Tell A Really Good Brand Story

Customers value more than just the price point about your product. They want a good brand.

Tips for Building an Irresistible Restaurant Brand

Restaurant business is all about relationships. Customer engagement comes down to making a connection. Connection means trust. Without trust, there is no transaction. Brand trust means loyalty. Today, I'd like to share some of the tips I use religiously in building an irresistible brand.

Star Thai Venice, Fl

1. Focusing on The Consumer

Getting to know your target audience allows your marketing to be finely targeted. Your brand identity should speak to your target market, addressing their specific needs in a language they can relate to. In this way, your message can cut through the noise of competing brands. How a brand is perceived in the market is what I'm passionate about. Understanding the consumer's needs and behavior to ensure that the service and product falls in line with their brand and resonates with current and potential customers.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

2. Sell the Experience, Not the Product

Here, I get a chance to bring my skills and experience to the table. This project gives me an opportunity to tell a unique brand story. This restaurant brand has amazing products right off the bat—excellent Asian Fusion and Thai food, and superb sushi. This is what sets them ahead from their competitors. They certainly set a high standard for their product.

StarThai definitely puts their heart and passion into their culinary standards. I had the opportunity to watch their chef at work one day. I truly admire their attention to details, the art of preparation, the décor, their overall presentation and of course the quality of the sushi itself. These are the qualities that set them apart from their competitors. I knew then I had something great to work with.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

3. Building an Emotional Brand Connection Is a Big Deal

Knowing who are we targeting is the driving force during the concept development phase. Finding ways to build a strong emotional connection with our customers to make them engage with our brand is crucial. We believe that building an emotional connection is personal. It builds on the consistent positive customer experience that we provide.

We want every single one of our customers to feel like they're V.I.P customers. Our food, our presentation, and our superb customer service reflects our sense of pride and passion for what we do. We want to be the place where our staff is known for their personal touch—a place where we know our customer's, what they like and dislike, and even their favorite drink.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

4. Be Consistent With Your Brand

In order for people to remember your brand, you want to ensure that the consistency of our branding to appeal to our target audience through every channel necessary. Your brand values, message, image, trust must translate to all consumer touch points. Train everyone of your staff to be consistent with your brand from our visual branding, sale experience, customer experience, person to person, online presence to content marketing. The important of building good brand experience leads to satisfying customers, future customers and ultimately repeat customers. It's fairly to say that don’t leave your brand open to a variety of interpretations and customization.

Star Thai Venice, FL

5. Share The Passion

Food is symbolic, culture heritage, cultural identity, art form, conversation piece and means of pleasure that is practiced around the world. People are connected to their cultural or ethnic group through food patterns. It’s because Food is often used as a means of retaining their cultural identity. There is something about eating in social gathering that helps to bring people together. People are often use food as a means of retaining their cultural identity. On a larger scale, this is an exact reason why food is an important part of culture.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota If you can’t find a common topic with a person, then try talk about food! Immediately, notice their eyes will shine and they’ll tell you all about their favorite. Food is a shared experience. Food can connect us to people and places, bringing friends and families together, and food habits. All around the world Food has symbolic meaning. By sharing a meal, we tap into a source of deep connection. Socially, people just feel closer to people who are eating the same food as they do.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

There is an old saying.. "Every bit takes you home..." This I believe it very much. Food makes us feel good, alive and vibrant. For foodies, in addition to having a full belly, there is something very satisfying about trying new things, being exposed to new color, taste and experience. Food connects us all doesn’t matter what age. Food connects us to each other, to our own pasts and identities, our memories, to its original. Eating is not just connecting us to the world around us, it’s a social thing.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

6. Food As Connection

At the restaurant, it's rare if I didn't come by each table and introduce myself. To break the ice, often times, I'd bring little gift of our samples, appetizers, cocktail shots or sweet desserts. Then watch the conversations open up. Through food, I can share my expertise and restaurant personality with new customers. Socially, by sharing a meal is the best way to connect and the most communal thing and bring people together. People are associated to their likes and dislikes about social gathering, restaurants and even someone’s homes through food. Even at most social events are usually involve around food. Parties are judged by the quality of food the host offer. Notice bad food makes a bad event.

At the restaurant, consumer is always at the center on what we do. I believe developing a good relationship with the target market and how brand is perceived in the market is another key point in restaurant branding. Food is an art. And beautiful art is another language. If you can communicate with your customers with food art, you will find that connection.

7. Food As Art of Expression

Food plays with your senses like many other forms of art. The art of culinary is also a story telling form of conversation piece. How we see food is a reaction on how the object appears to the senses. Like fine art, food visual provides immense pleasure through colors, textures, patterns, fragrance, tastes and arrangements.

Food presentation is a vital ingredient for culinary success. The way that food looks can drastically change the way our taste buds perceive it. At our restaurant, food presentation is taken seriously by our chefs because it is what the customers will judge the establishments on. When something is beautifully is presented onto your place your mind often changes the way you judge the food.

When it comes to food, looks matter. Most great chefs spend as much time thinking about how to present a dish as they do the ingredients. For our chefs, the art of plating food is where they find they can be the most creative. This is where domain. Most of our chefs admit that they're always have to think about the next step, how they can improve themselves in terms of technique, creativity, texture, looks. They always have to work to be more creative. It’s very exciting part of what they do.

Chef Mike of Star Thai Venice, Fl

8. Change How People Think About Food

I want to change the perception of food. It's because by changing consumer behavior leads to better brand experience and interns influences buying decisions. Collectively, we have made a conscious effort about changing the way people experience food. Although, the attitudes of consumers towards food depends on many attributes, which interns affects in different ways on their preferences. Their perception about food often leads them to accept of one dish over another.

As a chef, we can change the perception of food among my friends, customers and even with the people to I encounter. I believe that the consumer attitudes towards food is all mental constructs. If we can change their deception with wow factor and positive experience, we can the way they see food. It's about re-training their thinking. Changing your customer deceptions about food can lead to improving your brand experience, customer retention, gain more new customers, fill in more seats, brand exposure, more up-sells, perhaps change or improve your brand reputations. All these elements translate to increase in revenue and brand journey.

Star Siesta Key, Sarasota

9. Give Your Customers Something Of Value

So clearly establish what your brand is all about has the power to increase the value of your business’s product or service significantly. Telling your story is a critical part of building your brand. It helps to shape how people view you and enables consumers to begin forging a connection with you and your company.

Your brand identity should speak to your target market, addressing their specific needs in a language they can relate to. Getting to know your target audience allows your marketing to be finely targeted. Good brand story begins from its purpose, core values, and mission. Good brand sells benefits, not product. Strong brand sells solutions and follows its strong core value. How a brand makes people feel, that's how people remember your brand is a result of your brand identity.

About Brand Management

"Hi, I'm Chez. Your brand identity should speak to your target market, addressing their specific needs in a language they can relate to. Getting to know your target audience allows your marketing to be finely targeted."

Need Brand Assessment? How Can I Help You?. Come and Say Hi!

Join My VIP Member Club!

Be more inspired. Be Informed. And Be Connected. Always. Sign up