Marketing tips and ideas for restaurants

There are so many creative and unique marketing ideas and tips that one can use to increase sales for a restaurant, and they’re not necessarily expensive. I’m busy doing research for a new client and I have so many ideas spinning around in my head – so I thought I’d jog down some of my marketing tips for restaurants.

MARKETING TIPS FOR RESTAURANTS

You need to have a solid online presence. The basis of this presence will be your website. Make sure that you have your correct menu uploaded (with prices!) and that it’s easy for website visitors to find. Include links to your social media profiles and if possible, incorporate a blog on your website. This can add some personality to your brand.
Keep your social media profiles updated and share interesting content on these platforms. Through your social media platforms you can share your restaurant’s ‘personality’ or ‘uniqueness’ with fans and followers – so make sure that your updates convey this.
Turn in-store customers into regular customers by inviting them to connect with you on social media or sign up for your newsletter. Here you can tell them about special offers on a regular basis and hopefully entice them to visit your restaurant again.
Offer your regular customers rewards. Do you have a customer that goes out of their way to promote your restaurant? For instance – did they rave about the amazing coffee or good food? Reward them – next time give them the coffee on the house or throw in free drinks. Word of mouth is the best type of marketing there is. If no-one is talking about your restaurant, ask them to and reward them if they do.
Would you like to increase foot traffic during the breakfast slot? Come up with a special promotion (like a takeaway coffee and croissant for R20 or similar) but really make it worth the customers’ while. Your most likely competing with many other restaurants in the area so you really need to entice customers.
Is your restaurant in a high foot traffic area? Make use of a black board outside your door. This may seem like such an obvious tip but so many restaurants don’t do it. Be creative with your messages on the board and change them at least two or three times a day – during the morning focus on coffee and breakfast specials and so forth.
Do you offer free wifi? Tell people this! Many people use restaurants as meeting spots and they appreciate free wifi.
Don’t run the same specials or promotions over and over again. Plan ahead and tie your specials in with local events or public holidays. Get creative!
Are there many businesses around you? Offer a free delivery service within a certain radius. Deliver your menu to these offices and be sure to make the most of the advertising space you have. Try to get these professionals to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter so that you can target them just before breakfast or lunch with interesting specials or photos of what you’re offering that day.
Related to the point above, offer discounts on tables that are 8 or more (or whatever amount you prefer). Many professionals eat lunch with their coworkers and will be enticed by a group discount.

If you have specific marketing goals like increasing brand awareness or increasing sales, you can get creative with how you make your marketing tactics work together. Be sure to stand out from the crowd and include strong calls to action.

Work on a bigger plan (like a three month plan) and then break it down to what you’re going to do on a daily basis. This can be a tedious task but if you have a plan of action, it’s very easy to follow. Set a few hours aside and get the planning done – and make sure that you include all elements in your plan: website, blog, social media profiles, advertising, flyers, board outside and so forth. Also make sure that you include measurable marketing objectives and determine how you’re going to measure the success of each tactic. You want to know what tactics worked so that you can build on them, or what didn’t work so that you can remove it from your plan.

I hope you found these marketing tips for restaurants useful, if you have any questions chat to me in the comments.

Create engagement between your brand and fans / followers

The proliferation of social media sites has opened up tremendous opportunities for businesses to engage with their target market. In addition to the traditional communication channels, a brand can now use social media marketing to increase its reach and build strong relationships with its market through online interactions.

However, to enjoy a true measure of success, brands must do three things:

Be where their target market is by choosing the right social media platform
Engage their audience with relevant and interesting content
Keep up the two-way interaction, answering questions, responding to feedback (both positive and negative) with a customer engagement strategy

The first step is to identify the right social media platform based on the one the target market’s presence. From the ever-growing list, the prominent ones are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.

Consider the following when making your choice:

Who is your target market and which social media networks are they using?
What are your social media marketing goals? Examples are lead generation, boosting website traffic, interaction with customers
Do you have the manpower to manage your social media profiles or will you outsource it?
What is your budget?

