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S3 Summer Edition - Nicholas Wickes
6 Plays1 day ago
In this episode of the Dial It In podcast, the hosts discuss the power of specificity in technology with their guest, Nicholas Wicks, the co-founder of Check This Out—a referral software platform for the restaurant and hospitality industry. Wicks shares insights on how SMS marketing can drive customer retention and acquisition, detailing the genesis of his innovative platform born out of his experience as a restaurateur. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced by the restaurant industry, especially during the pandemic, and how effective digital communication can help overcome these hurdles. The episode is sponsored by DataQuick, a tool designed for HubSpot CRM administrators to manage and organize data more efficiently.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing, sales, process improvements, and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me, Dave Meyer, and Trigby Olson of BusyWeb as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's ring up another episode.
Summer Recap Series Announcement
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome to our summer recap series with the dial it in podcast. We're covering new episodes each week from the past series. And today we have a choice from Danielle on our production team.
Feature Episode Selection
00:00:44
Speaker
Danielle highlights Nicholas wicks for highlighting his SMS marketing tools.
00:00:51
Speaker
Danielle's family lived in Montana for a short bit, and she worked as a server throughout college, and she was binge watching Yellowstone right around the time that she listened to this episode. She had an immediate connection with Nicholas when he spoke of owning a restaurant in Montana.
00:01:04
Speaker
She was fully invested from the start of the episode and became even more intrigued when the topic centered around SMS marketing. It's a staple in marketing, yet so few people think to use it. She loved hearing about the various ways that Nicholas used text marketing to support his ultimate goal, butts in seats.
00:01:21
Speaker
Nicholas was passionate and he had him had all of us sold by the end of the episode. If we ever decide to start a restaurant, we should probably connect with Nicholas and SMS is the way, especially in such a large rural area where majority of customers are locals.
00:01:35
Speaker
It's an easy way to get direct contact with most of your loyal customers and it works.
Effectiveness of SMS Marketing
00:01:40
Speaker
We've gotten a few texts from favorite restaurants and it's estimated that 50% success rate. If we have nothing going on, I'd say those are great odds.
00:01:49
Speaker
This episode has great nuggets of info about how to keep you entertained, regardless of whether you own a restaurant or are planning to use text marketing. Enjoy Nicholas Wicks and we'll see you next week. I know normally we start these things by so having some funny quips, but I think today, what I want to do is our guest, Dave, I met on a very, you and I had a very different day, the day that I met this guest.
00:02:16
Speaker
so Then your story, and then we'll bring on the guest, because I think he knows a little bit of it. But what we're going be talking about today is specificity and technology. And so we have a guy who has revolutionary SMS marketing in the restaurant industry, and he's got an amazing, cool product that we're going to
Sponsor Introduction
00:02:34
Speaker
be talking about.
00:02:34
Speaker
But we have a we have a sponsor for today's episode. Thank you. And I will bring that up. So I'd like to introduce DataQuick, the ultimate tool for HubSpot CRM administrator administrators and data architects.
00:02:51
Speaker
DataQuick seamlessly exports your HubSpot CRM architecture into an interactive user-friendly map, streamlining data mapping, cleanup, and organization.
Dave's Accident Story
00:03:00
Speaker
With DataQuick, you can quickly identify and manage every object,
00:03:03
Speaker
property, and dropdown value in your portal, saving valuable time and reducing manual effort. Experience efficient data management and ensure accuracy with DataQuick.
00:03:14
Speaker
Visit dataquick.co to get started today. Thanks, Dave. So here's here's my story about the day that I met our guest. You and I both got booked to be breakout speakers at an event that was about 200 miles outside of the metro area in which we live.
00:03:35
Speaker
And you, because you're not great with details, didn't realize that also coincided with your 25th anniversary, set third or fifth or ninth honeymoon.
00:03:46
Speaker
You had flown to Costa Rica, I want to say. Dominican Republic. Yeah, there we go. Dominican Republic. David said to me, Hey, I'm going to be getting back late. Why don't you stay overnight? Cause it was at a really great resort.
00:03:59
Speaker
And then if I don't get there in time, you can just do my pre-sale in the morning, which is what happens all the time. to cover shiing i cover for Dave. So I said, sure. Packed an overnight bag, drove up, and I was ah halfway there sitting at a stoplight, and I got completely rear-ended.
00:04:16
Speaker
I love my car, and I couldn't have been angrier because my car is
Presentation Despite Accident
00:04:20
Speaker
very special me for personal reasons. And I got out ready to commit murder. And i ran into a 19-year-old kid driving an 18-year-old car, holding his cell phone in his hand because he was clearly talking to somebody because he didn't have Bluetooth, and was crying his eyes out.
00:04:40
Speaker
no So I immediately went from murder to honey and we took some pictures and then he's the was like, okay, here's what you're going to do.
00:04:52
Speaker
You're going to get off the highway as soon as you can. You're going to call your mom and tell her what happened. Tell her you need comfort. Then you're going to call your insurance agent. Okay. well you No, you're going to go get insurance, but...
