Content Tactics for Restaurants | Anthony Clarke

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Anthony Clarke, founder of ACC Unlimited, a marketing and creative agency located in Fort Lauderdale that practices in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Anthony is a South Florida native who has been involved in marketing for over 10 years in various industries doing just about anything and everything related to digital media. Anthony hosts his own podcast, Thoughts Over Coffee Daily, which I highly recommend. Anthony, thank you for joining us. Anthony Clarke: Hey, thank you, David. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. David McBee: All right. So I have to admit, I'm excited that you specialize in marketing restaurants and hospitality. I read recently that 60% of restaurants fail in the first year, so I think what you're doing is incredibly brave. Why do you think so many restaurants fail? Anthony Clarke: Oh, man, it's a great question, David. The reason why I think most restaurants fail, 60% within the first year and 80% within the first five years, it's really coming from a few different reasons, but the top reasons are mainly lack of marketing, bad location. Those are really your top two. It's simply because restaurant owners are typically dreamers. They are going into business with a passion for people, a passion for experience, and a lot of times they've been working their entire lives to produce these foods and these dishes and offer them to the public, but they haven't thought about the idea of offering them to the public. So they create this entire restaurant establishment, and then they open their doors, and expect people to walk in. And that's just not how humans work. We have our favorite restaurants, and for us to split our budget on trying something new, it takes a little convincing, and a lot of restaurant owners don't understand that part and haven't taken second thought to it. David McBee: All right. So for our viewers that are also working with restaurants and helping them with their marketing, what is your secret sauce ... Did you get that, the secret sauce, restaurant? Anthony Clarke: Yeah, I see. My secret sauce. My secret sauce to helping restaurants is, well, as a servicer in the marketing industry, it's very important that we understand what makes our clients tick. There are different types of restaurant owners. We have various clients. We have clients who run through walls on a daily basis. They wake up at 4:00 AM, and they literally don't get home until 9:00 PM, and they're back at it the next morning, and they do anything to make sure their business succeeds to the next day. Then you have restaurant owners, we have clients who literally aren't totally hands off. Restaurant is their second, third, fourth business. It's more of an investment, more of a hobby for them. And then you have other restaurants who are very, very budget conscious, and they're like, "Hey, I need to make sure that whatever I do works." Our secret sauce is understanding what makes our clients tick, so we can service them appropriately. Everyone's unique and each business is unique, and so as an agency, we like to call it local touch, we have to offer that local touch to them so they feel as though they have that partner that's in their corner every day of the week, not just some agency that shows up at the end of the month with our hand out saying, "Hey, pay our invoice." David McBee: Are there specific strategies or techniques that you use across the board that are pretty helpful for most restaurants? Anthony Clarke: Oh, indeed, indeed. So we specialize in social media across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The main thing is content production. The saying is, "Content is the new oil." If you don't have content, how do you get attention for your business? Everything that we do online involves content. If it's a video, if it's an article, if it's a social media post, everything is content. And if you're not producing content, you're not in the war fighting for attention. We're on the internet all day long. Most users are on the internet for more than eight hours per day. And in those eight hours, you're being bombarded with thousands of pieces of content, and it's important that you are one or many of those thousands that they consume for that day. So that way you can get your piece of the pie and start to win some market share. But a lot of restaurants are not in the game. They're not producing content, and food is a cheat code. Like I say, two things on the internet that win the most eyes are one, food, and then two, the activity that births humans. Those are two things. And so if you are in one of those categories, you have a cheat code, so take advantage. Everyone loves oozing cheese. You've been in Chili's or your local diner or whatever, and someone orders the fajitas. The fajitas come out sizzling. What does everybody do? Turn their head and look. And so you need to have that same strategy on the internet. David McBee: So is that what you tell your business owners, let's just get lots and lots of wonderful photographs and videos of your food? Anthony Clarke: Yeah. We need to take advantage of what's happening now. And if we're speaking as of today, in March 2023, Instagram reels, TikTok videos, Facebook reels, those are incentivized. When you post those reels on the platform, the platform actually increases your reach because you're helping the platform draw more eyes. So we need to take part in that and take advantage of it by producing quality content. David McBee: So what is one piece of advice you would give to restaurant owners or agencies working with restaurant owners? Anthony Clarke: I'm going to plug myself here, David, excuse me while I do so, but I would say, look online for free knowledge. There's tons of knowledge out there that you can be consuming and learning how to do a better job. We understand not everyone has a budget to hire an agency like ourselves, but if you don't have that budget, then invest in yourself by doing the due diligence of studying a little bit of what's going on. And that can take you a lot further than just wondering what if. So do a little studying. Don't depend on your daughter or your son or your grandson, your granddaughter to run your social media account because they're not going to do it. They're not interested. So do your own due diligence. And if you have a budget, then contact someone like my agency or myself, and we can help you. David McBee: All right. Awesome. Before I let you go, just real quick, is there a book that you feel has helped you become successful? Anthony Clarke: So one of the books that actually got me started in marketing was a book called The Brand Within by Daymond John. People may know him. He's a shark on Shark Tank. That was one of the books that got me started. Let's see, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss is an excellent book on negotiation tactics that you can use within business and sales. And then one of my most recent reads that I really fell in love with was $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi. David McBee: Three for the price of one. Thank you for that. Anthony Clarke: No, problem. I'll bill you later. David McBee: Well, thank you very much, Anthony, for being our guest today. I appreciate you. Anthony Clarke: No, thank you, David for having me. I appreciate it. David McBee: All right. And thank you guys for joining us on Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Be awesome, and we'll see you next time.