Advertising a Catering Business

By Steve Sutherland

As service businesses, catering companies often rely heavily on customers spreading the word and referring new customers to them. This system has always worked well if you can relate well with your customers and provide them with such a high standard of service that they want to talk about you.

To get enough clients to stay in business though you really need to involve advertising as a part of your marketing mix as well.

This article sets out a variety of methods for advertising a catering business.

Business Directories

The Yellow Pages is still the first port of call for many people when they look for local service providers. The most prominent ad in the catering section of a popular directory would certainly get a great response.

Advertising like this can be expensive though so you need to work out if the response will justify the cost. You would definitely be better to take out a smaller ad and try to make it stand out above all of the others.

Bear in mind that going forward from the present time the importance of business directories will be diminished as people start to search for local businesses online more and more.

Business Cards

One of the best ways of advertising your catering business is by talking to people. Whenever you get the chance during your day to day and social activities you should talk to people about what you do. Politely give them a business card and let them know that you would love to hear from them if they need a caterer.

Newspapers and Magazines

Buying advertisements in print media such as newspapers or magazines can work well if their readers are in your target area. How your advertisement is designed will determine success or failure here so some professional input is required.

Some local publications have a hard time selling advertising space so you can sometimes bargain down the price if you try. Contact all local publishers when you are starting out and get on their contact lists. They may contact you at some point and offer you a free advertisement or a heavily discounted rate.

Direct Mail

Response rates are low for this kind of promotion and many prospects will view mail-outs or flyers as junk mail. However, if your database is targeted enough and you go about your promotion in a way that your material gets noticed instead of thrown in the trash then this method can be effective.

Community Notice Boards

Community notice boards such as those outside schools, town halls and churches can offer a free method of advertising a catering business with a flyer or business card.

Vehicle Advertising

As a catering business owner you will have vehicles out on the road in your local area all the time. Getting some company branding on your vehicle offers you a free way of getting your catering service noticed. It can be expensive to have a vehicle wrap designed and fitted but you only have to pay once in return for years of free advertising.

Online Advertising

Once you have a well designed website for your catering business you can look at using online advertising in order to promote it.

You can get listed with catering directories and advertise on sites that relate to your city or area.

You can also purchase ads with search engines like Google, that are targeted to certain keywords and areas. With a program like Google Adwords you can ensure that you advertisement comes up when somebody in your area searches for a catering service.

Other Ideas

Don’t just be satisfied with the traditional advertising methods. Try to think up some new and original ways to get your advertisements in front of the eyes of some potential clients.

Whatever method you try it is important that you have systems in place to track the results from each advertising campaign wherever possible. Ask prospects how they heard about your company. Put discount codes on your offers so you know which promotion a lead came from. You can then continue with the campaigns that are cost effective and dump the losers.

Find out what methods some of the more established catering businesses in your area are using. It is likely that they have tried and tested a variety of methods and are using only the methods that have proven to be successful for them.

No matter how sophisticated modern marketing methods have become, old fashioned advertising, when done properly can still bring in good volumes of qualified leads to your catering business.

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