00:05:05
Speaker
and So then I start driving because I'm still like an hour and a half away, about half an hour in. I using my Bluetooth realize, God, my back really hurts and i my neck really hurts. So I call a colleague like, hey, do we have anybody else who can to speak this with no warning?
00:05:23
Speaker
who can drive up and cover for me in case I can't make it. She's no, we don't. and she, I ah believe hit the alarm bell. Cause I immediately started getting texts from Dave's wife.
00:05:36
Speaker
Well, as I was driving and I i was progressively feeling worse and worse. So I get there and I sit down and eat a little box lunch and I'm thinking about the end of my talk and I noticed one of the vendors there was an exact fit for it. So i quick took a picture of his booth.
00:05:55
Speaker
And then I added it as the last slide of a presentation. Then I went into the presentation and when I did the presentation, I started the presentation saying, Hey, just ah want to let everybody know I was in a bad car accident accident about, about an hour and a half ago.
00:06:11
Speaker
And they're really worried about me if specifically for memory loss. So if I start to repeat myself, please say something. And then I did that three more times in the next 45 minutes because I thought it was a good funny joke.
00:06:24
Speaker
So I kept saying, hey, by the way, I got into a car accident night about 90 minutes ago. and If I start repeating myself, will you please let me know? yeah And then I got out and it all my adrenaline finally stopped and my whole body seized and was like, ow.
00:06:43
Speaker
was like, nope, I'm going home. Good luck, Dave. yeah i drove the three and a half hours home with a bruised car. So how would, how do you remember that day?
00:06:55
Speaker
Well, I do remember receiving an urgent call and texting all the way on the flight home. And the detail that I missed was I thought I was supposed to be in at 7 AM m the night before.
00:07:07
Speaker
And it turns out we were supposed to arrive at 7 a.m. m the morning of the talk. And so I scrambled, landed, drove the five hours from the airport to the location and got there just in time to deliver my talk, at which point Trigby had already been back home because he did his the day before. So it was a wild time and very interesting. And I'm glad that Trigby is better and I'm glad no one actually forcibly put him into the hospital because of his shenanigans. Well, yeah, it wasn't. Yeah, I suppose i there was a definite possibility I could have been committed.
00:07:46
Speaker
didn't really realize that nobody said anything. So I was just, and I think the bummer of the day was not that my car got hit, but then nobody appreciated the joke like I did. So the vendor in question is a wonderful guy. We've remained friends since then. His name is
Innovative SMS Marketing for Restaurants
00:08:00
Speaker
Nicholas Wicks. He is a dynamic entrepreneur and the co-founder of Check This Out.
00:08:04
Speaker
It's a referral software platform that helps restaurant and hospitality businesses amplify customer engagement through innovative SMS marketing. He's got years of experience in both the tech and restaurant industries and a unique perspective on how digital marketing, particularly SMS, can really elevate a brand's connection with his audience.
00:08:24
Speaker
How do you remember that day, Nicholas?
00:08:28
Speaker
Well, Trigby, thank you for that introduction. I remember you being as funny and cordial and professional as you are, as you've always been. And it just struck me, I almost didn't believe your story.
00:08:46
Speaker
because you were just like rolling with it. And there was a moment where you were sitting on a ah stool outside of the workshop after you had presented. And I think some of your adrenaline may have worn off at that point and and you were starting to grimace and but you grimaced with a smile and your presentation was very impactful. So yeah, thank you. You pulled it off.
00:09:08
Speaker
Not to say that you should get into an accident like that again. No. But at your presentation definitely well received. And I did hear people laughing. So maybe he had a... There's a lot of programs out there that do SMS marketing. They do bulk SMS marketing. I think we're all getting out of the election. And I think no matter who you voted for in the election, we can all be happy that we're not going to get ah texts from the Harris campaign anymore.
00:09:34
Speaker
Good for us as ah as a people. And tell me about the genesis of Check This Out. Yeah, thank you for that. In 2014, a friend came to me and said, at the time was an enterprise software consultant and I was dabbling in property Las Vegas and Tempe in Central California. And a friend in Montana came to me and said, hey, you want to open a restaurant?
00:09:58
Speaker
And I told that rest to tell that story to a room full of restaurateurs and they just cringe and they're all like, oh no. Don't do it, man. Don't do it. Don't do it.
00:10:09
Speaker
And so lo and behold, of course I said yes, because you know, why the heck not? And 10 years later, a pandemic and some and some tough times, I'm still managing partner of a restaurant in Bozeman, Montana called Feast Bistro.
00:10:26
Speaker
A couple of years into that journey, it occurred to me that, and I have never been a very good restaurateur because i just have my hackles up all the time.
00:10:36
Speaker
I'm not a magician in the kitchen. I'm not an empath, hospitality guy out front. I'm the data guy. I'm the geeky data business guy in the back. I'm a very good eater.
00:10:47
Speaker
But a couple of years in, I was like, there's something wrong here. We put out this amazing food and we announced specials by putting them on a chalkboard to 60 people who are sitting in the restaurant.
00:11:02
Speaker
And at the same time, i was the guy that was collecting all of the flyers. We feast, we've done everything short of TV ads, radio spots, flyers, print ads, you name it, everything.
