Quantified Marketing Group is the nation’s largest full-service strategic marketing and public relations firm focused exclusively on the restaurant industry. To find out how we can help your restaurant, click here or call (407) 936-1010.
IN THIS ISSUE...
Letter from the CEO
Surviving a Lousy Restaurant Review
Book Review
First Round Draft Picks
Q & A
Ask the Experts
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 As always, we’ve got a lot going on at Quantified Marketing Group, and have many exciting announcements to make since our last monthly newsletter. On May 16, I spoke at a conference for the West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority. This was the first of a series of seminars to inform West Palm Beach business owners of the strategies and tools that they can use to market themselves better, increase competitive advantages and drive more traffic to their locations.
Of course, these are goals that we want you to achieve as well. Public relations and media exposure are usually great ways to set your restaurant apart from the rest. But sometimes things can backfire – for example, when restaurants receive media exposure in the form of a negative restaurant review. I know how devastating a bad review can seem. That’s why, in this issue, we’ve included an article that provides tips and advice for avoiding and recovering from an unfavorable review.
If you have any topics you would like us to address in a future article, or if you have any questions about restaurant marketing or trends in the industry, I encourage you to use the feature in our newsletter that allows you to submit them directly to us. We will be answering one or two of these questions in each issue of the newsletter in our Q&A section. We hope you’ll let us provide you with the answers you’re looking for when it comes to restaurant public relations and marketing, culinary development, concept development and design.
In this issue of the newsletter, you will also meet the newest members of the QMG team in the First Round Picks section and learn all about a new emerging economic trend in our book review of The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore. Make sure to keep an eye out for our next newsletter as we continue to bring you restaurant industry news and tips that you can use.
Sincerely,
Aaron Allen
Founder/CEO
Quantified Marketing Group
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A bad restaurant review may seem devastating, but it will never be the single factor that makes or breaks a restaurant. The article below will provide tips on how you can survive and recover from an unfavorable restaurant review.
Feeling stiffed?
Restaurant reviewers are critical, biased and opinionated – it’s their job. Dining critics go to restaurants searching for imperfections. Even if a critic loves your restaurant, they will point out your establishment’s slightest blunders with brutal honesty.
 The public generally knows to take restaurant reviews with a grain of salt. When Orlando Sentinel food critic Scott Joseph criticized Opus 39 Restaurant & Food Gallery, loyal patrons were quick to disagree with the reviewer’s opinion of the St. Augustine dining establishment.
Within days, he received a slew of phone calls and emails from past guests who reprimanded Joseph for calling the restaurant’s boutique wine gallery a marketing gimmick. Several weeks later, Joseph retracted that statement in print.
Bonnie Boots, Food & Wine Editor for Tampa’s The Weekly Planet admits restaurant reviews have little to do with the success or failure of a restaurant, according to www.restaurantreport.com.
“A ‘bad’ review isn’t anymore likely to close down a restaurant than a good review is to ‘make’ one,” she wrote. “If this were true, I and every other restaurant critic would have tremendous power to ‘seed’ our cities with exactly the type of restaurants we personally prefer.”
“Last year I found just such a gem, serving fresh, expertly-prepared, local seafood at bargain prices,” she wrote. “I boosted it in every way I could, featuring it in my column, mentioning it on radio and TV and recommending it to everyone I knew. Did this place become an overnight success? No. It closed shortly after its first anniversary – victim of a very bad location.”
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THE EXPERIENCE ECONOMY
An Overview of an Emerging Economic Trend
 Every business is a stage. Every customer that walks through the door presents an opportunity to perform for them; to wow them with sights and sounds, to amaze them with visual displays and tend to them with the most personalized interaction. There is a new economy that is surfacing that will bypass the conventional and mundane ways of conducting business and will incorporate these essential points of connection with your customers. It is the emergence of the Experience Economy.
Why would someone buy a cup of coffee and be willing to pay over 300% the price of a coffee at a convenient store, or 800% more than a coffee brewed at home? This is what occurs everyday to the tune of roughly $500 million dollars a year in net earnings at Starbucks. The experience that Starbucks customers receive from a particular store is what brings them back. From the plush oversized chairs and the exceptional customer service to the collective euphoria of relaxing with friends, Starbucks has created an atmosphere that provides a memorable experience to their customers.
People are willing to pay a premium for experience. Take an NBA game for example. People pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to purchase seats that are courtside. Why? To experience the game. To experience the smell of sweat and rubber, to hear the coach’s encouraging speech as the players huddle together and to see the drops of sweat slowly form on the players faces. All of these combined provide an experience that you can only encounter from being that close, and paying a pretty penny to get there.
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Quantified Marketing Group welcomes the following new hires...
Paula Angel is Quantified Marketing Group’s newest graphic designer. Previously, Paula has designed work for prestigious organizations such as Candace Crowe Design, the University of Central Florida and the Disney Design Group. Paula has won Addy, Weyerhauser, Siggraph and Florida Print Association awards for her original design work. With her strong background in graphic design, she will be designing print materials for QMG’s clients, including table tents, press kits and menus.
Robert Kuypers brings enthusiasm and an extensive background to his role as Local Store Marketing Manager at Quantified Marketing Group. Robert previously served in Marketing Director roles at Too Jay’s Gourmet Deli and Salt Island Chop House. During his time with Too Jay’s, he was able to increase sales by more than $4 million.
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Q: When a large catering event goes bad, how does one restaurant deal with the recourse?
 A: We chose this question because the topic is along the same lines as this issue’s article on how to survive a negative restaurant review. Of course, a bad catering event affects your customers more directly and can therefore be more detrimental to your restaurant than a bad review. Therefore, crisis communications approaches will be most effective in this type of situation.
The worst thing you can do is deny that there was a problem or try to place the blame elsewhere. Instead, you need to listen to your customer, acknowledge that there was a problem and accept responsibility.
Whether you agree that there was a problem or not, perception is reality. If your customer perceives a problem, you need to let them know that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to fix it. Ask them what action they would like to see taken. Often times, you’ll find that their request is smaller than you would expect.
The most important thing is to make sure that you don’t lose your customers over one bad catering event. You can offer incentives such as free meal certificates to your client and the attendees of the event so that they don’t write off your restaurant for the future.
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 Do you have a question about restaurant public relations, marketing, design, culinary development or concept development? Well, here’s your chance to pick the experts’ brains. Click here to submit a question, and if selected, it will be featured in a future Quantified Marketing Group newsletter.
Submit a Question
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For more information please visit us at www.quantifiedmarketing.com. To forward this newsletter to a friend, click here.
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