For example, if your business’ target audience is largely active mobile app users on iPhones and Androids, you might think of using Instagram to engage your audience. If your goal is to network with other businesses, then LinkedIn helps you widen your contact base and connect with thought leaders.

Engaging with your audience using the right strategy pays off high dividends in the form of extensive reach, exposure, more leads, lower promotional costs and high return on your marketing investment. Here are some effective techniques:

Quality content with variety
Content marketing plays an important role in social media engagement. Quality content that is both engaging and shareable is the secret. This includes text, images, video and audio content to keep it interesting. Content updates do not always have to be business related. Social media is a great platform to show the human side of your business by posting behind-the-scenes images and information with a good dose of humor.

Being responsive
The essence of engagement is interaction and this means being responsive to fans and followers, answering questions and handling complaints. Social media offers a creative avenue to leverage it for better customer service.

Being unique
Create special offers and deals that stand out from the competition. Give fans a reason to engage with your brand. Reward them for connecting. Run contests. Invite comments. Highlight users who engage regularly. Ask questions and reward innovative answers. Make it fun. Offer useful tips.

Make it easy to engage
Let your audience find it easy to connect with you by prominently displaying your contact information and social media connect buttons.

The secret is to offer fans what they want to keep them engaged. Find out when your audience is most active and engage with them to ensure the maximum shares and views. Research your target audience well to create attractive calls to action that motivate them to share with others. Social media, for sustained results, requires ongoing effort and patience. Keep experimenting and don’t forget to use analytics to measure your impact and ROI.

Mid-way through 2013, time to audit your marketing strategy

We are halfway through 2013 and it feels like the year is flying by. In terms of your marketing strategy, you should have seen some tangible results by now – and have reached a number of your marketing objectives. This will be true if you have been consistent in the implementation of your marketing strategy, and if you measured all your marketing actions.

June is a good month to do an audit of your 2013 marketing strategy to determine where you’re at, what needs to change and how you’re going to move forward. Perhaps you included a ‘wild card’ marketing tactic in your strategy and it has shown great ROI? If this is the case, you should tweak your marketing strategy for the rest of the year to include the same (or similar) marketing tactics. That is the beauty of today’s marketing landscape, changes can be made fairly quickly – especially in your online marketing strategy.

If you haven’t been consistently implementing your marketing strategy, do not fret. There are 6 months of the year left but the time to start working on your strategy is NOW. Take time to review the strategy as it may be outdated (it was after all written anything from 6 to 9 months ago) and revise where necessary. Set tangible marketing objectives for yourself as well as action points – as they saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begin with one step. Take a few small steps every day and soon these steps will add up and show ROI.

Content marketing to become even more important in 2013

Over the last few weeks I’ve read a lot about content marketing, including the predictions regarding the direction of content marketing in 2013. The consensus seems to be that marketers are going to spend a bigger percentage of their marketing budgets on content marketing, and they are going to utilize more marketing tactics in order to reach their content marketing goals. Many brands have already seen the success of content marketing, and those are the brands that are already a step ahead of the rest.

For those that are not 100% sure what content marketing entails – here is a brief explanation. A content marketing strategy normally include all the platforms that you use to connect with customers and prospects (for instance your website, blog, newsletter, social media profiles, etc) as well as the editorial plan for these platforms. An editorial plan will detail what content will be posted when, and where. As part of the strategy, a business should also determine its “voice” and this voice should be consistent in all content. Your content strategy should aim to tell your brand’s story and connect with your target audience in an engaging way. To determine how to engage with your target audience, market research is needed. It’s also important to set content marketing goals and determine how you are going to measure the success of your content marketing strategy. Some of the marketing goals for a content marketing strategy can include:

Drive targeted traffic to your website
Lead generation
Engagement
Educating your market on your brand, products or services
Improve SEO results
Retain customers

It seems as if the biggest obstacles that marketers are facing include a lack or time and resources. Another obstacle is that marketers are not sure how to accurately measure the ROI of a content strategy, and others don’t measure ROI at all. In 2013 it is going to be important to make sure that your brand don’t get left behind. Competition in the online world is tough and brands with strong content marketing strategies will have a definite advantage.