00:11:14
Speaker
And I was the guy that was collecting all of the ah direct mail that people were handing in to redeem their their discount. Basically these paper coupons, right? I grew up cutting coupons with my grandmother and we were still doing this in like 2016, 2017, right? business.
00:11:29
Speaker
right as a business And the return was good, but I was like, wait a second. We want to acquire, we want two types of customers to come in the restaurant, right? This is a very simplified.
00:11:40
Speaker
We want to get existing guests back more often, and we want to get new customers through the doors. We don't actually know. These flyers are just coming in from people and we have no data on them, right?
00:11:51
Speaker
We might get a phone number from them if they made a reservation ah to to get in the restaurant. So we might have a piece of data afterwards. But we it was very it was a very thin way to to market.
00:12:05
Speaker
The ah ROI was okay, but it wasn't great. And so I looked at that chalkboard one day and i was like, that is something that differentiates feast, not only from every other restaurant in our market, but from ourselves, right? So we can offer something new and we can tell all of our diners, all of our guests about it.
00:12:27
Speaker
What is the easiest way to do that? And i forget exactly how texting, the idea of texting came about, but it's its it it almost seemed obvious at the at the time.
00:12:39
Speaker
And so i so we started dabbling with using a texting platform and that work, but it wasn't, it was getting existing guests to come back more often, but it wasn't getting new folks in the door.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I just started to learn more about it in the restaurant business. It's roughly 80% of a restaurant's business, certainly in the first three years, that's driven by word of mouth. You get new people in the door.
00:13:02
Speaker
because outer level they low This is You're coming to Good. Because there's going to be a big brain hammer that's on the forefront. yeah You got it.
00:13:13
Speaker
You got it. We were very fortunate to have some of this stuff figured out prior to, ah yeah, prior to the 2020, the pandemic. Getting existing customers, but then also getting new customers back. So but we went down the road of using text.
00:13:26
Speaker
And then with my tech background as a software quality engineer and just talking to some tech friends, I was like, can we use this 32 year old channel being SMS and can we use discounts and can we use people's networks to help them spread the word, right? Using texts to send discounts out to their friends and family.
00:13:47
Speaker
And this has been done for a lot of e-commerce platforms, but not for retail and certainly not for restaurants. So that was, this is kind of a long way of answering your question, Tregby. That was the genesis of, check this out.
00:13:59
Speaker
The MVP started with a word of mouth engine. where Feast and then other restaurants and now restaurants in seven or eight different states, some of them use the word of mouth engine and and some don't, but those that do, they invite their guests to be their sales team, right? that their All of their marketing is within their four walls, basically.
00:14:21
Speaker
And so they they do that and then they do some Google ads and some SEO and some other, depending on where the restaurant is in their evolution. There are lots of different ways to market, but certainly the SMS piece for Feast in terms of facilitating and harnessing word of mouth and accelerating it, that's the key piece, right?
00:14:40
Speaker
It's such a vital channel, yet restaurateurs just hope that people are going to talk about their restaurant. Hope is not a strategy, right? So what we do is we give them the power to accelerate that word of mouth.
00:14:52
Speaker
We call it word of trust because the way that our software works is that referees end up getting a text, right?
Referral Program Strategy
00:15:00
Speaker
End up getting a text from a friend. It shows up with their friend's name, their friend's phone number saying, I just had a great experience at this restaurant and you should check it out too.
00:15:11
Speaker
If you activate this discount and you redeem it for up to 20 bucks, I'll get a $15 credit. Let's do this together. Let's support this restaurant. You can you can get a discount and i can potentially eat for free.
00:15:24
Speaker
It's very compelling on both sides. And we track that entire referral cycle. its We call it the our value flow. So restaurants can really drill down and they can see who their chatty Cathy's are.
00:15:37
Speaker
All of a sudden, their most valuable diner is not somebody who goes into the restaurant the most. It's that person that has had the most discounts redeemed, who has driven the most business to that restaurant.
00:15:51
Speaker
So it flips it around a little bit. It's roughly a 12X return on investment and on the word of mouth side, right? In gross sales. It's a very high performing way to acquire a new customer.
00:16:04
Speaker
And if you ask a restaurant, I would say that 95% of restaurants don't know what their customer acquisition cost is. But if you do and they know, We roughly reduce customer acquisition costs by a little less than 50%. For example, for fees, we brought our customer acquisition costs down from $86 to $46 to acquire a new customer.
00:16:26
Speaker
Once that customer is acquired, and this is the retention piece, is that campaigns go out announcing a special, right? You send out a dinner special between 3 and 3.30 in the afternoon.
00:16:38
Speaker
The data, that's when folks are are making their reservations, when their stomach juices are starting to flow, that the ah reservation platforms, all their data shows that most of their dinner reservations are made between that time.
00:16:50
Speaker
You send out a campaign about a special, beautiful photo of a delicious dish, a mouthwatering description. And if they do have online reservations, click to make a reservation.
00:17:01
Speaker
And that's where the 17X return on investment comes from, in gross sales. And they see that time to revenue 80% of it, that first night. Folks get that campaign.
