One of my first campaigns.

I recently launched my first marketing initiative/campaign at Chili's. The advertising didn't play out how I wished (color copies) due to cost, but the presentation and campaign itself turned out better than I hoped for the amount of time I put into it.

With the month of September really slowing down our store, our area director has been on our managers ass to think outside the box and start being creative to bring guest counts up. Well, I mentioned that I was studying marketing and I would be willing to share some of my thoughts and ideas. What I noticed though was too many people have too many ideas and not enough action. Sure it's easy to come up with ideas. Well, actually, it does take a unique mind to come up with unique ideas, but for people who believe they are creatively challenged, there are techniques to help you. Like here. So, what it boiled down to was the mere fact that these people lacked focus because they are so overwhelmed with the operational side of the restaurant. BTW, I'm a server at Chili's, not like a marketing department guy.

We decided that the first push of our marketing plan was to focus on our TOGO service. Having heard from regulars that they had no idea that we offered that, it came to our attention that maybe the community doesn't know we offer that or even worse, maybe they don't even know we are here.

Our plan consists of three phases for the holiday season. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Each with several components to help merry the TOGO awareness together. Such as, promotional pricing strategies for the local community and business' as well as optional pricing strategies. We have decided to use fliers and coupons to promote as well as other visuals for our in-store promotion. The next phase will incorporate more marketing strategies and techniques.

I am excited to start doing some local marketing for my store, even though I am just a server, it's pretty cool that I get to deal with a big brand. Although this these are not sponsored activities by the marketing department, it will add to my resume or maybe even attract attention from someone in the marketing department. We'll see what happens.