Why web design should be intuitive

Today, the internet is the prime source of information for consumers looking for a product or a service. A business’ target market will naturally use the search engines to find what they want, and from the results produced, browse prospective websites before they finally decide to buy, or sign up for a newsletter by trusting the website with their contact information. In order to reach that point, the website must appeal to them by being easy to navigate through intuitive web design. When consumers enjoy a positive experience on a website, they are more likely to respond to the website’s call to action.

It follows from this that a business, besides offering great content to engage its market, must also focus on its website design and come across in such a way that the visitor is motivated to look forward to connecting with the business via the website.

What is intuitive web design?

A website’s design is considered intuitive when its content is presented in a manner that makes it easy to access from all types of devices, such as the personal computer, smartphone, laptop and netbook. The website selects the most suitable template for the device and displays the content, loading quickly, enhancing the user’s browsing experience.

It is well known that users do not have the time to sift through content to find what they want especially on smaller screens. They would rather move on to a different site where the information they need is easily accessible. This means determining what the user needs to see to ensure their browsing experience is positive and results in action.

The importance of intuitive web design

A website is a business’ online presence, through which it reaches a wide audience, conveying its message and positioning itself as a trustworthy brand to attract its target audience. When visitors find it hard to navigate the website, it results in lost business and defeats the goals of the business. The information offered must be useful so that it can be leveraged to take the business forward.

Since Google has made it very clear that content will continue to rule, businesses must essentially use content to connect with customers and this must be supported by web design that adapts itself to all devices. Once a content strategy is in place, the next step is to make it easy for visitors to access the content through responsive web design.

Some tips to make web design intuitive are:

Understand your target visitor’s needs
Incorporate a prominent navigation bar that shows the visitor where to go
Add calls to action appropriate to the goals of your website
Link to related content within your website
Design specific and focused landing pages so that they convert visitors into customers
Include social media sharing buttons

When people like a website, they return as repeat visitors, increasing the chances for the business to convert them into buyers.

The main benefits of intuitive web design, besides increased targeted traffic and sales, are better engagement with visitors and higher search rankings. It also means increased usability, higher conversions, better competitive edge and ultimately, maximised marketing ROI.

Creating content for the web

Quality content brings many benefits for businesses with an online presence. It helps build an audience, attracts customers and creates evangelists who spread the message about the business by sharing via various channels. For this reason, it is important to plan the content, and have a good content marketing strategy in place.

With the proliferation of social media users, businesses have the opportunity to directly connect with their customers and prospects. To build and grow this audience, businesses need a content strategy.

Quality content optimised for the search engines is an effective tool for a business to generate search traffic, besides being shareable via social media. When the content is focused on the customer or prospect, it helps convey the benefits to the buyer and encourages them to share it, while establishing the business as a credible and trustworthy source.

Creating the content strategy

Putting together a content strategy starts with understanding what the customer wants and then giving it to them. Knowing where these customers see your content determines where you must direct your efforts and budget so that you get the best ROI from it.

Briefly, your content strategy is a framework for your content about your brand and business, ensuring that it is perceived as an authority and gets the attention of the search engine and user. Naturally, the content strategy must be integrated into the marketing plan, monitored and tracked. The marketing manager must ensure that all aspects and elements are taken into account while designing the strategy. After implementation, a close eye must be kept on Analytics so that content with favorable ROI can receive more focus.

The content strategy will take on different approaches even if the final goal is the same, that of increasing sales and profits. For example, if the business sells different products and services, each of these may need a different approach. If the business sells directly as well as through distributors, it may need two different content strategies. If the goal is to increase brand awareness while increasing profits, this will need another approach.

What type of content?

The content will depend on your audience and their online behavior. They may be active on Twitter or LinkedIn, be your website visitors or prefer to hang out on Pinterest, Facebook and other social media sites. Your users’ online behavior will decide:

The type of content you create
The time and budget you must invest in it

If you have a wide customer profile, you may need to create content that caters to each customer group. Get an idea of how your business and its products/services are perceived online to know whether there are any negative comments. If there are people having conversations about your business, you can respond appropriately.