00:17:13
Speaker
If they're ah in out on a panel or then when I'm presenting to folks, I ask folks, hey, how many folks like to eat? Okay, everybody's hands go up. and How many folks like to eat out, eat delicious food? Everybody's hands go up.
00:17:25
Speaker
Then you meet people where they're at. And Shrigby, this is something that you talk about in your workshop, was the power of SMS to be able to meet folks where they're at, right? it on their phone with a 98% open rate within three minutes.
00:17:39
Speaker
That's why, because they have their phone in their back pocket and everybody knows how to use SMS. You don't have to download an app to use, check this out. It just pops up. Our software just uses that incredible channel and technology of SMS to meet people where they're at and present them with beautiful photos of delicious dish.
00:17:58
Speaker
That's what we do. And we love, I just love supporting restaurants and helping amazing cooks and amazing hospitality professionals do what they love to do.
00:18:09
Speaker
And we take the business, 60 to 70% of restaurants go out of business in the first year. That just breaks my heart. And we want to flip that around. We want to make that 30% of restaurants go out of business in the first year.
00:18:22
Speaker
And that's the impact that we're starting to have on our restaurants, on our clients is that They're not just surviving, but they're actually thriving using SMS through through Check This Out. It's interesting you talk about hu coupon cutting with your grandmother, because I recently had to move my in-laws into assisted living, and they are furious that they don't get the Sunday papers anymore.
00:18:45
Speaker
and And I'm like, I don't understand why you all have iPads, you all have phones, you all have several. There's a thousand square feet and they think ah they think they have four TVs in their apartment.
00:18:57
Speaker
Finally, I said, can you explain to me why is this a problem? It's just because we don't get the Sunday circulars. How are we going to know what we're hungry for next week if we don't know what's on sale? like yeah And i mean I really didn't have an answer for that.
00:19:11
Speaker
Okay, so now we're getting her subscription to the newspaper for Christmas. ah Hopefully she didn't hear it. I think one of the most demonstrable and interesting ways in which you've decided to utilize the technology is...
00:19:25
Speaker
You also overlay it with the fundamental thing that restaurants understand is that you eat with your eyes before you eat with anything else. be And you've coupled that with people make decisions emotionally and then justify rationally.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah. So you're literally putting big giant sign in front of them that says you should come to here. and edit its and And now with the the the camera technology on cell phones and to capture, and you all you need to do is put a grouping of ingredients for that dish or the actual finished plate at a table next to a window. And then you take a you snap a photo and then maybe you put it through an Instagram filter or some other kind of editing.
00:20:12
Speaker
And there's your beautiful, to your point, there's your beautiful photo of a delicious dish. that everybody eats up, right? Condé Nast, it's a multi-billion dollar industry of just photos of food.
00:20:23
Speaker
And so that's exactly it. with that that's how we That's how we enable our customers to not just be top of mind and engage their guests, but to get their stomach juices flowing.
00:20:36
Speaker
because they've already been in, they already know, that they've already been acquired. So they know what the food, the quality of food it is, what it tastes like. And they see a photo of something that they've never had at that restaurant before, or maybe they haven't had in six months.
00:20:48
Speaker
And they're like, honey, we're going, we have no plans tonight. We're going into that restaurant. We're going into Bob's Bistro because that dish looks amazing. Or they pick up the phone and they start calling friends.
00:21:00
Speaker
And so this is what's really fun. What I really enjoy about the restaurant industry is that when you engage somebody, You're not just engaging them, you're engaging an average party size.
00:21:10
Speaker
And so in full service, let's say it's 2.7 people. One person makes a reservation. That's great. The conversion is actually 2.7 people, right? Times the per person average.
00:21:22
Speaker
that's what That's the ah ROI right there. If you acquire a new customer, right? If you use the word of mouth engine and you bring somebody new in, then it's average party size times the PPA per person average times retention rate.
00:21:37
Speaker
And then for a one year lifetime value, right? Some of this stuff, I don't necessarily use a lot of this verbiage with restaurateurs because they're too busy thinking about making amazing food and and and being empaths. But the value of that customer,
Optimal Timing for SMS Marketing
00:21:50
Speaker
that new customer that you can bring in and then retain over a year, that's the power of check this out, word of mouth engine and then ah retention platform.
00:22:01
Speaker
Amazing. but Nicholas, i I have a couple of timing questions because you mentioned a little bit earlier that it's a good idea to send a text at a specific time when people are thinking about when they're going to book a reservation. So for your average restaurant, is there a best time of either the week or the day to send out messages like this to boosts like that day or that week?
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, for ah for restaurants, what ive the feedback that I've gotten and and from the this the ah research that I've done, generally, Wednesdays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, but generally Wednesdays and Sundays are slower, right? hard Slower nights.
00:22:43
Speaker
So if you can maximize, if you're not full of capacity over the weekend, that's low hanging fruit. Send out a campaign on a Friday between three and three 30 for dinner.
00:22:55
Speaker
And you will pack the restaurant for that night. And then you'll have a little bit, you'll have 15 to 18% the, of that business from that campaign come in the next night and then some on Sunday.
