Sample result
Annual Marketing Plan Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I have the year's goal clear —lift the operating margin from 8% to 14% without touching menu prices— but my marketing is a different idea every month. I need the plan for the whole year, with a budget and a way to know whether it worked."
① Three objectives and the gap
Sazon de Origen's marketing is not going to close the whole gap, and that gets said on day one. The declared goal is to lift the operating margin from 8% to 14% in 12 months without touching menu prices. On 214,000,000 COP of monthly sales, those six points are 12,840,000 COP of extra profit every month. From here you move covers and sales mix; the 34% food cost and the 28% labour cost move in the kitchen and in purchasing, not in the marketing plan.
| Objective | Baseline | Target | Date | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| O1 · Fill the slow slot | 18 covers per location on Tuesday-to-Thursday nights (owner's figure, to be checked against the till) | +4 covers per location per service: 208 a month, 9,984,000 COP of sales | Held from the close of the second quarter | Covers in that slot off the dockets, against the average of the previous 8 weeks |
| O2 · Close the sales channel margin leak | The delivery platform bills 32,100,000 COP a month and leaves 7,062,000 COP in commission (see SUPUESTO below) | One in five of those orders moves to your own delivery: 1,412,400 COP of commission recovered a month | Third quarter | Orders by channel at the till close |
| O3 · The house families celebrate in | 4 tables of 6 or more per location on Sunday midday | 9 tables per location, at 54,000 COP per person, inside the 28,000 to 72,000 menu range | Fourth quarter | Tables of 6 or more counted in the Sunday book |
O3 does not buy traffic: Sunday midday already fills. It buys table size. Nine tables of six across both locations is 108 people every Sunday, 432 a month, at 6,000 COP above the average check: 2,592,000 COP of extra sales without one more chair.
In contribution margin, O1 leaves 6,589,440 COP a month, O2 recovers 1,412,400 and O3 adds 1,710,720. Net of the plan's budget, 5,432,560 COP a month remain: 42% of the gap. The other 58% comes out of the menu and the buying, and that gets said on day one.
SUPUESTO: the delivery platform's commission is taken at 22% because the house does not have its last 12 months of settlements at hand. It is not an industry figure: it is the value used while the real data arrives. If the real commission were 27%, O2 recovers 1,734,000 COP a month instead of 1,412,400 and moves from third to second in the campaign queue; if it were 18%, the leak is smaller than it looks and the own-channel line item gets cut. Confirm it against your settlement before signing the plan.
② The year in windows, not months
The business year is not twelve identical months: it is seven windows with different cash behind them. The campaign is chosen by the window, never the other way round.
| Window | What happens in the house | Campaign that enters | Objective | Why not another |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January and February | Work lunch comes back in the second week; nights are dead | Repeat purchase on the WhatsApp list | O1 | January is the most expensive month to buy a new guest: you collect on the one who already came in December |
| March and April | Holy Week takes the offices away and Tuesday-to-Friday lunch drops for a full week | Own delivery | O2 | With the city travelling there is nobody to fill the room with; you work the channel that still runs |
| May | The second Sunday is the biggest midday of the year | Advance booking for tables of 6 or more | O3 | With occupancy already solved you do not buy traffic: you buy table size and sales mix |
| June and July | School holidays: quiet offices, families at home | Tuesday-to-Thursday nights | O1 | An average-check campaign over an empty room has nobody to raise it on |
| August | Feria de las Flores: Medellín full and visiting | Positioning, no discount | O3 | Discounting in the one window that pays full price gives away margin already collected |
| September and October | Amor y Amistad on the third Saturday; October has no date at all | Average check and loyalty | O1 and O3 | October brings no calendar excuse: the house has to supply it |
| November and December | Company dinners and novenas: the most profitable window of the year | Company dinner quotes, open from October | O1 | December does not need people brought in, it needs them charged properly and on time |
No window carries two campaigns. The six admin people do not run two things at once, and the one that gets attempted gets half-run.
③ The budget and its discard rule
The ceiling does not come from what was left over: it comes from sales. 2% of 2,568,000,000 COP a year is 51,360,000 COP, 4,280,000 a month. In a house running at 8%, every peso of that line comes out of those eight points, so it is defended with covers and not with enthusiasm.
| Line item | % | Yearly amount | What it buys | Covers that pay it back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slow slot, day and hour | 40% | 20,544,000 COP | Tuesday-to-Thursday nights and Saturday midday, both locations | 648 |
| Own channel | 20% | 10,272,000 COP | Package insert, WhatsApp list and the delivery menu | 324 |
| Positioning and material | 15% | 7,704,000 COP | Photography and video of Bandeja de la casa, Sancocho de tres carnes and Trucha al ajillo, one shoot a quarter | 243 |
| Calendar dates | 15% | 7,704,000 COP | Mother's Day, Feria de las Flores, Amor y Amistad and December | 243 |
| Unassigned reserve | 10% | 5,136,000 COP | Whatever was not in the plan | 162 |
| Total | 100% | 51,360,000 COP | — | 1,620 |
The discard rule. One cover leaves 31,680 COP of contribution margin at the 48,000 COP average ticket and the 34% food cost you declared; through the delivery platform it leaves 21,120 COP, net of the commission from block ①'s SUPUESTO. A campaign gets into the plan if the incremental covers that pay its cost back fit inside the free capacity of its window. The 1,620 covers of the year are 2.6 covers per location per day on top of the 74 that go out today: that is what the plan costs, not what it promises.
What got cut. Paid ads for the Feria de las Flores, 6,000,000 COP: it asked for 189 incremental covers across three weeks of August, in a room that fills on its own during the Feria. The figure was not adjusted, the campaign was taken out. And the 10% reserve is not a cushion: if it is still untouched in October, there was budget to spare and next year's ceiling comes down.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.