Chapter 4 – Expanding Your Marketing Throughout the Restaurant

Many performers underestimate the marketing capabilities of a restaurant. Restaurants advertise in newspapers, radio, television, Internet and door-to-door marketing campaigns. 

Knowing this, a good restaurant entertainer will encourage management to advertise their weekly entertainment in these media outlets.  The goal is to get your name out into the community and gain affiliations with the restaurant.  Allow the restaurant advertisement’s to work for you and get your services known to the community.

Over the years, I’ve entertained for many of the community fairs located near restaurants I have entertained at. One such event is the Taste of Orland.  I am hired to entertain the crowd as they roam the fair grounds tasting local cuisine. Since I’ve become a regular attraction, the fair committee has advertised the, “Magical Balloon-dude Dale” as a major attraction to the event.

I use this fair’s advertisement to help increase my restaurant business. I inform the restaurant management that “I will be appearing at a local event and they are advertising me by name as a major attraction. You (the restaurant) should put my name on the restaurant marquee.”  This allows the restaurant to piggy-back off of the fair’s advertisement.  People attending the event will see the name again and associate it with the fair. Your name is now associated with the fair, but also the local restaurant. Using the fair’s advertising and my name on the restaurant marquee gives me better visibility and can increase restaurant attendance and personal bookings.