00:23:07
Speaker
But at the very least, fully maximize your capacity when folks are really excited about going out and having some good food with family and friends on Friday and Saturday. Then if that midweek, if that Tuesday or Wednesday, and for most of our restaurants, it's Wednesday.
00:23:23
Speaker
So they need to drive traffic, midweek traffic. So they sent, some of them send out a campaign on Tuesday, announcing a special or a Wednesday announcing a midweek special.
00:23:34
Speaker
That's pretty unique, but it's all about making the most of what you have, what you've built as a restaurateur. and maximizing your kitchen and feeding incredible food to as many people as possible.
00:23:47
Speaker
And that's kind of part of the ethos of Check This Out is that we're long on humanity. We want to bring people together. We love bringing people together, mano a mano, right? Breaking bread.
00:23:58
Speaker
There's nothing, there's no degree of technology that is going to replace that. And and so that that is, that there's so much joy and when I put my restaurateur hat on, and there's so much joy in seeing people come together and sharing ideas and sharing delicious food.
00:24:12
Speaker
And then to be part of the technology to help facilitate that and to help restaurateurs do what they love to do in bringing people together over over delicious food. So you opened a high-end restaurant in a town of 60,000 and you survived the pandemic with everybody else closing, with Tom Colicchio closing, with Anthony Bernane closing, all of these major league people, you had high buck stuff
00:24:43
Speaker
in a little town. How did you do that? Yeah, I would say back in 2015, Bozeman, Montana was closer to 40,000 people, 42,000 people. I'm going to say, Trigby, that with a lot of good fortune and gratitude for a really amazing team, my operating partner, our GM, Steve, and then our kitchen, our executive so chef and sous chefs,
00:25:09
Speaker
So recognizing the team that you have, um but then also just really not not giving up and turning over every single stone to give diners and give our guests the opportunity to come in and enjoy food and feast ambiance.
00:25:28
Speaker
Right. And so that's a communication. And and one ah one of our advisory board members, Jeff Batten, good friend of mine and and business partner, just super smart. he He distilled that and was like, check this out is actually a communications platform.
00:25:42
Speaker
which it is, it's not a very sexy way to describe it, but that's the opportunity that we afford restaurants is to communicate with their guests, especially during a pandemic or slower times, just to give folks at the right time of day a reason to come on in. It's the power of the nudge.
00:26:02
Speaker
and And I know that there's lots of research and data out there and about that Parver has done on the power of the nudge, but that's essentially what we do, right? That nudge, to answer your question, increases our our retention rate on average across, check this out, by a third.
00:26:18
Speaker
just by nudging existing guests come back more often. For example, so fees retention rate, this was a couple of years ago, was yeah roughly three times a year.
00:26:29
Speaker
Heavy tourist traffic, lots of folks that don't come back for if ever. But then you find that average with the locals. And so three times a year, we started using Check This Out.
00:26:40
Speaker
It bumped it up to four times a year. That's a very quick uptick in business. And right now to to your point, Trivi, this is a tough time for restaurateurs. Like they have seen, let's say 30%, 40% increase in labor costs over the last years And that for a lot of folks that totally wipes out their net margin, their 7%. Tough restaurants, 3%.
00:27:04
Speaker
Folks who are you doing a ah good enough job, it's 10%. Let's say it's 7%. That 7% is gone. So now they need, they really need to buckle down and focus on, first of all, think about what their finish line is.
00:27:18
Speaker
A beautiful website is great. And a gazillion followers on social media is great. And an email that reads like a newsletter, I don't know if that's so great, but it's like' a way of keeping in touch with folks.
00:27:30
Speaker
But does it get your business over the finish line? The finish line being butts in seats. It's a very crude thing to say. And as a diner myself, I don't want to be considered a butt in the seat.
00:27:42
Speaker
But from a business standpoint, that's what we're talking about. And so getting butts in seats and then doing what works. to get those butts in seats. So that's what kind of, that's what kind of got us through those was tougher times.
00:27:54
Speaker
As a business, we almost folded early on because our model, we hadn't quite fleshed out. The economics didn't quite add up, but it forced us to buckle down and really look at our, what we were spending on marketing and make sure that our marketing was actually working to get butts in seats.
00:28:11
Speaker
In terms of the pandemic, Trigby, we had just an amazing pipeline to communicate with all of our folks, right? And God forbid this ever happens again, but they knew exactly when we were open or when we were closed, what are capacity was.
00:28:27
Speaker
We obviously pivoted or not pivoted, but tacked to take out really quickly, like a lot of other folks, but we could communicate all of that with our diners. We were sending out three or four campaigns a day.
00:28:40
Speaker
I don't recommend, sorry, right not a day, a week, right? I don't recommend that now. I recommend, we recommend really maxing out two a week, but that's what got us through that, the pandemic. We, but along with playing on, it plays on FOMO, right?
00:28:54
Speaker
and Yeah. there's like Restaurants are one of those things that as I get older and I'm more comfortable and with my income and I'm increasingly more tired during the week, My 10 year old has discovered that is the time to come to mom and dad and say, you want to go out for dinner tonight?
