The proposed business venture of The Restaurant will be set up in New Castle. In order to achieve success in terms of building a strong brand image and long term growth of the business, adopting a good marketing communicational strategy is essential. It is proposed that the business venture should adopt an online marketing strategies to create a strong brand awareness among the customers before the restaurant is finally opened.
The reports of Statista (2016a) suggest that the usage of the internet have shown significant growth over the past years and is likely to grow in the near future. This clearly indicates that the company will be able to reach out to a large number of customers over the online platform. Furthermore, adopting the internet marketing strategy at the startup phase can also prove to be quite beneficial for the venture as it can reduce the overall operating cost. The relatively low cost of the online advertising makes it a perfectly suitable strategy for a new business venture like The Restaurant (Allen, 2016). The rapid and gradual growth of the UK restaurant sector has also resulted in its increase in the competitiveness (Shubber, 2015). This as a result makes it imperative for the companies to develop strong brand awareness in the market that can help it foster higher competitive advantage and ensure its sustainability and growth in the market.
The strategies and possible issues of the online relating to the implementation of the online marketing strategies have been discussed in the following section.
The online marketing strategies adopted a company is mostly focused on the use of the internet as the base platform. In order to create a strong brand image of the company it is recommended that The Restaurant should adopt different forms of digital marketing to enhance the impact of the marketing communication. It is suggested that the communicational activities should encompass SEO advertising (Search Engine Optimised ads), social media marketing, specialised search engines and banner ads. Each of these online marketing tools has their own advantages that can be leveraged by the company to develop a robust and effective communicational strategy that can provide a higher return on investment.
The implementation of the marketing strategy should be based on the study of the behavioural pattern of the target customers. The reports of Statista (2016b) have revealed that the customers have shown an increasing trend in eating out. It has been found that the majority of the restaurant customers belong to the younger section of the society (Dugan, 2015). This indicates that the strategies needs to be implemented based on the behavioural pattern of this population segment.
The SEO (search engine optimised) advertising is based on the different search engines like Google and Yahoo. The use of the search engines by the customers for searching products and services have increased drastically over the years. Google is currently the most popular search engine in the world and is widely used by the marketers as an effective platform for online marketing communication. Therefore it is suggested that the company should use Google ads as an effective platform for online advertising. Adopting the SEO ads will enable The Restaurant to create better brand exposure to the customers. Whenever a customer will use Google search engine to look up for nearby restaurants, it will return search results with the name of The Restaurants on the top of the list. This as a result will increase the likelihood for the customers to visit the company’s web page to get further information about the product and service offerings.
The Google ads will also allow the company to streamline their marketing communication and allow them to specifically target the customers who are more likely to visit the restaurants. The SEO ads will be targeted at the audiences who are located at New Castle and other surrounding areas. At the first the company should target its advertisement to reach out to the 10,000 audiences every month. The Google ads can also be used to help the customer to make their decision regarding restaurant visits. In this context the Google maps can be used to set up the location of the business, thereby giving the audiences a clear idea of where the restaurant is located and how they can visit the location easily. Furthermore, using Google maps as an advertising tool will also allow the company to help the customers to easily identify the newly established restaurant. It is essential to highlight the fact that the restaurant is currently closed and will open within three months. This as a result will help to create strong brand awareness among the customers. Therefore, when the restaurant opens, it can attract customers from the very first day.
The social media has turned up to be one of the most popular platforms for online advertisements. According to Statista (2016d), the usage of social media among the general public have significantly increased over the past few years and is likely to increase further in the near future. This as a result will make it an effective online marketing platform for The Restaurant, as it will be able to communicate with a large potential customer base. Furthermore Statista (2016c) have also suggested that the majority of the active social media users belong to the younger section of the society. This demographic parameter also aligns with the demographic nature of the potential customer group of the restaurant. Therefore, it can be stated that the social media marketing should prove to be quite fruitful to create strong brand awareness among the customer.
It is suggested that the company should adopt social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. These are currently three most popular social media portals and each of them can help to reach out to thousand of potential customers.
