point, provide your customers with a means of staying in touch and your success rate will be much higher. Or should I say, your ‘targeted’ success rate.

The problem is, and I know this from experience, you can advise people what to do, but for them to get off their backsides and do it is a different matter. They seem as keen as mustard when you tell them about it, but unless they have a schedule and stick to it, they will let their online marketing go stale.

James

By: Zeva Brennan

Zeva Brennan — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:39:13 +0000

Hi Lisa

I have a catering business.
I’m just starting to use email marketing.
Thank you for the tips.I will start to apply them
To my business..
Thanks Zeva

By: TJ McCue

TJ McCue — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:29:09 +0000

Hi Lisa
You do an awesome job of making it practical. I only read this post, though.. You know I found you on SmallBizTrends. But I went to follow you on Twitter and clicked on your page and then got sucked in…. Good work.

I have a buddy who has created a new recipe site and I’m sending him to your post. His site is pretty cool and one you might enjoy, too.
http://www.kitchenmonki.com/

He’s gonna love this post. Full of useful ideas.
Now, I gotta head back to Twitter and do that follow thing…
Thanks
TJ

By: Jon Buscall

Jon Buscall — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:17:54 +0000

Loved this! I often end up writing about kennels to illustrate my web marketing efforts because that’s my other interest. Good for you taking this route. I think it helps people see how transferable these skills can be.

I would also add:
If you can’t write (or are uncomfortable about that) take pictures of a receipe you regularly make and load them up into a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation.

Then create a voiceover, talking your way through the slides, export to Quicktime and upload to YouTube.

I did this with a piece on effective email marketing and it was the best call-to-action I didn’t know I’d written.

By: Michael D

Michael D — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:53:10 +0000

Wow, wow, wow, nice and organized actionable advice. On the market with other people locally I’ll add that in my experience it pays to be a good neighbor. Get to know who else is in the community, not just via twitter, but with face to face get together events. Getting to know the people behind the businesses has done wonders for our community relations, and I feel good evangelizing the services of local business “friends” I’ve made over the years.

Once again Lisa, wonderfully detailed information that works. We thank your wrists for sharing. :)

By: Lydia Fabry Mazorol

Lydia Fabry Mazorol — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:22:08 +0000

Nice post Lisa – if all this info came from you then I’m happy to suggest that you are becoming quite the business woman!

Tip: Suggest that the (fictitious) catering company connects not only with people who might use their services but those that the catering company themselves use!

By: Joe Hall

Joe Hall — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:10:09 +0000

Here’s a few tips that I have used in the past that work very well:

Have a section of your blog for local recipes. You can write them your self or have folks from the community submit them. The idea here is generating geo specific content that you can leverage for SEO, as well as for reaching out to your offline network.

If your catering specializes in a certain cuisine look for a niche social network like FoodTube.net and scope out a group with in that deals with your cuisine. network like hell and maybe score a few friends and links!

Also look for local restaurant or food critics that blog and ask them to write a review of your work.

By: Todd Mintz

Todd Mintz — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:09:04 +0000

I think the most obvious one would be to take “Step 1″ further and deliver dinner to the influential locals…everybody likes free food and I’m sure that extra step would have an awesome ROI.

By: Tim Staines

Tim Staines — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:01:59 +0000

Catering Marketing Tip: If you read this & you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, hire someone to accomplish these things for you. If you like the results, hire them to do additional work. If you can’t afford it, at least talk to people who might know what they’re doing. You never know, they might just drop a link on your behalf at some point in the future.