1. Market focus
Often marketing plans are too broad and try to please everyone rather than defining your precise target market. In the restaurant industry you cater for one or maybe two of the following; families, couples, baby boomers, teenagers, children, date nights, busy and rushed working people. Trying to target all of them would be a short lived disaster. Choose. Divide and Conquer.


2. Product focus
Remember product focus should match market focus. If your menu is catering towards date nights, you need to serve good quality food and create a romantic atmosphere. However if you are trying to accommodate the needs of families with kids you have to serve food quickly at lower end prices.


3. Concrete, measurable specifics
A strong strategy will help drive a marketing plan but it’s the tactics that make the difference. If you can tie all your results back to the specific activities and provide relevant numbers to measure the results your marketing plan will be well on the way to becoming extremely successful.


4. Responsibility and accountability
Typically groups and set committees get little done. Make sure you assign individuals to take care of specific tasks. It’s important to clearly highlight to the people executing the plan that results are easily measurable. Failure has to hurt and achievement must be rewarded.


5. Reviews and revisions
A successful marketing plan is not static it is a continual process. Make sure your marketing plan is part of a process that includes setting goals, measuring results and tracking performance. Regularly review and revise your plan for areas of improvement. The selected people implementing the marketing plan should frequently meet up to compare the actual results with the forecasted results in the plan. They should then make the necessary adjustments.


All of this information is irrelevant if you have not conducted a substantial amount of market research. The success of a marketing plan will depend on whether your customers want or need your product or service. Carry out regular market research on your customers to monitor their changing attitudes and opinions. Then re-align your marketing plan with the results from your market research. Do not leave it to chance. Test your market.