ecided I would post a quick method that we played around with. This
method is pretty solid, simple, and effective. The method produced $35,000 in two weeks!
The background:
If you don't know what OpenTable is, it is a reservation system for restaurants. Users search out restaurants in their city or town and if the restaurant is on Opentable they can book a reservation through the system.
What you don't know is, on average, restaurants pay close to $675 per month to OpenTable. The reason for this is every reservation booked through their system costs the restaurant $1.50 per head.
Thus, book a reservation for 10, $11.50 goes to opentable, this is not including the recurring costs OpenTable has for the restaurant to run the reservation system on site.
The Method:
Basically, what we do is build a mobile site for the restaurant. However, build it so it is an app.
You can easily find templates that can work with Wordpress for mobile sites here:
Mobile | ThemeForest
-------------------------------------------------------
We researched restaurants on OpenTable, we found 15 restaurants that besides opentable, they had a Facebook page, or Twitter page, or both. What this told us is that they were keen on New Technologies. They are willing to spend time and money making these new technologies work for them.
We found the restaurants, they usually have a website, we took the information right off their website and put it into the mobile app and published it on our server.
Placed it on the home page of the Iphone.
-------------------------------------------------------
We then went to the restaurant, personally I went into three restaurants. Had the sales team do the rest. I walked in with my phone and asked to speak to the manager or owner.
Usually you will see a hostess or someone behind the bar, they ask what it is about, and I let the product do the talking.
I said, we built this app for your restaurant and I want to present it to the manager or owner to see if they would like it. The product usually amazes the restaurant and sells for you.
My pitch was simple.
"I know you are paying per head on every reservation that you produce through OpenTable. Our app is to help you save costs by giving your customers a way to book reservations quickly and efficiently through your own app."
"We would like to produce 500 cards with an advert for the app, we would like you to staple these cards to your customer receipts, on the front of the card will be a QR code for the person quickly to download the app, otherwise they can go to, www.restaurantnameapp.com "
On the back of the card you present your web development, app development, and marketing skills.
An example of a QR code business Card:
Print Templates - Modern Company Business Card with QR-Code | GraphicRiver
-----------------------------------------------------
In the end, the restaurant agrees to utilize the app, we print up 500 cards which doesn't cost much.
It's about $50 for good cards, 500 prints. (vistaprint.com)
We ask for $200 for setting everything up, which usually came to me in cash.
-----------------------------------------------------
Where does the money come in....
From the back of the card. The goal is to get into the restaurants for the easiest exposure for your business, they also get to see a sample of your work.
We got into 10 restaurants and got $2,000 for our promotional needs. The cards cost was around $500 dollars, but can be done much cheaper, if you don't make them fancy.
From the 5,000 cards....
1,000 people downloaded apps from our server, so we reached 20% of the restaurant go'ers from the promotion.
The response, two weeks after we initiated the promotion, we received around 25 orders for websites of business owners around NYC, we received 5 orders for other restaurant apps.
All orders totaling around $35,000 in sales.
keep it creative'
The background:
If you don't know what OpenTable is, it is a reservation system for restaurants. Users search out restaurants in their city or town and if the restaurant is on Opentable they can book a reservation through the system.
What you don't know is, on average, restaurants pay close to $675 per month to OpenTable. The reason for this is every reservation booked through their system costs the restaurant $1.50 per head.
Thus, book a reservation for 10, $11.50 goes to opentable, this is not including the recurring costs OpenTable has for the restaurant to run the reservation system on site.
The Method:
Basically, what we do is build a mobile site for the restaurant. However, build it so it is an app.
You can easily find templates that can work with Wordpress for mobile sites here:
Mobile | ThemeForest
-------------------------------------------------------
We researched restaurants on OpenTable, we found 15 restaurants that besides opentable, they had a Facebook page, or Twitter page, or both. What this told us is that they were keen on New Technologies. They are willing to spend time and money making these new technologies work for them.
We found the restaurants, they usually have a website, we took the information right off their website and put it into the mobile app and published it on our server.
Placed it on the home page of the Iphone.
-------------------------------------------------------
We then went to the restaurant, personally I went into three restaurants. Had the sales team do the rest. I walked in with my phone and asked to speak to the manager or owner.
Usually you will see a hostess or someone behind the bar, they ask what it is about, and I let the product do the talking.
I said, we built this app for your restaurant and I want to present it to the manager or owner to see if they would like it. The product usually amazes the restaurant and sells for you.
My pitch was simple.
"I know you are paying per head on every reservation that you produce through OpenTable. Our app is to help you save costs by giving your customers a way to book reservations quickly and efficiently through your own app."
"We would like to produce 500 cards with an advert for the app, we would like you to staple these cards to your customer receipts, on the front of the card will be a QR code for the person quickly to download the app, otherwise they can go to, www.restaurantnameapp.com "
On the back of the card you present your web development, app development, and marketing skills.
An example of a QR code business Card:
Print Templates - Modern Company Business Card with QR-Code | GraphicRiver
-----------------------------------------------------
In the end, the restaurant agrees to utilize the app, we print up 500 cards which doesn't cost much.
It's about $50 for good cards, 500 prints. (vistaprint.com)
We ask for $200 for setting everything up, which usually came to me in cash.
-----------------------------------------------------
Where does the money come in....
From the back of the card. The goal is to get into the restaurants for the easiest exposure for your business, they also get to see a sample of your work.
We got into 10 restaurants and got $2,000 for our promotional needs. The cards cost was around $500 dollars, but can be done much cheaper, if you don't make them fancy.
From the 5,000 cards....
1,000 people downloaded apps from our server, so we reached 20% of the restaurant go'ers from the promotion.
The response, two weeks after we initiated the promotion, we received around 25 orders for websites of business owners around NYC, we received 5 orders for other restaurant apps.
All orders totaling around $35,000 in sales.
keep it creative'
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