Hitwise an internet marketing company that tracks trends and stats for search marketing, shows who want searchers to wind up at their sites should consider search terms like “free shipping” and “coupon.” Hitwise took a look at how searches for these terms tend to increase dramatically around the holidays.

If you have a business, you should market in the mobile and internet market. Mobile market is huge, even during this low economic times. In the mobile world, everyone needs a cell phone, and everyone access the internet as well. Why not offer discount coupons just like in the off line world.

A successful mobile coupon program should focus on understanding and leveraging a core marketing process.

It’s amazing how often agencies and advertisers will enter a test program without a defined strategy. So, start with the basics, and define a high-level plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

Offer

Offers in the coupon world can take many forms. Below are just a few ideas.

* Buy one, get one free poultry seasoning.
* Cross-sell/up-sell where consumers are rewarded with a cost-saving offer for extending a purchase to additional products.
* Trial, free, or highly discounted offers to incent first time or repeat purchase.

Delivery Method(s)

* Search generated: Many consumers in the purchase research process will search phrases such as “steak seasoning coupons” or “BBQ Seasoning offers”; the terms “coupon” and “coupons” alone generated over 36 million searches on Google in June.
* Short code/number: Consumers input a short code/number and then receive an e-mail coupon or link to offer details.
* Application: Device-specific applications that provide consumers with coupons and offers based on geography and product/service category.
* E-mail: Coupons “pushed” to consumers based on user-determined opt-in category requests for offers.
* Other media: Outdoor, print, and broadcast messages embedded with links or short code/numbers to receive coupon/offers.

Coupons are a great method for connecting online and mobile search behavior to offline and walk-in purchases. Redemption and clearing methods that rely on UPC (Uniform Code Council) codes are ideal for collecting success metrics.

As local search continues to grow it shows how consumers shape purchase decisions online and via mobile devices, smart marketers will leverage marketing techniques to grow market share in an increasingly complex media environment. Mobile coupons are a great way to influence purchasers at point of purchase and enable marketers to bridge online/mobile search behavior usage to purchase.

All of the design elements will be based upon who is the target market, it is very important and it will help in positioning your establishment. A nostalgic restaurant design works for baby-boomers, but a modern edge is more for the teenage crowd.

Some consideration to think about is how it will be laid out and organized.  A great choice for maintaining your living space in a clean and neat way is to have a large restroom and kitchen.

Soft lighting makes it a relaxing atmoshpere, which allows people to enjoy more while dining . A feeling of being at home must be present, with providing comfortable chairs and tables.

Restaurant has a good chance at success if the layout is an open plan and the interior design exudes comfort.

Updating your interiors can be cost effective in down times of economy. You don’t have to do a complete face lift of your restaurant. One thing that you should know about designs is knowing that we as humans like to be together. It is a trend that dates back to medieval times.

With this knowledge, having a restaurant design that creates a positive social atmosphere, will attract more customers.

Restaurant design can also improve the bottom line on the operational side, especially the energy efficient usage of equipment. Restaurants should look into the aerodynamics and velocity variables of their range hood so as to reduce electricity costs and create a more green environment.

Here are some other design themes to consider:

• The Display Grill – This exhibition style cooking station invites warmth and interactivity. This style of exhibition cooking takes it to a new level by removing barriers between the guest and chef while improving energy costs. The grill takes is the main event, making custom entrees easy to order.
• The Market Court – Getting away from a single buffet line, comes “the street scape”.  This improves sight lines and adds serving areas separated into cultural cuisines as well as food groups.

These are just some of the popular restaurant design and themes that serves its purposes.

Here  are some tip to make a restaurant successful, some of it is your restaurant design of the establishment, but the other equation is  the type of food in the restaurant. One of the many popular are restaurants that specializes in steaks and prime rib.

What we advise to our restaurant clients is to engage more with their customer for repeated businesses. Share information of recipes and ways to prepare steaks with their clients. Or share the many brands of steak seasoning that the establishments uses.

There are many different type of steak seasoning and everyone has different tastes. But, if you know that your customers are the spicy eater then by all means introduce the relevant spicy seasoning.

Ways to share and spread the word is by mouth, and online marketing. You can create a profile on twitter, facebook, friend feed, etc.. These are some of best social media site to spread the word. You can still apply social media locally to your area.  We will cover this in later articles.

Tell your customers when you’re having specials, discounts on meals on days of the week. Give them that popular steak seasoning recipes that they can do at home. These are some social marketing ideas that Synergy Restaurant Consultants advices to all of our clients.

Another user generated review site has emerged it is call GraffitiGeo. This site is a combination of Yelp + Digg + Foursquare.  The mobile application is somewhat of a mashup  review site Yelp, mobile social network Foursquare, and social news site Digg. 

