GRAND OPENING MARKETING PLAN
KEY “TRIGGER:” ESTABLISH Targeted OPEN DATE
This provides you with a comprehensive Grand Opening Plan, and Checklist to help make your
new restaurant opening a big success! Completion of this full plan and the spending of $10,000 on your
opening THREE months complies with the franchise agreement Grand Opening requirement.
Please review this plan document and checklist and determine your targeted opening date. (That date
may change based on construction, permitting, etc., but you now have a target to plan towards.) NEXT,
schedule a phone call or meeting with the Costa Vida Director of Brand Marketing. This is an essential
element in your planning so that your plan is: comprehensive, scheduled and devised to drive traffic to
your location. We do this to collaboratively help you! TOGETHER WE CAN BE MORE
SUCCESSFUL! In today’s competitive business environment, it is not wise to assume you can just “open
the doors and they will come.”
Please note that this process officially begins SIXTEEN WEEKS before your targeted opening date.
KEY THINGS TO NOTE:
1. Your Franchise Agreement requires you to spend $10,000 on your Grand Opening activity…the first
three months of your opening. We are serious about that! Our experience is that a STRONG opening is
critical to your success. Specifically, the level of sales in month one and month two after opening will be
predictive of higher longer term sales trends and of a faster break-even level.
2. Decide now (see below) WHO is going to plan and execute your local marketing. It takes effort and
‘shoe leather’ to make local marketing work for you.
3. This planning process is to help you achieve success.
4. Please don’t do this on your own. We are here for you, we want to help you, and your fellow
franchisees will also share their experiences. There is no need to ‘re-invent the wheel.’ We have done
this a lot and can help steer you in the right direction.
OBJECTIVES:
There are two critical objectives for your Grand Opening (as well as sustaining) Marketing:
--Awareness: You will want community awareness…as broad as possible. This involves general media
AS WELL as ‘old fashioned feet on the street’ face-to-face contact marketing. Running a “great
operation” is obviously essential, but if you are not reaching well outside of the restaurant to gain
awareness with potential customers, your sales growth will be slower.
--Trial: You will want to provide reasons for your guests to TRY your restaurant. For at least the first
three months of your opening, you will want to provide promotional trial offers to get new guests in the
door and ‘bounce back’ offers to get new guests to come back, as well as to help bring their friends. Your
discount rate, therefore, may be up to 20% to accomplish the ‘acquisition’ of guests that you want. Long
term, you won’t want to continue the same level of discounting, but it is CRITICAL to begin-with!
WHO PLANS AND EXECUTES YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS?:
As you begin your planning process, you will want to consider WHO will do this marketing activity?
There is a significant amount of work to do here, and your key operating employees clearly will have
much to do to in running the restaurant. So consider--do you have an ownership member or executive
team member assigned to assist with planning and conducting the local marketing? In order to work
successfully, local marketing can’t be left to a last minute consideration nor to a ‘left over hobby’ for
someone. Consider hiring a part-time marketing coordinator from the local college, or you can hire a
talented team member and make marketing a part of his/her daily duties.
MARKETING PLANNING PRINCIPLES:
The following are offered to give you a framework to think about marketing:
1. Marketing is a necessary investment, not an optional expense. The funds that you put into your
marketing, and especially the grand opening of your restaurant, will drive faster and higher growth in
your customer base than if you hope for people to just ‘discover’ your restaurant by accident.
2. Be aggressive. Long experience has proven that the higher you drive initial trial and awareness, the
better your long-term sales pattern will be and the quicker your break-even sales level achieved.
3. Make sure you PRE-market. Starting the marketing after you open is a mistake! You want people to
eagerly await your opening and to start flowing in the doors the DAY you are open! This plan is created
to start in advance and keep on building thereafter.
BUDGET:
As noted, your franchise agreement requires you to spend $10,000 on your grand opening effort. This
will include the cost of the materials you print to pass-out, your media efforts, your banners, and your
grand opening event costs. It does NOT include discount amounts or food that you give away. Look at
those discount and sampling expenses as ‘buying guests’ and ‘creating purchase habits.’
