{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Marketing a Menu for Restaurant Success","description":"Melissa Libby, owner of Melissa Libby & Associates (MLA), started her career in hospitality. Today, her friends call her the Restaurant Whisperer In this interview, Melissa talks about the challenges restaurants have faced in the face of Covid-19, the changes yet to come, and the lessons she has learned in her 27 years of restaurant marketing. In recent months, MLA has helped its clients pivot to curbside delivery, takeout, and\/or to serving different retail markets. Some of the adaptations? Restaurants have:  Started low-overhead ghost kitchens\/pop-ups that provide different menus from what is available in brick-and-mortar restaurants Converted parking lots into patios for outdoor dining Elevated curbside packaging and pickup to elegant \u201cexperiences.\u201d  Started selling off their wine cellars, offering some great wines at good prices.  Melissa advises, to further support your local restaurant, \u201cTip well.\u201d. Because restaurants typically do not have a lot of money, they value public and community relations over traditional advertising. As restaurants open back up, which clients are most likely to return for dining \u201cin\u201d? Turns out demographics provide no clue. Dining in is the more profitable option . . . but it\u2019s tough to figure out who to target with the \u201ccome back in\u201d messages. Each individual will have his or her own level of comfort and timing for when it \u201cfeels safe.\u201d Melissa notes that \u201conline ordering technology is glitchy.\u201d She has seen some improvement already and thinks it will quickly evolve to something \u201cway better, very quickly.\u201d Third party delivery services take a significant cut of the food delivered. So, she says, order from the restaurant, and pick it up yourself.  Melissa lauds the Georgia Restaurant Association for lobbying to get the necessary changes made to help Georgia\u2019s restaurants survive. When Melissa talks about the early days of her business, she says that she did not plan for success. She did not ask \u201cWhat do I do if I get more clients than I can handle,\u201d she asked, \u201cWhat am I going to do if I fail?\u201d She feels she would have done better to plan for success and to prepare for success. Melissa used a siloed PR business staffing model until she figured out that did not work for her. She then divided her staff up by what they liked to do best and where they excelled. This made her staff happier, and her organization more resilient. Now, when an employee leaves the agency, the body of knowledge connected to a client remains intact because everyone in the agency has been working with that client.  Melissa can be reached on her agency\u2019s website at: ThinkMLA.com. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Rob Kischuk, and I\u2019m joined today by Melissa Libby. Melissa is the owner of Melissa Libby & Associates based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, Melissa. MELISSA: Thank you, Rob. ROB: It\u2019s fantastic to have you here. Why don\u2019t you start off by telling us about MLA and MLA\u2019s superpowers?  MELISSA: All right. MLA is 27 years old, based in Atlanta. Our superpower is restaurant marketing. My friends call me the Restaurant Whisperer. [laughs] That\u2019s what we do. We help restaurants get business and keep business. ROB: It\u2019s quite a time to be thinking about restaurant business, because here we are in \u2013 what month is it? August, I think? I have to check my calendar \u2013 of 2020. We are still in various stages of COVID-19 lockdown. So, in this time, in August 2020, what are you seeing\/doing\/hearing when it comes to restaurant marketing? MELISSA: Well, it\u2019s a strange new world, that\u2019s for sure. It\u2019s changed over the past few months of what we\u2019ve been doing, and it continues to change as things happen. But it all comes down to getting the message out to the people who want to support a restaurant, want to dine at a restaurant, or want to have takeout. We\u2019ve helped our clients pivot to curbside or takeout or a whole different retail market. Whatever they need to do to stay in business and stay afloat, we help them with that and help them get the word out to people. And then as Georgia reopened and people were able to dine in at a restaurant, we started getting the word out about that. What\u2019s interesting from a marketing perspective, and something that I hadn\u2019t really thought about \u2013 you can\u2019t pick a demographic and say, \u201cOkay, this demographic feels comfortable walking in and dining in a restaurant and this one doesn\u2019t, so we have to focus on this.