Red Robin Restaurant
Introduction
The paper is related to Red Robin Restaurant which has been operating for a very long time. In this paper we will discuss several approaches the Red Robin Restaurant can take in order to increase its Sales.
Company Profile
Starting as a tavern in 1940 Red Robin restaurant, a specialist in gourmet burgers has expanded over the years as one of the successful kid and family restaurants in US. It has around 420 outlets all over the country. The company has its own unique style of making delicious burgers and establishing a connection with its customers (Red Robin, n.d.).
Objective
Our marketing company has planned to devise a promotional plan for Red Robin. An effective and well thought plan can surely pull the sales upwards further. The objective behind this campaign will be to persuade the existing customers in order to built long term relations with them and inform the potential customers.
The first step towards this campaign would be to segment the market for this restaurant because based on that further analysis and positioning could be done and educated decisions can be made. By classifying the customers it makes it easier to utilize the best of marketing efforts on the right people and achieve goals. After that the Swot analysis will be done that would outline the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company. Such analysis will help in allocating the resources to the weaker and stronger areas of the company.
Current promotional activities of Red Robin
About the promotional research of the company the following information was found out. As it is known that having a good taste and food quality is not all that is required to become a successful restaurant. Customer relationship management and making a connection with them is equally important. The food, the ambiance and the service is what makes a good place to dine in and Red robin completely understands this fact as the company has its own way of making their customer feel special through their bridled acts (Hisrich, 2000).
Role of employees
The company has an energetic team of members all over the outlets who work hard and are dedicated towards living up to the core values of the company that are honor, integrity, continuous knowledge and in the end not to forget having fun. These values are ingrained on their uniform sleeves in order to remind them of their duty all the time.
The company believes that each and every employee is part of the marketing team such as the kitchen staff because that chef is not merely chopping the mushrooms, he has to see that how would the customer use it therefore they are involved in the research team of the company too because their feedback and involvement is as important as the managers of the team.
The advertising budget/strategy
Most of the advertising budget of the company is spend on the print and the radio ads which they believe are not the strategies but only tactics because the real marketing that takes place is within the restaurant itself. The company does not spend too much on broadcasting ads on television. Broadcasting ads cannot promote all the range of burgers being offered by the restaurant and this is important when one has to advertise to the new customers who don’t know about it, like opening an outlet in a new area. The company uses push promotional strategy by making use of its work force to uphold and market the brand. They believe more on public relations. All this is to increase brand loyalty among the customers who should choose them over the rivals and make repeated purchases (Kaynak, 1993).
Integrated marketing communication is a management process where all the aspects of marketing are consistent and the experience related to a brand to a customer is relevant. The employees at Red Robin tend to support the company to build and recognize the brand. It is the duty of the server to give good service to the customers and educate them on the related menu and the promotions. As the employees work together they develop a team spirit and communication skills and the ability to counter stress related problems. The team members as part of their duty promote the regional and national campaigns in order to boost the sales of the company (Ward, 2009).
What needs to be done based on the current market position
As the restaurant industry has grown larger firms are increasing their budgets on advertising in order to widen the gap between their smaller yet rival firms. Places such as Panera Bread Co., the bar chain Buffalo Wild Wings Inc., Darden restaurant Inc.’s have increased their allocated budget for the time being in order to make television ads and other campaigns where as dine in places such as Red Robin has cut down their advertising expenses in order to hold back during the recession period. These days due to recession the amount of consumer spending on dines in restaurants is relatively falling back. These causal dinning places such as Red Robin can increase its sales if they promote their offers of such as “all you can eat offers”, and other attractive deals that can attract customers, such as buy two and get one free and many more.
Restaurants that are cutting back on the budgets right now will have a fall in the sales in the future too. This is because when there is very little difference in the menus of restaurants and they are selling more or less the same then the restaurant has to differentiate on the kind of deals and variety and other services they are offering to the customer. Customer is the king; therefore customer satisfaction is the most important aspect of marketing which comes from the integration of all the elements of marketing (Guiltinan & Paul, 1985).
Red Robin can bring more variety into their menu such as offering different and new flavors of ice cream. Not only bringing good deals is enough but promoting them is also as important. The company will invest more on the TV ads because large audience can be targeted by doing that. Apart from that the weekly magazines, newsletters and newspapers is what they have already been doing. The TV ads need to be attractive and tempting. The 30 seconds should be able to convey the message to the masses. All this depends on the amount of advertising budget that the company would allocate for itself. If they have substantial amount then they can offer their place for some TV show that would give promotion to the restaurant, however this would require a lot of budget. The reality shows today have become a good way to promote brands and they have been effective too (Mercer, 1996).Similarly Red Robin needs to do the some thing like this. Offering the customers loyalty cards, memberships, and benefits of dining more frequently are always welcomed by the customers. The prices will be competitive because customers tend to come to you for lower rates rather than going to the competitor for the same quality of food.
Conclusion
Red Robin already has a brand name in the restaurant industry and this could be seen by the new openings that the restaurant has been doing lately. The business is growing all over the nation which means there is something unique about the brand that is making customers come back again so the advertising budget will be increased relatively. In such cases the pull factors become important since we are targeting the mass market and they are an effective tool to communicate with the customer. In planning a promotional campaign the organization of resources is very important. This is only possible when you are clear about your goals and current state in the market. If the above mentioned changes are implemented effectively then Red Robin is sure to see a changing trend in its sale.
Reference:
Guiltinan, J. P & Paul, G W (1985), Marketing Management: Strategies and Programs. McGraw-Hill
Hisrich, R D. (2000), Marketing. Barron’s Educational Series
Kaynak, E (1993), The Global Business: Four Key Marketing Strategies. Haworth Press
Mercer, D (1996), Marketing. Blackwell Publishing
Red Robin (n.d.) History. Retrived on March 9, 2009 from http://www.redrobin.com/redrobin/home/about-us/history.aspx
Ward, S (2009) Marketing, Available from < http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/marketing/g/marketing.htm>, retrieved on 21st February’09
