WITH A lot of people turning more and more to the Internet for information, restaurant owners would be wise to tap online options to promote their restaurants. At the Restaurant Marketing Reloaded Summit 2009, an event organized by Courage Asia this year, online marketing experts shared their views on how this can be done.

1. Have your own website. “Make sure you have a good website,” said Edward David, director for business development at clickthecity.com. The site has to have the necessary useful information, from menu to contact details, and the content should be updated regularly. “Choose a content management system your people can be familiar with.”

2. Integrate online initiatives with your offline efforts. David advised entrepreneurs to promote their website address or URL in all their collaterals. Also, get listed in free online listings, explore priority and enhanced listings offered by online directories, and request to be featured in these websites.

3. Build communities; create followers. According to David, “Newsletters are becoming a thing of the past. Focus on growing your ‘followers’ instead of newsletter subscribers.” He recommended social networking sites Facebook and Multiply and microblogging site Twitter in doing this.

4. Explore and experiment with other options. Here’s where online advertising will come in and David suggested looking into pay-per-click, display advertising, pay-per-action, network buys and ad network options. In addition, Michael Rastas, consultant of myfoodtrip.com, mentioned joining forums and exploring iPhone applications to promote one’s restaurant.

5. Do your research. Howell Hay, managing director of munchpunch.com, said resto-preneurs should find out what their customers are searching for and reach the right audience.

6. Manage your reputation. Rastas said, “People will voluntarily tell you about a bad restaurant, but often will only talk about a good restaurant when asked.” Bad reviews of restaurants do get published online in blogs, but Hay offered hope by saying, “One bad review does not destroy your business for as long as there are plenty of people saying good things as well.” Hay advised, “Embrace reviews. They make us aware and provide us with an opportunity to fix a genuine problem.”

BY this time, most of my friends have already made their pick among the Selecta Gold flavors: Berry Strawberry, Chocolate Truffles, or Hazelnut Brownie. Which one is the best? We each had our own favorites.

The three flavors are concocted by renowned Filipino chefs: J Gamboa of Cirkulo for Berry Strawberry, Rolando Laudico of Bistro Filipino for Chocolate Truffles and Sau del Rosario of Chelsea for Hazelnut Brownie. To find out which one is best, my brother-in-law bought all three. I bought a couple of pints too, when I’m not really a regular ice cream buyer (and if I do buy, it’s not Selecta). The thought, though, of having gourmet ice cream done by chefs was irresistible.
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WE SEE the signs around us: more stores putting up “Sale” signs to entice more shoppers to come in, and less people eating out and buying clothes. Just how do Pinoys behave in a financial crisis like the current one?

“Some people ask, ‘With all our economic problems, why aren’t people out on the streets? Where are the riots?’ Coping is an uphill battle that has left consumers frustrated and overextended, and this is even more true for those at the bottom of the pyramid, which is the biggest chunk of our population,” says Emil Avenido, research director of the Philippine Survey and Research Center-Research International (PSRC-RI).

The reaction, says Avenido, is not aggression but of withdrawal: focusing on oneself and family. Family is very important to the Filipino.
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WITH FACEBOOK being the most popular social networking site around the world, it’s time you got on it too. Did you know that you can use Facebook to promote your brand?

Here are some of the ways you can use Facebook for business:

1. Advertise. Of course. You can reach as much as 200 million active Facebook users according to the Facebook Advertising page. You may even have your ad sent only to your target market according to age, gender, location, and more. The ads are small and are not big and jarring like those on Yahoo Mail. You can put an image and short text in your ad. Payment can be based on the number of clicks or impressions.
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SCHOOL will be out soon and that means lots of free time for students. This is peak season for those in the summer workshop business, be it in the field of academics (tutorial and review centers), athletics (sports centers), or arts (cooking, art, dance, and creative writing classes, among others).

Among those companies offering summer workshops is Zero Gravity, which offers basic and intermediate streetdance theater workshops for preteens, teens, and adults.

Located along busy Katipunan Avenue in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Zero Gravity is right smack in student territory with schools like UP, Ateneo, Miriam, Kostka, and Multiple Intelligence International School, among others, just a stone’s throw away. This is good for the company since its target market is the student population.
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