\u201d You can\u2019t say, \u201cOlder people don\u2019t want to dine in a restaurant, so let\u2019s market to the younger people\u201d because that\u2019s just not the case. What I\u2019ve found is that there are people in every demographic that feel comfortable dining in and in every demographic that don\u2019t. It\u2019s an extremely personal decision, so it\u2019s been really, really hard to figure out who those people are and how we get to them. Because with the dine-in, that is going to be the more profitable avenue for the restaurant. There\u2019s been a lot of that going on. A lot of messaging, a lot of safety messaging to make people feel comfortable, a lot of internal messaging to the staff, a lot of website writing, a lot of social media message crafting. It\u2019s just been really, really challenging. ROB: It\u2019s interesting that you mention the dine-in diner as being more profitable for the restaurant, because I am a big fan of restaurants. I am a big fan of good restaurants. I am a big fan of many of the restaurants that show up on your website. Even from early on in COVID \u2013 I think I felt like I was trying to do them a solid by doing pickup, but even continuing to do so, because I am one of those folks who\u2019s probably not going to dine in at a restaurant. But what can I do as a pickup order diner to help with the profitability of a restaurant versus maybe what someone dining in and sitting down is doing for them to make them a better customer? MELISSA: Definitely picking up instead of ordering through a third party delivery service is certainly a help to the restaurant because the third party delivery services take a pretty significant cut of the price. So, if you can go and pick it up, that\u2019s what you want to do. If you don\u2019t want to dine in, do that. Now in Georgia, they\u2019re about to let restaurants sell alcohol, so if you can order your beer or your wine \u2013 a lot of restaurants have cocktail kits \u2013 anything like that helps them. I have several clients that are selling their wine, basically, their wine cellar. And these are amazing wines that you can get at a really great price. So, do that, tip well. That\u2019s what you can do to help. I feel like with dine-in, they get that alcohol order that they\u2019re not going to usually get with the takeout, and they also obviously have the service staff who receive tips, the people that wait on you. So that\u2019s what you can do to help. And don\u2019t get me wrong; all of my clients are very, very grateful for the people that are coming, even if they\u2019re not coming to dine in. They\u2019re grateful for them. So please keep it up. Another thing \u2013 and I should\u2019ve mentioned this \u2013 everyone is doing outdoor seating now. So that might be your gateway one day when you\u2019re ready to dining back in, to go sit on a patio somewhere. People are turning their parking lots into patios. They\u2019re doing anything they can to get some patio seating, and people are loving it, even as hot as it is here.  ROB: I know some places have given a temporary reprieve on allowing restaurants to sell alcohol and also in terms of compromising what is allowed for outdoor seating. Are the alcohol sales becoming something more permanent that is being permitted for pickup? MELISSA: No, it\u2019s COVID specific. It would be great if they would make it permanent, and I guess it\u2019s a possibility, but that has not been discussed. ROB: It seems like it would take perhaps \u2013 and I don\u2019t know this industry as well from the side that you see it from \u2013 it seems like it would take a more potent restaurant lobby than maybe has formed up to now. Or is there a stronger restaurant lobby that is forming in recent years to help represent \u2013 because independent restaurants just don\u2019t have the same leverage that let\u2019s say a large chain has. MELISSA: Yeah. The Georgia Restaurant Association is absolutely amazing, and they are our lobbying group. I don\u2019t know if you recall that we got the Sunday Brunch Bill passed. It used to be you couldn\u2019t drink alcohol until 12:30 on Sunday, and now I think it\u2019s 10:30 or 11:00 or something. That took like 3 years or more. It\u2019s ridiculous. It takes forever to get these things through. But the Georgia Restaurant Association and Karen Bremer, who\u2019s the head, they are big-time our advocates from the restaurant community standpoint. They have been instrumental in getting all of these things to happen. ROB: That\u2019s good to hear. MELISSA: They are definitely representing everyone. They really, really are. ROB: When all this started, I\u2019m sure you had some clients who were already doing online ordering, some who resisted it very much at the onset, probably some who flipped over, maybe some holdouts. What were the stages of technology enablement that you\u2019ve seen across your client portfolio? MELISSA: It was very interesting to watch that. Anybody that was already doing online ordering immediately took it up a notch and they were great. And then you have fine dining restaurants like Aria and Umi, and they\u2019re like, \u201cHow am I going to do takeout? How can you take out sushi?