00:29:11
Speaker
Right. thats so but fair go And he's a little shark for a number of reasons. But again, that the whole idea of showing you what you could have, as opposed to just talking about another night at Applebee's really does make a difference because then you're thinking about how good that tastes to me and the, and the ambience and The setting is almost secondary to the actual product, which is different than restaurants usually work.
00:29:39
Speaker
Restaurants usually work on the overall experience, the whole zhuzh, the music, the wait staff, the the standards and procedures. You're really flipping that all on its head and say it at the the product and the want of the product is the most important.
00:29:53
Speaker
That's exactly it. And so for our restaurants that also have an amazing wine list and have like wine specials and they want to showcase
Role of Food in Marketing
00:30:00
Speaker
bottles of wine, but that's not what gets people into restaurants.
00:30:04
Speaker
Food is what gets people into restaurants. Now, if if it's a bar, we have some customers that are breweries or distilleries. That's totally different. But if it's a restaurant and and if to your point, if that core product is food, then Get those stomach juices going with something that they've never had before. And if folks, they have their favorite restaurant, there's nothing more that they love than to try something new that kitchen is putting out.
00:30:29
Speaker
And so that's also what's fun is that some of our customers have changed their program because of Check This Out. They have introduced... They may not have had a weekly special. They started using Check This Out because of wine dinners or because of a gift card giveaway or because of a new location or just communicating something else other than food.
00:30:49
Speaker
But then they see the power of it and they're like, okay, maybe we should do a special this week and use Check This Out for that. And then that's stickiness. Once you start, the restaurant starts communicating a new way to enjoy that restaurant and that kitchen's talent, folks are very engaged and the conversion but conversion rate is incredibly high.
00:31:08
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. It's fun to see. For SMS, it's pretty obvious that you've got a mobile device in your hands and that works really well. Bozeman is a touristy kind of town. And so a lot of people might be coming into town that might not have ever been there. And so might not be exposed or have a network to refer.
00:31:29
Speaker
Are there other essential channels that you use, especially in a tourism driven location like Bozeman? Does social media play out well for marketing or do you recommend other things like SEO?
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Dave. That that timing and in so tacking or really pivoting to digital media in 2018 to digital channels, that was incredible for us in terms of getting us through that kind of tough time and prepping us, unfortunately for the pandemic, but getting us through the pandemic.
00:32:01
Speaker
And so yes, so for those local folks, it's SMS. For tourists, it's SEO and Google ads and Facebook ads. So social media ads and Google ads, because that's 90% of search traffic, right, is over Google. And that's what folks do.
00:32:18
Speaker
We started out by creating partnerships with hotels and befriending concierges and giving folks a little bit of a kick pack for referring folks. And that helps. But in this day and age, when folks go to a new place, they just enter what's the best restaurant in town, or I love seafood, seafood restaurant in Bozeman.
00:32:37
Speaker
And so working with an agency that really has that dialed on how to manage ads, maximize those keywords and that ad spend social media is, it does help.
00:32:48
Speaker
But in my mind people, At least I can only speak to Feast. So it's where we're at in our evolution. Not the best use of design time and creating copy. If you're going to create that copy and get that photo, put it out over SMS.
00:33:06
Speaker
Albeit you pay for SMS. yeah Social media is free, but you get what you pay for. yeah yes I think I had to end the podcast. I'm so shocked and a little bit hurt.
00:33:18
Speaker
And I think I'm just utterly destroyed. Did I hear you correctly that ah hotel concierge doesn't just provide altruism as a service? ah so I'm shocked I know you.
00:33:34
Speaker
i know. And that they, some of them were swayable. I'll just say that. You're kidding. Oh my goodness. Oh, I know. I know. Now that we're entering into 2025, what do you think the best ways that restaurants are going to be able to market themselves?
00:33:51
Speaker
And then I want to circle back and I want to know, as my my follow-up to this is, how are you going to be marketing yourselves to that community?
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Trigby. We are going to stick with our digital marketing strategy. We are going to keep tabs on what's going on with ai and other technologies that could maybe be layered in.
00:34:18
Speaker
b You won't even know that AI is actually part of part of the product. right It's a button in check this out that says, write this better with AI. And we're actually talking with a couple of ai specific marketing are for restaurants, AI vendors about that.
00:34:36
Speaker
So we're going to keep an eye on that. I'm not going to. I'm not going to get too wrapped up in the new bright and shiny because at the end of the day, you only want to spend time as a restaurateur with that super tight margin on what gets butts in seats.
00:34:51
Speaker
So you don't want to be paying for anything that isn't attributable revenue. That's the technical term that we're talking about. It's got to be all tied and aligned to revenue. So for restaurateurs, they will get through this tough time.
00:35:05
Speaker
They are going to have to penny pitch and they're going to have to focus on channels that work to get butts in seats. I'm just going to put it simply like that. Washington hospitality panel that I was on last week, I pretty much had the room chanting butts in seats, butts in seats, because they they just knew what I was going to say in terms of my message about AI or about this or about that.
00:35:28
Speaker
It's all, look at all the options, take some advice, Maybe don't try everything. Maybe actually follow some of the advice, that but just be really cognizant about what what works to to get mouths at tables.
