I guess you could call this your Restaurant Marketing Math.
Add them all up, and if you’re hitting all 9, you’re off to the races.
Step 1 – The 3 Steps (aka the ABR Commandments)
Every restaurant’s marketing strategy MUST revolve around these three words:
1. ATTRACT – Attract Attention
If your Facebook page is a ghost town, you’re not attracting.
If no one opens or clicks your emails, you’re not attracting.
Your job is to stop the scroll, spark curiosity, and get noticed.
2. BUILD – Build A Database
If your attention-grabbing content isn’t capturing data, you’re doing it wrong.
Stop renting attention and start owning the relationship.
If I comment on your post, I should get a message in Facebook Messenger asking for my info.
If I click your link, I better land on a page asking for my name, email, and phone.
3. RETAIN – Retain Your Customers
This is where most restaurants fall apart.
You don’t retain attention, which means you don’t retain business.
You can’t let customers forget you, especially when marketing distractions are hitting them from all sides in 2025.
Step 2 – The 3 Customer Types
Every one of your customers falls into one of these buckets.
And you must ABR each one.
NEW
You MUST be running a daily new customer acquisition campaign with an O.S.G. (Offer So Good) they’d feel dumb turning down.
This is how you outpace customer loss. Think of it like inflation: you either beat it, or you fall behind.
FREQUENT
Your best customers need to be rewarded, not ignored.
This is where a strong loyalty program comes in to encourage them to return more often and increase their ticket value when they do come in.
LOST
Every day, great customers go missing.
Not because of anything you did wrong in-store, but because you lost their attention.
They got distracted. Their habits changed. They forgot.
Your marketing failed to stay top-of-mind. You need a plan to win them back.
Step 3 – The 3 Places You MUST Dominate
Now it’s time to apply ABR to all 3 customer types across 3 key locations:
IN-STORE
The people walking through your doors are your #1 asset.
Your team should be doing more than asking “How are you doing?”
You need fresh, bold in-store graphics
You need a trained team that’s building relationships
And you need an O.S.G. ready to go to ethically bribe them into your database
If someone leaves your store and you don’t know who they are, that’s a missed opportunity.
ONLINE
Your website can’t suck.
It needs:
Strong calls to action
A way to capture data even when customers don’t order
Facebook Pixel + Google Tag Manager — so you can retarget visitors like a pro
If someone visits your website, that’s the next best thing to walking through your doors. Treat it like it.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Your customers live on social.
You already know this.
Use it to:
Run targeted ads for new, lost, and frequent customers
Post content that builds trust, not just discounts
Stop treating it like Money Mailer and start treating it like your media channel
You’re not just a restaurant – you’re a local brand. Act like it.
IN CLOSING
Here’s my gift to you:
[Click here] to access 3 documents that’ll help you jumpstart your marketing ATTENTION plan.
No guesswork. Just plug and play.
-MP out
This week’s song: Outrun – WEARETHEGOOD
This week’s book: Deep Work by Cal Newport – You are an entrepreneur, and putting in place strategies like above you must be able to do DEEP WORK.