\u201d It goes against everything that they have ever dreamed of for their restaurant. Then a couple of weeks go by and they\u2019re like, \u201cYeah, we\u2019ve got to figure this out.\u201d And they did. In the case of Umi, they got beautiful packaging and they really figured out a way to create the Umi experience, even insofar as how you drive up and how you\u2019re greeted and how you receive your food. Everything about it is very Umi-like, and it\u2019s probably some of the more expensive takeout you\u2019ll ever get in your life. Umi has a broad menu that you can choose from. Aria took a different stance and they do two choices a day, and they post their menu every single day of what\u2019s tonight\u2019s menu. Some people get Aria three or four times a week because it\u2019s different every night. They\u2019ve got a beautiful curbside pickup. I guess we probably have a couple that don\u2019t do online ordering or takeout, but it\u2019s few. It was hard, because we had to get the technology set up, and that\u2019s always painful. ROB: I imagine in Umi\u2019s case, they may have also been tracking \u2013 I think there was a sushi restaurant up in New York that went to some sort of like $800 takeout. Did you see this? MELISSA: [laughs] No, I didn\u2019t. ROB: Yeah, there was a New York sushi restaurant that went to $800 takeout. I saw some very elevated packaging from Sugarfish, which is a smallish\/medium-ish sushi chain, that really did elevate that experience. My own experience has really been that during this time, it has become a time for those who are in the hospitality industry to think about hospitality far more than just being in the food and feeding people industry. MELISSA: Absolutely. That\u2019s exactly right, and Umi is the perfect example of that. They took their current offering and put it to go. They really did. And the love and care that they give you when you\u2019re dining in, you receive via takeout. They have now opened it for dine-in, but the takeout was such a hit that they kept that going. I wonder to myself if they will continue that when they don\u2019t have to anymore. ROB: I\u2019m very much excited, especially the restaurants that have figured out how to be hospitable in their takeout and have that passion for serving people. I\u2019m indeed curious how that will continue onwards. You mentioned that MLA has been in the hospitality industry \u2013 you mentioned you\u2019ve been in business for 27 years. Have you been deep into hospitality from the onset? Let me start there. MELISSA: We have. I started the company in 1992. My background was I had a job at Hyatt. I was working in the hotel business. My contacts were already in the hospitality business, so those were the type of client leads I was getting back then. Then as \u201996 and the Olympics started getting closer, Atlanta\u2019s hospitality scene started to beef up a little bit. then when the Olympics hit, I think the whole world saw Atlanta for the great place that it is, and before I knew it, I was focusing on restaurants. I don\u2019t think I could\u2019ve done that when I first started. I don\u2019t think there would\u2019ve been enough restaurants to keep me employed. But that changed, and I was a part of it. It was awesome. ROB: It\u2019s amazing to stick with it for that long. I think some people start off in the serving hospitality, but they find a hard way to make it a rewarding business for themselves as entrepreneurs and they start to get wandering eyes for how to better serve other clients. Particularly, I think there\u2019s a perception \u2013 and a reality, depending on the client \u2013 of the margins in the world of being an agency driven around the hospitality industry. You seem to be happy to have made it work for coming up on three decades. How do you attribute that ongoing passion for the industry \u2013 and also, you\u2019ve been able to hire people as well. You\u2019re not a one-person show, just scraping by, taking pictures yourself and posting pictures of food. How has that worked well for you? MELISSA: There\u2019s no question that I love the industry, and I think that has to be \u2013 I\u2019m sure I could go work in another industry and make more money, but I do love the industry, and I love working with the restaurant owners and the chefs. It\u2019s a very creative group of people. It\u2019s a very entrepreneurial group of people. I really enjoy working with other people. I love to be in a meeting and go, \u201cHey, I have a great idea. Let\u2019s do this!\u201d \u201cOkay, that sounds good.