PLANNING PHASES:
There are FOUR phases to this plan, outlined as follows and detailed by week/month in the Marketing
Checklist. (Time periods provided in the checklist are approximate for your planning purposes.)
PHASE 1: PRE-OPENING
This is the 16 week time period prior to your opening. This is critical time to plan, to prepare, and to set
the foundation for a successful opening. During this time, you will:
>Survey your trade area...looking for opportunities. Become very familiar with and document all the
locations around you that have concentrations of people, or that may provide some opportunity to do
promotions/or marketing. You will look for ‘traffic generators’ and where your guests will come from.
>Explore media possibilities. You will be able to identify the media that people view or listen-to AND
that are relevant to your specific location. Meet with media representatives and evaluate their promises
carefully. The Director of Brand Marketing is available to counsel with you on your questions.
For many markets, the system advertising agency (The Summit Group), is available to negotiate and
purchase TV, Outdoor and Radio on your behalf (their service fees come from media commissions, not
from direct charges to you.)
>Evaluate and purchase the marketing creative resources that you will need. Costa Vida has an online
resource for marketing materials at cvfranchise.com At this site, you can order many materials,
customize some of them with your location info and with your specific offers. Then, you simply order
with a credit card and receive the items about 5 business days later. Other custom creative products can
be developed in working with designers utilized by Costa Vida, for a small design time fee.
>Begin and then continue ‘feet on the street’ marketing. This is also called “local store marketing
[LSM]”, or ‘guerilla marketing.’ It really means walking around and contacting local businesses, schools,
opinion leaders and in exploring ways to get Costa Vida visible and involved in local activities. It will
lead to sampling, to couponing opportunities in schools and in races and many catering engagements.
This is essential work….again, WHO WILL DO IT FOR (or with) YOU?
>”Beach or Surf Squad.” One way to get excellent contacting going is to gather a team to help you. This
can include employees during the training process, neighbors and friends, or students that you hire. We
call this a ‘beach or surf’ squad. You get your team together and ‘arm’ them with flyers, menus, discount
cards (from cvfranchise.com), map out your areas to contact and then go meet people and invite them to
come to the Coast….Costa Vida…for great tasting fresh-made food.
PHASE 2: OPENING
This is the “apex” of time as you open. Your training comes to a ‘peak’—you demonstrate your readiness
under the final training ‘pressure’ of people in a (required) training event called “Friends and Family.
Typically, you’ll invite 75-100 people for two, two-hour feeding experiences. That helps you make sure
(in a forgiving environment) that you are really ready to open. You team gets its final dose of confidence;
you insure your equipment and training can handle concentrated volume. Now you can open with
confidence!
The first month of your opening is critical. As the expression goes, “You only get one chance to make a
first impression.” So, go out of your way to execute well. Treat this as though you and your team are
inviting your favorite people into your home. Make it warm and welcoming and fun!
About two weeks after your opening, schedule an official “Grand Opening Event.” NOW you are really
ready to ‘shine’ publically. NOW is the time to invite the Mayor, City Council, Chamber of Commerce,
local professional and schools leaders and your nearby business neighbors to a real ‘celebration’ of your
opening. Here are suggestions for this event:
Ribbon-cutting event
--Make invitations: mayor, city council, chamber of commerce, VIP’s, business reps.
--Invite High School marching band or High School “performance bands” to perform for you.
Feed them. Donate $100 to the group. Hold a ‘benefit day’ for that school and feature them.
--Display Costa Vida logoed balloons.
--Get sheet cake from local grocer, Sam’s or Costco (they may donate for mentioning them.)
PHASE 3: POST OPENING
Your marketing plan needs to work hard to get good sales momentum. The more marketing “pressure”
you provide for your opening, the faster your sales growth will accelerate. Your Grand Opening Plan will
include activities providing strong support for THREE MONTHS after you open.