00:35:43
Speaker
no but No business, no mouths, no money. It's very crude, but that's my business. that's what That's how I approach this really tough business is from a very simplified kind of Occam's razor approach.
00:35:54
Speaker
I love that. i think one of the things that you have been saying, but we haven't actually is really understand said before you pick a tactic on how you're going to market your business and especially a restaurant business, you need to roll it back two layers to really understand who your customer is.
00:36:14
Speaker
And in the case of your restaurant, you have, ah you mentioned that had an understanding as that data guy that A good portion of our business comes from tourists.
00:36:25
Speaker
We're really going to be here three or four times a year. And the rest of the time we got to bring in the locals. And so there's a mix there. oh And so to get the tourists, you had to do SEO. To get the locals, you had to do the SMS.
00:36:39
Speaker
You got it, Trivi. That's exactly it. And so many restaurants and tourists tourist markets, they forget about that local customer and they're in big trouble if they think that people are just going to come on in because they're there.
00:36:52
Speaker
That's not how we work as consumers. We've got to get, and's and it's almost as if food is the low hanging fruit. Sorry, horrible pie. Yeah. But it is because it's such a high volume business. If you figure it out and you message to those locals when they need that message, when they're receptive to it, you're going to get that local business.
00:37:09
Speaker
but Yes. So dialing back to that marketing plan and God knows respiratory is at least mom-o-pop single couple of locations don't have time to write a marketing plan. There are some professionals out there that are really good at writing, writing working plans. So but I strongly- Dave is.
00:37:26
Speaker
We'll have to bleep that out. I coughed into the mics. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. I'm all right. Yeah. All right. So yes, at least have ah have that framework in your heads as to Trigvi, you're saying it's the who, it's the what are you marketing, and then you get down to the how, right?
00:37:45
Speaker
no Really those three of the five W's, right? Or how is not a W. Well, you but it it's important to even know, because I think I see this in the B2B marketing that we do a lot.
00:37:57
Speaker
is and i think this holds true for restaurants too because i i came up and from being a bartender and i think everybody needs to work a year in the service industry i think it changes you fundamentally as a person out of doubt and how you look at the world changes ah as as a person so i think as a restaurant tour you can say who is your customer
Targeting the Right Demographic
00:38:20
Speaker
And the response, the natural and frankly, the stupid response is everybody. What do you mean everybody? Everybody's got to eat, right?
00:38:29
Speaker
And we got food here. Right? That's great. If it's not warmth or love or regular food, not everybody needs you. Or if I take my 10 year old to your restaurant, I've seen pictures.
00:38:45
Speaker
He's probably going to order the very expensive chicken fingers. oh Oh, they're so good. The Vietnamese chicken wings. Oh, my gosh. give you his number. You can text him a picture.
00:38:56
Speaker
and I don't like chicken wings, but the ones that that Feast Kitchen comes up with, I don't know how they do it. It is magical, and they are so good. I saw a great meme about the value of going on vacation is so your kids can eat chicken fingers in exotic locales.
00:39:12
Speaker
yeah up The point being is your restaurants were higher end. And so I'm not going to bring my 10 year old on a Tuesday, but if I get an hour and a half with my wife where I don't have my kid along, yeah, we're probably going to go there and have a really nice couple of apps at the bar and have a couple of glasses of wine.
00:39:29
Speaker
and have that great experience too. So actually knowing the situations and the value of your customer is just crucial in any business. But I guess the point I was trying to make, and I'll stop monologuing, is that ah that understanding that deeper understanding that leads to tactics and just leaving it well at something as so trite and cliche as everybody's got to eat, that's not yeah that's not going to cover tables.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's it's not. This kind of gets a little more deeper, right, into marketing, and I'm totally stepping in your guys' coolers. No, keep going. Step away. But it it's it's, and especially in the restaurant industry, and I think this is what you're saying about being a bartender and being in the service industry, it forces you to, or just to start to learn about empathy as a young person, as a teenager, whether you're a host or a dishwasher, it's that empathy piece.
00:40:19
Speaker
Like the geeky business speak or the tech speak is the voice of the customer. You always want to have the voice of the customer of your customer in your head. And you have an ideal customer profile.
00:40:31
Speaker
We wouldn't have, my partners and I wouldn't have started Feast if we didn't have a sense of who we wanted to make food for. It wasn't everybody. That's really important.
00:40:42
Speaker
Do what you do best. And if you have, if you if you've done well with your business plan and had the right guidance from banks and advisors and other professionals, you're going to you're going to find what your core competency is.
00:40:55
Speaker
So Feast was never going to be a Texas roadhouse that I went into the for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and their food was phenomenal. I can't wait to go back. But that's just not what Beast is all about in terms of our product.
00:41:09
Speaker
So it's really important for restaurateurs going forward 2025. Think about this need to really buckle down and to really focus on what you do best, who your customer is, i ideal ideal customer profile.
00:41:23
Speaker
And use the channels that connect with them. Of course, I'm going to say SMS for everybody, but it may not be SMS. It might be other digital channels that work better based on who you're trying, to you know, who you're trying to attract, who you're trying to make food for, right? Who your customer is, what your price point is, that kind of stuff. can go We can go, you know, for miles talking about product market fit, right? And pricing strategy, that kind of thing.
