By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
These skills will help you create effective marketing plans that drive real business success and growth.
Marketing in food and beverage management is the set of activities that link what guests need with what an outlet can profitably offer: finding out who the customers are, designing menus and services for them, pricing them, making them available and telling people about them. A food and beverage manager at Level 6 needs a firm grasp of the basic marketing vocabulary, because every later decision on segmentation, pricing, promotion and evaluation is built on these terms. Example: the food and beverage manager of a lakeside hotel in Kendu Bay uses guest comment cards, weekend occupancy figures and fish market prices to decide what to put on the Sunday lunch menu and how to advertise it.
Marketing is the management process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs profitably. It begins before a product exists (research into what guests want) and continues after the sale (follow-up, feedback and loyalty). In a food and beverage operation, marketing covers menu planning from the guest's point of view, setting prices, choosing where and how the food is sold, and communicating offers through advertising, social media and staff.
A market is the set of actual and potential buyers of a product or service who have a need, the money to pay and the willingness to buy. In hospitality, the word is also used for a place where buying and selling happens, and for a group of customers, such as the corporate lunch market or the wedding market. A restaurant near an industrial park may have a weekday lunch market of factory supervisors and a weekend market of families.
Needs are basic states of felt deprivation that every human being has. Physical needs include food, drink, shelter and safety; social needs include belonging and affection; individual needs include self-esteem and self-expression. Marketers do not create needs; they recognise them. A traveller arriving late at night needs a meal and a safe place to rest whatever hotel he chooses.
Wants are the form a need takes when it is shaped by culture, income and personality. A hungry guest from Western Kenya may want ugali and fried tilapia, while a hungry tourist from Europe may want a club sandwich. Both have the same need (hunger) but different wants. Menus are designed around wants, because wants decide which outlet the guest chooses.
Demands are wants backed by the ability and willingness to pay. Many people want a five-course dinner at a fine-dining restaurant, but only those who can afford it and decide to spend on it create demand. Food and beverage managers forecast demand to plan purchasing, staffing and production, and they study how demand changes with price, season and events.
Value is the customer's judgement of the difference between all the benefits received and all the costs paid for an offer. Benefits include the taste and portion of the food, speed of service, ambience and status; costs include the price, travel time, waiting and any risk of a poor experience. A guest who pays Ksh 1,200 for a generous, well-served nyama choma platter in a clean garden may see more value than in a Ksh 900 meal served slowly in a noisy room.
Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired product from someone by offering something in return. Marketing exists because exchange takes place. Five conditions are needed: at least two parties, each has something the other values, each can communicate and deliver, each is free to accept or reject the offer, and each believes it is appropriate to deal with the other. When a guest pays for a meal by M-Pesa and receives the meal, an exchange has taken place.
A transaction is a single completed exchange of values between two parties, such as one guest bill settled at the end of a meal. A transaction can be measured: the amount, the time, the items bought and the method of payment. Point-of-sale records of transactions are a key source of marketing information, showing best-selling dishes, average spend per cover and peak hours.
Relationship marketing is the process of building long-term, satisfying relations with customers, suppliers, distributors and the community, so that business is repeated rather than won once. In hospitality, relationships are built through consistent quality, remembering guests' preferences, loyalty programmes, honest handling of complaints and personal contact. Example: a members' golf club in Nyahururu keeps a record of each member's usual drink and table and has it ready when the member arrives.
Marketing resources are the people, money, tools, channels and materials an organisation uses to carry out its marketing activities. They include marketing and sales staff, the marketing budget, websites and social media accounts, customer databases, printed menus and brochures, and partnerships with travel agents or delivery platforms. How these resources are built up is covered in topic 1.4.
Marketing objectives are the specific, measurable results that the marketing effort of a food and beverage outlet is expected to achieve within a given period. They are drawn from the organisation's overall business goals and they guide the choice of target market, marketing mix and budget. Good objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Example: a conference hotel in Machakos sets the objective of raising weekday conference lunch bookings by 20 per cent between January and June.
Customer satisfaction is the extent to which the guest's experience meets or exceeds expectations. Satisfied guests return, spend more and recommend the outlet to others, while dissatisfied guests complain publicly online. An objective here may be to raise the average guest rating on comment cards from 3.8 to 4.3 out of 5 within six months, through staff training, faster service and menu changes based on feedback.
Brand awareness is the degree to which target customers recognise and remember the outlet's name, logo and offer. A new or little-known outlet cannot be chosen if guests have never heard of it. Objectives may be stated as the number of social media followers, the share of surveyed residents who can name the restaurant, or the number of enquiries received after a campaign.
This objective aims to increase the amount and quality of information the outlet holds about its customers, competitors and the market. It includes setting up regular guest surveys, building a customer database, tracking competitors' prices and menus, and analysing sales data. Better research reduces the risk of poor decisions such as launching a dish nobody wants.
Boosting sales means increasing revenue or the number of covers sold, either by attracting new guests, raising the frequency of visits, or increasing the average spend per guest through upselling and combination offers. Objectives are set as figures, for example raising monthly beverage revenue from Ksh 600,000 to Ksh 720,000 within a quarter.
Outlets must renew their offer to stay attractive and to respond to new trends. This objective covers introducing new dishes, drinks, service styles or facilities, such as a breakfast delivery service, a Sunday family buffet or an outside catering division. A launch objective names the product, the target customers, the launch date and the expected sales in the first months.
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