The Digg-like element of the application is the easiest piece to use, like that restaurant? Vote it up. You can also leave more detailed comments to go along with your vote, if you  choose. To encourage people to participate in the “game” aspect of the app, GraffitiGeo also introduces a point system whose concept is borrowed from mobile app Foursquare.

One thing that differentiate GraffitiGeo is its nifty heatmaps to highlight the hotspots, and let you leave a comment with only 2 taps (Yelp takes 5-6).  In short, they feel they’ve designed an application specifically for the mobile platform where Yelp just ported their successful website to mobile instead.

Another element to GraffitiGeo is the game aspect. This may or may not be a plus. With inspiration obviously borrowed from mobile social network/game Foursquare, GraffitiGeo awards points for any activity, whether that’s a vote, a comment, or anything. After reaching 100 points (aka “street cred”), you can start or join a “mob.” Mobs can claim territories which, in turn, unlocks more features in the application.

If you’re trying to find out if a restaurant is worth trying out, you’re probably more interested in reading reviews and checking ratings than you are in playing with a bunch of online friends.

Another application that GraffitiGeo is coming out is with augmented reality. They will blend the gps, digg like voting, heatmaps, along with layers of augmented reality technology to show all this info by just pointing your camera phone at the establishment. Or, by typing the info on a restaurant.  To go beyond this, the app may show the restaurant design (layout of the place).

Yelp is one of the leading local search reviews sites that you can’t neglect.  Yelp receives over 25 million visitors to its site.  The website is a use generated type. In other words consumers go on the site to leave reviews on places and things.

A big category on Yelp is the “restaurant”.  Whever you are and restaurant that you go to there is a chance that consumers have left a comment about it.  Yelp network is huge!

As a restaurant consultant we advise every restaurant owners to take part on Yelp.  Doesn’t matter if you are in just the food section or in designing. We’re not talking about leaving reviews, but create a profile and do a little citation of referencing themselves on Yelp.  Because Yelp has a huge Alexa and Google Page Ranking.  Your business name can be in the SERP (search engine result page) in no time.  This is just another great way to get organic placement in the major search engines.

Being a restaurant consultant and seeing many restaurant. The one thing that stands out at first sight is the logo. Restaurants has gotten so competitive that even making the logo has become fierce.  Logo gives the restaurant its identity, and that’s what the customer will id your establishment.

The basics are the color, font, and design.

Color

Use warm and vibrant colors in fast food logos because warm colors like red  are associated with hot food and these colors instantly draw attention. The warmth of red, yellow, black, brown or orange can create excitement.  Strong colors usually make a great attempt of non-verbal communication. You can have a combination of warm color with some cool colors or soothing colors so as to tone down the strong emotions. But if you want to set a hunger then get going for red….

Font

Font for food logos needs to be simple. Simplicity and clarity can create a striking visual effect thus making the logo stand out. Like the ones above.

Style

The style should create a passion or rather hunger in the customers who see the logo.

Restaurant design can be the old fashion type where people come to eat, or you can design a restaurant that people come to mingle with others.  I have seen fancy design to your typical tavern style.

While in Germany, I had frequent the tavern style of dining out.  Very simple layout, in one area is the bar. In the other is where you eat, which was furnished with just plain picnic table and benches in a dimly lit area.

At first sight, this didn’t look like I would go to eat. But, over there this was the style of atmosphere. The benches were meant to share not among family members but with strangers as well. This is how we met a family that showed us their hospitality.

Not only from the tavern owner, but the people that mingled there. The crowd is not your hardy drinkers, but families.  Beer of course is the social driver here!

What we learned from here is that the tavern did not have a great design at their establishment. But were catering to the type of people and obviously it was a social place to be.

There are numerous elements that contribute to the success of a restaurant business, one of them being your restaurant design. We are going to focus on the layout and how it can increase profitability. Layout has a strong impact on the customer and the ability to service the customer.
When developing a floor plan for your restaurant, there are a few issues that must be addressed.

1. Where do you want to lead your customer?
   
2. How does the staff relate to the customer?
   

First question – You want  to lead the customer to the area that makes the money. For example, in a restaurant your target areas the tables.  You need to evaluate which areas of your business generates the most money and that is where you lead the customer.

Second question – The staff must serve the customer but, how the customer is served will vary from business to business. In a restaurant or nightclub the staff needs plenty of room to serve the food and drink to the customer while maintaining room for customer flow.

There is more to it than this, but for a start please consider the advice mentioned above. For more information on best restaurant design please follow our link to restaurant design, we are one of the best restaurant consultants in the restaurant industry for over 20 years.