\u201d Boom, off you go and start doing it. It doesn\u2019t have to run up a flagpole of approvals and all of that stuff so that by the time the idea is finally approved, it\u2019s completely different and 3 months later. I really enjoy the atmosphere of what we do. I feel like from focusing the way that I do and focusing my team in the way that I do, we\u2019re just incredibly efficient. The fact that we represent a lot of restaurants makes us a huge value to the media, so they can just make one phone call and say, \u201cI\u2019m looking for recipes using apples\u201d \u2013 and this is a true story; got it this morning \u2013 and I can make like eight calls and then, 3 hours later, call the reporter back and go, \u201cOkay, I\u2019ve got\u201d \u2013 and this is true \u2013 \u201ca Brussel sprout and apple salad, I\u2019ve got an apple pie, I\u2019ve got this, I\u2019ve got this.\u201d The reporter has only had to make one call and spend 5 minutes. So, I think that\u2019s made us very efficient. You\u2019re right; restaurants don\u2019t have a lot of money, but I have to say that they value public relations and community relations and communications over more traditional advertising. Because it stretches a little bit more. Their money will stretch a little bit farther with us than it would two ads that month. It really has been \u2013 I\u2019ve made a living. [laughs] I pay my bills, almost always on time. ROB: And sometimes you get some good meals along the way, and that\u2019s pretty good too. MELISSA: I definitely do. I definitely do that, yes, for sure. ROB: Wonderful. When we think about some of these clients \u2013 entrepreneurs, and I think restauranteurs sometimes in particular, may have a reputation of being a little bit hard to corral. When someone comes in with that need for that story, for that recipe, some of them might not even read your email until the next day. I think a lot of people, even more broadly beyond the hospitality industry, would wonder: is there a secret? Is it that you just know so well into the businesses that you can maybe bypass the entrepreneur and go straight to a chef internally? Is it that you tend to work with restauranteurs who have their details together more? Is it that you\u2019re sometimes able to just know things well enough that you can be a proxy for them? Or a combination of everything? How do you tighten those lines of communication? Because everybody wants, I think, that level of execution and responsiveness to be able to pull something from an idea to a published-in-the-media message quickly. But clients may not always make that easy for you. MELISSA: Oh, for sure they don\u2019t. [laughs] The answer to your question is certainly all of the above. Every single client is different, has a different way that they like to be communicated with. We just have to learn, \u201cOkay, this guy, if we text him at 2:00 it\u2019s going to be our very best time to get his attention. This one, we\u2019ve got to call because he knows if I\u2019m calling, it\u2019s got to be really important. Otherwise I\u2019m just going to send him an email. This person likes all five things put in an email at the end of the day. This person likes everything in subject by subject email.\u201d We really just have to figure them out. But they all are paying us to get the word out, so if they take too long or don\u2019t answer or whatever, I just let them know, \u201cHey, you missed an opportunity. This is why, so next time, here\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to do.\u201d They get it. And we also know on our end who\u2019s fast to answer \u2013 and I tell clients this when I first meet with them about \u201cAre we going to work with you or not?\u201d I always say, \u201cThere is no question, the people that answer us quickly and thoroughly are the ones that get the best press. So that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do.\u201d They always go, \u201cOkay, okay, I\u2019m going to do it!\u201d And then some do and some don\u2019t. But it\u2019s the truth. You get out what you put in. But if we get a last-minute request and we don\u2019t have a lot of time, we have our go-tos because we know who\u2019s going to respond. That\u2019s the goal, to be a go-to. ROB: You\u2019ve been in this business a while longer than some of the recent shifts in the food media world. It seems like between web outlets, between review sites and increased interest in the TV landscape around food, the culture of food and interest in good food has shifted mightily. What is trending now? What is evergreen now, and what is withering away in terms of getting attention within the hospitality industry? MELISSA: That\u2019s a really good question, and I\u2019m not sure, given everything going on, that I can answer that with any great knowledge. I\u2019ve seen the food industry go through all kinds of changes, and I think that food as an entertainment avenue is here forever. I just can\u2019t see that going away. But I think that with COVID and the concerns of the large gatherings, and even the very tight quarters, that\u2019s going to \u2013 I don\u2019t want to say go away, but I think there\u2019s going to be less of that. I think people that are opening restaurants right now for sure are not cramming tables in. They\u2019re also not making a humongous restaurant. So, I think we\u2019re going