Measuring the effectiveness of your content strategy

To know how effective content is in helping you achieve your marketing goals, you must create benchmarks against which it can be measured and evaluated periodically. Here are some tools you can use to check the level of engagement of your audience with your brand, web properties and content:

Google Analytics to measure page visits, traffic volume and sources, time spent on the site to assess overall site engagement and social media success.
Social monitoring via brand, product and service mentions and reactions.

Social media platforms like Facebook likes and fans, Twitter followers and retweets, Google Plus circles and friends, YouTube subscriptions and so on.

In addition to the above, make sure you know which of your content is the most popular so that you can leverage it. Here are some ways to distribute your content and engage your market:

Interesting posts on your blog that invite interaction and create conversations with your market. Make the content shareable on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, StumbleUpon and other popular social media sites for maximum reach.
Feature the RSS feed prominently as those who stay updated via Google Reader can also share your links with their network.
Post engaging content on your Facebook fan page with your own commentary and generate discussions.
Share on LinkedIn. Ask questions and invite feedback from your groups.
Explore SlideShare for content marketing.
Leverage photo sharing sites like Flickr and Pinterest.
Convert your content into podcasts and videos and share on BlogTalk Radio and YouTube.

Almost all of the above can be integrated on your website and blog for your reader’s easy access. Today, content is no longer just the web pages of a business’ website. It can take many forms. Since the business’ goal is to expand its reach, drive sales and enhance its profits, it must leverage the content on its website, its social media presence, blog, and other articles across the web, to build its reputation and profits.

Marketing with Google

Most businesses sets up a website with specific goals in mind. The most common goals of a well-designed website with optimised content are to:

Generate targeted traffic, leads and sales, convert visitors into customers.
Build brand and business image.
Improve search engine ranking.
Attract relevant back links from related quality websites to increase its credibility.
Engage with the market and build relationships.
Establish the business as a thought leader.

A well optimised website is key and an integral part of the business’ web marketing strategy. This requires a focus on careful search engine optimisation (or SEO) through high quality content that adds value and helps the business achieve its goals.

Why SEO

With effective SEO, a website becomes more ‘crawlable’ by the search engines, making each page on the website easy to find and access. SEO is an effective marketing technique that uses relevant key-phrases and optimised quality content to make the site more engaging and attractive to search engines. This makes the website more visible, increasing its inbound links and traffic.

From the above, it is clear that SEO and high quality content must work together to make a website successfully achieve its goals.

Marketing with Google must focus on quality content oriented towards the reader. An optimised content strategy is not only important for organic search traffic, but also for social sharing, since businesses must also leverage social media marketing to be successful. Recently, Google posted about another step to reward high-quality sites endorsing this, implying that websites that cared about ranking in the search engine results must develop an optimised content marketing strategy.

Why optimised content?

By definition, optimised content marketing involves understanding what the business’ targeted traffic (visitors) are looking for and featuring optimised content with the keywords to drive organic search traffic that converts. It also means delivering this content in the proper format and socialising it across the business’ social networks so that visitors can share and link to it.

Content can take the form of web page content, blogs, news, press releases, tutorials, case studies, white papers, social media updates and event information. Optimised content is critical for marketing with Google for the following reasons:

Google factors social signals into its organic search algorithms. Social media and social networking promote relationships, which bring in relevance. Relevance is what organic search results are all about. This increases inbound links, which endorse the website’s credibility. Businesses must focus on Twitter retweets and followers, Google +1s, friends and circles, Facebook fans, Likes and Shares, YouTube views and subscribers and LinkedIn shares and connections, all of which means engaging optimised content.
Over the last year or so, Google has steadily updated its algorithms to weed out sites that featured bad quality content, bogus sites, link farms, and sites using spammy methods to rank higher. Google made it clear that sites producing relevant content and building back links naturally would be the ones who would survive and flourish.
Google introduced the +1 button just over a year ago to encourage users to recommend the site. This is perceived as a social signal that directly impacts organic search rankings. Users are more likely to endorse a site when the site is optimised for the keywords used by them.
In January 2012, Google announced the launch of Search Plus Your World where a business’ published content on Google+ can be found by others in its circles. This gives the business’ content a larger reach over a longer time.