Your plan should consider BROAD awareness media:
>TV: Even when there is the first and only store in a market, TV stations usually will have a cooking
show and your team members—or an owner—can participate (make sure participants look good and can
speak well) to talk about and show our great food.
>Radio: Radio is affordable in many markets. You’ll have to select a narrow range of stations that have
a music playlist that appeals to the 18-49 year olds that comprise the highest percentage of our customer
base. Make sure you are getting media that is targeted to “eating decision time”: 11am to 2pm and 4pm
to 7pm. Evaluate the costs on the basis of two spots a day (minimum) for a two to four week schedule.
Most radio stations will provide (or charge you for) a “radio remote” where they come to the store and
broadcast for about 3hours. This can generate a lot of customer attention and should be treated as a fun
event for the restaurant operations team.
>Billboards: This medium can get expensive, but if you select a FEW billboards on major streets that
direct nearby traffic to your restaurant, the customer attention can be significant.
>Print Media: This is generally the least expensive and hardest working medium to use and is especially
critical in a new restaurant situation. There are a number of media choices available: Valpak, Valassis,
Money Mailer, and other local choices, which you’ll need to discover. In addition, you can probably find
a local company that does door hanging services (literally placing ads on the doors of homes in your
area.) Typically, you’ll want to distribute 5,000 to 10,000 print pieces around the zip code of your
restaurant in order to make a significant impact.
PHASE 4: SUSTAINING SUPPORT
As you continue your initial three-month grand-opening marketing program, evaluate your progress.
What is working, based on sales growth week-to-week? How do you FEEL about how your image is
getting into the community? Are your neighbors and friends talking about Costa Vida? Are you getting
any attention in the news media?
You want to plan an aggressive marketing support program going forward:
>Broad awareness marketing that should include some of these possibilities: Radio, Billboards, and
Print media.
>Continue strong ‘feet on the street’ local marketing efforts:
--Get your ‘beach squad” together for some repeat contacting periodically.
--Support in-store value thru ‘daily specials’
--Sample with local businesses; sell your catering opportunities
--Introduce Costa Vida to local schools and present our “Surf to Success” schools program
--When people come to you and ask for help, say “YES!” and here’s how:
>Ask them to pick a date for a ‘benefit day.’ You order and customize a flyer on cvfranchise.com and
send the art to the organization. They pass-out the flyer to their friends and bring the flyer in (so
you get traffic) on the selected date; you donate 15-20% of the pre-tax proceeds from those flyercentered purchases to the organization.
>They may ask for some free meals. Be happy to give them a few for achievements and awards, if
they give credit to Costa Vida. This is a great way to get ‘credit’ without paying sponsorship fees.
>Generally, we suggest that you not be sponsors of events unless you see a significant benefit.
>We encourage you to not give cash.
>Implement a Text Club. This is a great way to deliver motivating offers to customers to prompt more
frequent visit frequency and for them to get their friends to join them. Contact Costa Vida Marketing
for easy set-up information.
>There are LOTS of opportunities that you will identify locally as you are actively looking for them in
the community…movie theaters, bowling alleys, sports event centers, gyms, beauty/nail salons, etc.
RESOURCES
Many print marketing resources exist on our on-line ‘store’ at cvfranchise.com. You can go there and
select from a large number of categories and options; many are customizable. All are ordered with a
credit card, printed in digital quality and delivered typically in 5 business days.
The system advertising agency, The Summit Group, in conjunction with Cost Vida Marketing, produces a
‘kit’ of marketing materials that are automatically shipped directly to every restaurant at the beginning of
each calendar quarter in support of the system-wide quarterly marketing plan.
Materials are developed each quarter as follows: radio scripts, direct mail. And many new assets are
added to the on-line ‘materials store’ at cvfranchise.com on an on-going basis.
In addition, custom materials can be created for a small design services fee.
WHO YA GONNA CALL?
Costa Vida Marketing
Please contact Brian Dixon for assistance with all of this at:
801-797-2374, ext. 416 bdixon@costavida.net
8/06/13