to see some more medium-size restaurants with a lot of space. I think we\u2019re probably going to see some lower priced menus. Just a more mainstream, low-key, as everybody gets back into it and figures out \u2013 I just can\u2019t imagine people opening a big, flashy, fancy restaurant right this minute. And that\u2019s not to say that they won\u2019t, and that\u2019s not to say that they wouldn\u2019t be successful. But I think if you were making your decision today, that would probably not be what you would do. Now, there are people that are well into the planning for a restaurant that\u2019s supposed to open next week or in a month or whatever, and they have to go with what they\u2019ve got and use the guidelines from the state until they don\u2019t have to anymore. ROB: The intersection that you sit at, I\u2019m sure that your existing clients and people getting into the industry even look to you to an extent for strategy as well. One thing you hear swirling in the restaurant industry is diversification of business model. Some people are already going into events. That\u2019s obviously changing a little bit. Some have been going into additional retail product lines. What are you suggesting to clients as they think about where to go with technology enablement and where to go with overall restaurant business strategy, possibly diversifying? MELISSA: One thing that\u2019s big is the ghost kitchen\/pop-up idea. I have a couple clients, Drift in East Cobb is doing a lobster roll pop-up calls Pop\u2019s Lobster Shack. They did it kind of out of necessity during COVID. They made this takeout window \u2013 and I don\u2019t know if you know this, but lobster was really, really inexpensive. I don\u2019t know if it still is, but all the lobster fishermen didn\u2019t have anybody to sell to because all the restaurants up there were closed, so everybody got lobster really cheap. I don\u2019t know if people are noticing, but you can probably get lobster at Applebee\u2019s right now. I don\u2019t know. But anyway, they started this lobster roll special called Pop\u2019s, and it\u2019s been unbelievably successful. We had a meeting the other day and they were like, \u201cI think we\u2019re going to just keep this going. When lobster\u2019s out of season, we\u2019ll do something else.\u201d I already had some clients that were talking about that sort of ghost kitchen idea, where you do something different than what you already do in your restaurant, you have a different menu offering, but you don\u2019t have the building and the huge branding and all the expenses that go along with it. You just sell it on Door Dash or whatever the situation is. So that\u2019s definitely happening right now. As far as technology, I think the online ordering is glitchy right now. I see it already getting better, and I think it\u2019s going to get way better very, very quickly, and people are going to be able to, as you suggested, order merch and maybe seasonings and all that stuff in a much less clunky way than they even can do right now. I\u2019m excited for that to happen because it\u2019s been painful, some of these online sites that we\u2019ve been working with. ROB: I can\u2019t imagine, and it sounds like you\u2019ve had to. Melissa, as you reflect on the business as you have built it thus far, what are some things that you would consider maybe doing differently if you were starting over from scratch? MELISSA: That\u2019s a very good question. One of the things that I always tell people when they say, \u201cWhat should I know before I start a business?\u201d is I did not plan for success when I started. I planned, \u201cWhat am I going to do if I fail? When am I going to decide it doesn\u2019t work, and then what am I going to do?\u201d I spent a lot of time thinking about that, but I didn\u2019t spend any time \u2013 not even a minute \u2013 thinking about, \u201cWhat am I going to do if I\u2019ve got more clients than I can handle? What am I going to do if there are not enough hours in the day for me to do all the work by myself?\u201d I never thought of any of that. I spent probably 2 or 3 years running like a crazy woman, trying to hire a person here and there, do this, do that. Always that\u2019s my first thing that I tell people: plan for success. Have some people lined up. Have some things lined up to support you if it goes well. That\u2019s always been my best learning, because it\u2019s like \u201cWhy didn\u2019t I do that?\u201d And then many years ago \u2013 but it was still well into the business \u2013 I realized that the traditional PR business model or way of setting up your staff didn\u2019t work for me. You probably know this, but it was always account supervisor, account executive, assistant account executive, little silos, and they did everything. They met with the client, they wrote the business plan, they wrote the press release, they sent the press release, they did everything. I realized I would come back to the office and go, \u201cHey, we got a new client,\u201d and everybody would duck their head like, \u201cOh my God, don\u2019t give it to me, don\u2019t give it to me.