Tell me what to charge.....

A friend of mine (who's a local restaurant owner) and I have been kicking this idea around for a while. And since South Carolina is #3 in unemployment in the US, maybe this is the right time to do this.

What we have in mind is this: an online restaurant menu service. I know its been done 1000's of times but no one locally is doing this.

Our thoughts are to give a restaurant web presence, put their menu on the site, and offer coupons to people who visit the site. Thus giving the convenience of seeing the menu online, coupons for savings, and we will also add (if the client wants) the ability to order online.

So from your perspective: remembering that most restaurants here are suffering greatly because of our unemployment situation, how much would you charge per month?

I've got a figure in mind, but I want to see if I'm in the ballpark.

Thanks....
Pappy

Pappy,

Your best bet is to just Google & Geo Locally expand on some of the following keywords...

Studying the misc. Competition and business models with a little Borrowing of the best ideas along the way...

online menu,online menus,online menu maker,online menu planner,online menus nyc,online menu planning,online menu builder,online menu ordering,online menu design,online menus boston,online menus chicago etc. etc...
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

Phil

Some years ago (before the net)....I started a "Daily Special FAX" program for restaurants.

These Faxes were sent to 20 Local offices, near each restaurant, on a daily, Mon thru Fri, basis.

Each restaurant paid $20 a day....$100/wk.......which I automatically drew out of their bank accounts with a "Checks By Fax" software program.

Every Friday I withdrew $100 from each restaurant's bank account and sent them Paid Invoices each month.

Participating offices LOVED the program. It was FREE to them and they'd see the restaurant's Daily Special and Fax in their orders. (They did NOT have to order the Daily Special. I included their regular menu also)

So....why couldn't you provide a "Daily Special Web Page" that was updated every day....JUST FOR THE PARTICIPATING OFFICES?

The office staff would go to the page...see the Special (along with other "regular" items) and Place Their Order on the Form provided. The Form would email the Order to the restaurant.

You could charge each participating restaurant $20 a day....$1/day per office and collect $100 each week via the Check Draft software, Credit Card or PayPal.

You'd get the 20 Local Offices to join the FREE Membership....which would give them the Special Password to get the Daily Specials.

Now....WHY would an Office be interested in joining this? For convenience and maybe the restaurant would provide a discount or something extra, just for subscribers.

They could order and have their orders waiting for pickup...or maybe the restaurant would deliver.

Well worth looking at.

Don Alm

You could take Full Color PHOTOS of the various Specials and post them on the Page.

"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!" A Mouth-Watering photo could increase orders.

Also....we wound up with 42 restaurants....providing restaurants with local office subscribers....getting one restaurant at a time.

Thus....20 restaurants paying $100 a week would be WELL worth the effort with hardly any cost other than your time.

Don Alm

Hey Pappy,

A few years back we used to talk about Local Email Profits to help businesses get more business from online. You can get the details from the Archives here on SowPub if I recall correctly but even that is somewhat old ideas at this time with all the new technology available.

I am just starting something very similar to your idea except I am not limiting myself to just restaurants. Since you mentioned restaurants in particular lets just use that as an example of what we are doing.

A lot of businesses do not have a website at all and if they do they are working with no SEO at all, they just have a website up.

What if you go to your favorite search engine (Google, Yahoo, ASK or any other of over 100 search engines) and you type "restaurant" and click enter.
All of a sudden a screen pops up with restaurants galore and they are all in your zip code and you never even mentioned your location.

What if you saw a couple of restaurants that you wanted to check out more closely so you click their link. Page opens up with multiple pictures of restaurant, videos of waiter and waitress staff as well as owners, cooks etc.

May be videos of chef preparing the food, food delivered to customers. You can see how clean the environment is, what kind of service you get and how friendly the staff is.

There is a menu that can be changed in moments, several coupons that can be updated monthly weekly or even daily if they get excited ... LOL.

There is a section that they can tell the history of the restaurant and complete bio of owners if wanted. Of course the name, address, phone, fax, email and website if they have one but obviously if they don't have a website they don't even need one with everything this company offers.

Sounds good to whoever is looking at the info but they are new to the area and don't know exactly how to get there. Not a problem because there is a map and directions to drive there and back. It is ALL there.

Now you wanted to know what to charge. Well this package starts at a FREE Listing. There are 3 more options to choose from starting at $49.95 month and covers 3 zip codes. The next covers 10 zipcodes and is $99.95 month and the largest package covers 50 zip codes for $199.95 a month.

They offer discounts of between 5-15% depending on how many months they pay for at time of purchase and they can even buy one month if they choose but we all know that it is best to minimally get 3-6 months but at these low rates they can buy 12 months and save 15%. In this economy these prices for what they get are awesomely good.

The cost of radio, television, print and yellow page phone directories is so high and not offering anywhere near what this does. I have worked in each of these industries over the years and have watched ad dollars shift quite a bit from each of these to online marketing so you are certainly on the right track my friend. More and more people are searching online for everything before they buy so businesses need to be where the eyeballs are.

As I mentioned earlier, I was looking to do something online to help biz owners and when I saw this I decided I no longer needed to do anything except start selling ad space.

Oh, another benefit these biz owners will have is tracking so they they will know where their business is coming from (literally), what pages people are spending time on, how long are they there and of course which ad offers and or coupons are working and what isn't working. PLUS they can change menu, photos, videos, coupons etc anytime they want instead of like with yellow pages they are in for a year like it or not.

Very inexpensive way to test ads in a targeted area.

Now ... I am also looking to target cars, plumbing, attorneys, furniture, etc. etc. etc.

This company has not officially launched until March but we can still sell and get cutomers online within hours. Websites are being updated to offer even more as we speak but still operational even now.

Pappy I hope this helps.


Randy
www.localadlink.com
www.geolocaladlink.com
www.cellbillboard.com

By the way ... I forgot to mention that they are currently only offering this in USA & Canada but it looks like it will be global in short order if I understand correctly. There is no cost to sell if that is a persons interest and the company pays 50% commission on everything PLUS Community Dollars loaded on a Debit Card to be spent in that local community ONLY with the Local Advertisers which is just one more incentive for them to advertise with you. Stock options and additional bonuses available for those that have interest in Brand Building.

UPDATE:
The NEW Support Site just came live so you will be able to see more of what I was mentioning above. It is not complete and is a work in progress but I believe you will be able to see if you want to sell advertising to local businesses, don't have or don't want to invest any money out of pocket you can get started and have all the tools you need to start helping businesses TODAY. I am working direct with some of the key players in the company if you want more info on LocalAdLink. This is actually very cool in that you do not even have to do anything but walk in and use their computer if you don't have a laptop or just use the handy-dandy flip chart that you can put together with the files online already and go help some biz owners by offering a solution to their marketing problems. LocalAdLink pays every week or every two weeks depending on how you choose to start. Perfect add-on product for anyone currently calling on biz owners about anything.


I forgot to mention to get to support site just click www.geolocaladlink.com and when this site opens look at top right of page and click "Support". OK ... I have got to get to bed so I will have the opportunity to wake up. LOL

Hi Pappy...I had a similar idea a while back and I even registered the following domain names, however, I have neither had time to follow-through nor find a good way to execute the business.

SpecialLunchMenu.com
LunchObsessed.com
LunchTimeSpecials.com

Also, take a look at the following site, I think this person is doing something similar to what you want to do:

http://www.lunchspecials.net

I really do appreciate it!

Pappy