Highlights of this program:
attract, build, retain — America’s Best Restaurants uses the acronym ABR to explain the importance of these steps: attract, build, retain. It’s not enough to sell to your customers, you also have to get to know them over time in order to keep them guests for life.
Technology helps restaurants — Using modern technologies like Toast and Popmenu, restaurants can adapt to a world where online ordering and customer-facing tools are critical. It’s all about simplifying the experience and making it easier and more fun for your customers to spend money with you.
Always be a brand – If you see Matt Pulp, then you see his brand too. His car matches the orange of his brand, as do his shoes and shirt. It is important to promote your brand anytime, anywhere. It shows that you support the product you are selling.
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Matt Plapp’s mission is to help the best restaurants become better.
As a young man, Matt Pulp’s entrepreneurial endeavors began with a joint venture with his father and brother. Pulp’s Pro Outdoors is a boat shop established in 1999. But in true Matt Pulp fashion, there’s a cutting-edge twist.
“It’s kind of funny. We had the idea, and I don’t know how we got the idea,” Pulp said of the outdoor store. “Let’s do it online. Nobody sells consignment boats and campers online.”
An early exploration of the world of digital hospitality led Pulp and his brothers to launch their marketing company in 2008. The epiphany came in the form of an early client, a burger restaurant trying to figure out how to use a social media platform called Facebook.
“We’ve had our own company since ’08. In 2015, I realized we had a recipe for working with restaurants,” Matt Pulp said on the Restaurant Influencers Podcast hosted by Shawn Walchef Cali Grill Media.
Years later, Prapp is still fully immersed in digital marketing. He is now the author of three best-selling books, regarded as a leading figure in restaurant marketing, and is now sharing his marketing career with the masses. From how to acquire and retain customers to how to swim in the proverbial “blue ocean”, it’s all from Pulp himself.
Matt Plapp has also created a sharing mechanism for clients through his America’s Best Restaurant Company and Roadshow and an entrepreneurial collaborative workspace called Deep Work Space.
“I always joke that restaurants two years ago were 20 years behind in technology. I say they’re only 10 years behind now.”
ABR is an acronym for America’s Best Restaurants, but it’s also an acronym for Attract, Build, Retain — three principles that Matt Plapp’s company follows.
- Attract – How do you capture the attention of your customers?
- BUILD – How to build a customer database?
- Keeping – How do you keep their attention?
In addition to running America’s Best Restaurants, Matt Pulp is the CEO and founder of many other companies, including Deep Work Space, MPTV, Database Dynamite, and more. He is also the author of several books, including “Don’t 86 Your Restaurant Sales” and Effective Restaurant Marketing.
One thing restaurateurs can do right now to improve their business is to look at the technology they are using (their “tech stack”) and see how they can streamline their processes.
In the case of Toast, restaurants can become digital restaurants through online ordering and other point-of-sale technologies. When the pandemic hit in 2020, one of Matt’s favorite smoothie shops couldn’t order online. But they quickly signed up to Toast and were able to modernize their ordering system right away.
“It got me what I still wanted. I ate there four days a week. It was a seamless deal. It was easy to give them my money.”
Another problem that restaurateurs can address is how they store data like customer details and other information that can give you insight into how to communicate with guests.
“I think one of the biggest outrages in restaurant marketing and small business marketing is that they don’t actually know who their customers are,” he said. “Point of sale is a critical way to capture customer data.”
As a man who prides himself on his family, Matt Plapp likens keeping his family happy and healthy to running a successful business.
“I didn’t keep my wife’s attention for a night or two. I did for 26 years.” That’s the key to a successful business. It’s not something you do today or tomorrow. That’s what you do in one year, two years, five years, ten years. “
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Episode link:
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About Restaurant Influencers:
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