Drawing on its vast restaurant industry experience, Z Marketing Partners, an Indianapolis-based marketing communications agency, unveiled an affordable service for restaurant owners interested in increasing its brand awareness using the talents of a fully-staffed marketing department.

“As a restaurant owner, you invest in hiring a chef to prepare delicious food for your guests to enjoy … You hire the best waiters and servers to take care of your guests to make the experience memorable. Why not invest in driving new trial and increasing the frequency of visits by your guests?” says Allan Zukerman, managing director, Z Marketing Partners (ZMP).

He continues, “To make it all work and to create loyalty with those people who make your restaurant a success, you need to make an affordable investment in marketing to help make sure you connect with your guests in a meaningful way and promote your brand. With our experience in restaurant marketing, we are able to do just that.” 

For a restaurant owner, Zukerman says this type of service is ideal for emerging and midrange concepts for both casual and fast casual restaurants. Zukerman, himself, is an experienced restaurant franchisee and he understands the challenges of managing the costs associated with operating a restaurant while investing in marketing.

ZMP has provided marketing services for more than 30 restaurant groups across the country. ZMP’s services include menu design and development, social media strategy/implementation, web site design and content creation, as well as brand strategy/planning, creative design/development, commercial production, video for websites and social media, public/media relations, and media analysis and buying.

Utilizing ZMP as an outsourced marketing department is designed to create budget efficiencies while enabling the owner to focus more completely on its operations. ZMP is also able to provide operational consulting as an additional service. ZMP offers experience in the area of co-op development and marketing, having created that type of organization from the ground up for several major restaurant chains including: Burger King, Chi Chi’s, Penn Station, Papa John’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, Roly Poly, Flakey Jake’s, Noble Roman’s, and Burger Chef. 

According to Zukerman, the firm’s services and fees are tailored to fit all different types of restaurant groups and will be offered for either a monthly fee or a one-time project fee, depending on the scope of work. ZMP maintains offices in Indianapolisand Los Angeles.

Currently, the firm represents several successful restaurant brands, including:

• a full-service, national Italian restaurant chainand previously worked for:
• a family-owned, regional homestyle restaurant chain;
• a full-service, regional fresh Asian restaurant chain;
• a create-your-own, regional healthy grill concept featuring gluten-free and vegetarian dishes; 
• a growing urban hamburger concept;
• and a nationally-branded pizza franchisee.  

Previously, ZMP worked for many other concepts including: a national hamburger chain, a national Mexican full-service concept, a national sub chain, and an emerging local restaurant concept featuring a Cajun Creole menu.

Zukerman adds that ZMP is flexible, in that it can work with either the owner of the restaurant, its director of marketing,or with the senior executive management team for the restaurant or chain.