00:41:51
Speaker
Nicholas, what's next for Check This Out? Are there any big technological things that you're looking at or working on for 2025? We talked
Future Business Expansion Plans
00:42:00
Speaker
about AI. Is that going to be a big thing? and is there anything else that you're thinking about to drive new business for those restaurants?
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, we're really excited. we are working our product pipeline in terms of making improvements to Check This Out is looking at dining as right its the experience industry.
00:42:21
Speaker
So we've gone from ag to industrial to service, and then we're moving into or morphing a little bit or those experienced side, those experienced businesses that help, again, connect people, help with visceral responses.
00:42:37
Speaker
i like to say shared visceral experiences in the great outdoors. That last part is just my kind of addition to that. Adventure this, adventure that, anything. adventure dining.
00:42:47
Speaker
So we're going to start to look at how to bring people together for not just dining experiences, but experiences in general, because there are so many ways that folks want to, they want to enjoy their time with their family or their friends and not just dine together. They want to maybe do some other stuff together.
00:43:09
Speaker
So without going too far down that, that's where we're looking in terms of adding value for our customers and making it exciting for new restaurants that we bring on board, that they can, that there are other features and other exciting tools that kind of can help grow their business, making connections with other types of businesses to round out that experience.
00:43:28
Speaker
I love it. the ah In preparation for my talk a year plus change ago, I read a book about the restaurant industry by a guy named John Taffer, who's famous on TV.
00:43:41
Speaker
And he owns a lot of bars. He's one of those people that has one of those reality shows where he yells at you and then all of a sudden everything's okay at the end. Right. Part of his book has haunted me and ah since I read it.
00:43:54
Speaker
And his theory on business on the whole is that you Only as an owner or or an operator, you don't you only have control over your processes and your standards that you bring in.
00:44:13
Speaker
All those three things are all in service of giving that your customer ah specific experience or has that experience that's all in their own heart and all in their own head and you have no control oath over it other than making them want to have that, to to guide that experience in the way that you want.
00:44:34
Speaker
And ever since I've heard that, it's it's just really fundamentally changed how I look at business because I think it's true across the board. You have control over your people, your processes, your standards, all of which are in service as giving ah an an experience. That's why I think your tool especially is so much more specific than anything else when it comes to presentation of options, because you are reminding them of that experience.
00:45:03
Speaker
you are encouraging them to have it again and you're doing that through beautiful food. Yeah. And i I can't wait until um RCS or SMS comes out with a smell-o-vision option yeah because I really want to chow material.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yes, right exactly. Yeah. Scratch and sniff. Everyone's going to be scratching their their cheek yeah scru their phones. Nicholas, I feel like we could go for another hour, but we're running short. We're a little over on time already. Can we have you back on the pod again? mike I would love to, Trigby. Thank you so much. You really enjoyed this. You guys are awesome. If somebody's looking for, check this out. Where do where do they find and They can go to check this out.io.
00:45:44
Speaker
If you're, if they're a restaurateur and they want to see it in action, they can go to feastbistro.com and scroll down the homepage and a check this out widget will pop up and they can enter their phone number and they'll start receiving feasts campaigns. And so they can just experience check this out but from that standpoint.
00:46:02
Speaker
They can always reply stop. Every message you can reply stop to an unsubscribe, but at least they can get on the platform and see it in action and send discounts to their friends and family because Beast uses the word of mouth engine.
00:46:15
Speaker
And so they can click on that link at the bottom of that first campaign that they get and send discounts to friends. They may be halfway around the world, but at least they can start to see how that word of mouth engine works.
00:46:26
Speaker
And they can reach out directly to me if they want. Nicholas at checkthisout.io. That's why you're sly as a cougar because you're offering live fire demo. You're not going to show everybody. Everybody's got a software demo.
Final Thoughts on SMS Marketing
00:46:40
Speaker
You're like, go look at this.
00:46:42
Speaker
And I think what inevitably happens is what happens with me is because I did that and then I signed up and I looked at it and I was staring at a big juicy steak and I was thinking, who do I know in Bozeman that I can send this to?
00:46:56
Speaker
Right. I got to get out to Bozeman. I got to have somebody check this out. Any last classic inspirational thoughts? The biggest part for me is the immediacy and the personal part of restaurant marketing, but especially what check this out and what Nicholas is doing is so cool and so immediate.
00:47:16
Speaker
There's nothing more personal than what you're going to eat. And there's nothing more personal than the device that we all hold in our hands. So it's a perfect merger of being there at the right place at the right time with the fantastic idea. So congratulations on having such a wonderful tool.
00:47:31
Speaker
And I can't wait to try it out and to text it at feast bistro or going to check this out.io. Thank you. Yep. Awesome. so Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you, ah Nicole. This has been an episode of Dial It In, produced by Nicole and Andy Witowski.
00:47:48
Speaker
We will see you next time. Thanks to our sponsor, DataQuick. With apologies to Tony Kornheiser. We will also try to do better the next time.