\u201d I was like, oh, this is not good. So I divided everybody up by what they like to do best and what they\u2019re best at, so now we have writers and we have media relations people and we have social media people and we have client services people. If your thing is meeting with the clients and writing timelines and writing plans and checking off lists, then that\u2019s what you do. And if you\u2019re a great writer and you can sit in a quiet room all day long and write, write, write, write, write, that\u2019s what you do. It was just a huge help, and it changed everything. And then there was an added bonus of if someone leaves, the brain trust does not walk out the door because everyone has been working on the client. So that was a big learning, and it\u2019s something that I\u2019m glad came to me at some point in the years. ROB: Sure. One thing I think adjacent to that is in this case \u2013 and it\u2019s fairly common in the PR industry \u2013 your name is on the door, and that can be a challenge in bringing in other people. How have you addressed the challenge where Melissa is quite often the person who goes out and earns the trust of the client, and your reputation is a big part of the value that you bring, but at some point your client\u2019s going to have to work with somebody who\u2019s not Melissa? How have you handled that scaling yourself problem? MELISSA: It\u2019s a good question, and it worried me so much for a long time. I felt like I had to be at every new business meeting, I had to really, really be involved and really assure the prospective client that I was their main contact and all of that. I think the true answer is good people. I have people that have been with me 11 years, 8 years. I\u2019ve been really fortunate to have long-term employees who are awesome, and the client just wants somebody that\u2019s going to help them get the work done. I love client meetings, so I go to as many of them as I can. The beauty, though, is I don\u2019t have to write the agenda. I don\u2019t have to take the notes. I don\u2019t have to do the follow-up. I\u2019m just spending that hour of my time brainstorming with that client or advising that client or listening to that client. So, I\u2019m giving them my best. I\u2019m giving them what they expect from me and what they value from me, but then I have a very competent person and a whole team behind that person that\u2019s going to take care of the details. Over time, I\u2019ve just gotten more and more comfortable with it \u2013 and that\u2019s truly what it was: me getting comfortable with it. I think it was more in my head than it was anything else. I think the clients are fine with it because, once again, they\u2019re being taken care of. If they weren\u2019t, I\u2019m sure they would say, \u201cMelissa, you schluffed me off on this person and they\u2019re no good.\u201d But fortunately that does not happen. Also, one of my key employees took on the new business development role a few years ago, so she is bonused on the new business that she brings in. She takes a really instrumental role in that, to the point where now sometimes we have to be sure that the prospective client realizes that she may not be the person that they\u2019re going to see every day too. It\u2019s funny. It\u2019s kind of transferred over a little bit. ROB: It definitely makes sense. It sounds like one of those things you find along the way; you took it from your name and your person being the reputation to when people bring in Melissa Libby & Associates, your reputation is also the people you bring to the table and who does the work. MELISSA: Yes, exactly. ROB: The brand is still you; you haven\u2019t shied away from that, but you\u2019ve expanded what it means. MELISSA: Right. And as you\u2019ll notice, we a long time ago started using MLA as our logo. Our web address was MelissaLibbyPR.com; now it\u2019s ThinkMLA.com because we wanted to expand beyond the PR and be more than that, and then we also wanted to shorten it and use that MLA more. It just takes my name out of it a little bit. Just a little bit. ROB: Perfect. Melissa, when people want to find you and MLA, where should they go to find you? MELISSA: ThinkMLAcom. ROB: Excellent. Even in the website, it\u2019s changed a little bit. Or was that always the address? MELISSA: No, it\u2019s changed. ROB: Very good. Melissa, thank you for enlightening us on your journey with Melissa Libby & Associates as well as the journey of the hospitality industry during this time. I\u2019ve learned a lot, and I think the listeners will have as well. MELISSA: Thank you. I enjoyed it. ROB: Be well. Thank you. MELISSA: All righty. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com. ","author_name":"The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/spinutech.com","html":"