Besides the above, content is measurable to gauge its impact on a business’ search engine ranking, visitors, conversions and social impact. Businesses can leverage content to gain competitive advantage.

Business to business social media marketing

Social media marketing relates to a business’ activities across social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, discussion boards and video sites. The aim is to reach and connect with its target market, conveying its message via the appropriate format so that it results in visibility and traffic. Some of the main goals of social media marketing include:

Building relationships with the market
Increasing awareness
Uncovering new customers
Generating leads and sales
Improving customer retention
Enhancing brand loyalty
Building a community around the business

Both Business to Customer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) businesses use social media marketing effectively to achieve their marketing goals, yet there are certain basic differences in the way B2C and B2B implement this. Here is a quick look at the main differences.

The Return on Investment

A critical aspect of any marketing activity, ROI for B2B can be different from B2C. While B2B social media marketing focuses on generating leads, B2C can focus on branding, engagement and so forth. The ROI for B2B is therefore more easily measured than for B2C and their methods of connecting with their audience are different.

The way the business positions itself

Social media marketing is not about direct selling. Because of this, B2B companies position themselves as thought leaders, so that they can provide the valuable information. To do this, the business involves itself in issues related to its industry or talks about an event. It makes recommendations to its audience. The goal is to position itself as an expert that its market can look up to and trust.

Choice of social media sites

Most B2C businesses choose Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. B2B businesses choose LinkedIn as their main social site to engage with other businesses. This enables them directly with decision makers of the businesses they target.

Based on the above, it is clear that with B2B, social media marketing is about the relevance of the community rather than its size. Two hundred engaged prospects on Twitter is easier to track and monitor rather than thousands of followers who are not really connected or interested in what you have to say. Measurability matters in B2B social media marketing and based on this, goals are set with parameters to track the campaign.

Examples of B2B social media successes

American Express’ OPEN Forum and Facebook campaigns are very popular. Through the OPEN Forum and ongoing campaigns on its Facebook page, AmEx provides support to its business customers. Recently, AmEx’s “Big Break” campaign ran a contest for SMEs announcing that five winners would receive an all-expense paid trip to Facebook’s headquarters to discuss a makeover for their business in addition to $20,000 to help them with their current social media strategy.

Business Week, the weekly US business magazine built a networking site called Business Exchange to enable it engage with its readers and expand its online communication. This quickly became successful and grew to over 40,000 users who currently contribute over one million article links.

Cisco, the world leader in networking actively engages in social media and runs regular campaign to complement its ongoing engagement strategy. A new router was recently launched exclusively on social media channels, helping them save $100,000 in the process. Their “Future of Shopping” video on borderless networks has more than 6 million views.

Some tips for B2B marketers to use social media marketing effectively are:

Focus on listening, interaction and knowledge sharing
Avoid the hard sell approach
Take the time to develop relationships by investing time and effort
Form a clear strategy and stay committed to implementing it
Build a network of influencers who will share your content and extend your reach
Ensure that social media profiles are optimised and up to date and linked to the business’ website, blog and other social media accounts
Monitor your brand to know what is being said
Maintain synergy between various social media activities and cross-link between them

B2B businesses can use social media to establish their credibility by building a strong social presence. This is done by creating well designed social media profiles that prospective customers and vendors alike can access. Consistent and well-planned social media activity presents the business as one that is competent, adding personality. B2B social media marketing allows the business’ professionals to share their expertise via social media sites, helping them build strong business relationships with a personal touch. Using social media to engage with each other within the organization can be a great way to keep employee morale high, increasing productivity and retaining employees.

How to use Pinterest in your marketing strategy

To quote Wikipedia, “Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘repin’ images to their own collections and / or ‘like’ photos”

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks in the world and presents businesses with a unique opportunity to leverage it for marketing. Businesses that wish to use Pinterest as a marketing tool must first identify their market, then engage their customers, offer information and finally, present them with value. Viewed from the search engine optimisation angle, each pin on Pinterest can be seen as a back link, which is something all websites work hard to build. The key is to use keywords in the descriptions and board titles. As with any marketing tool, Pinterest activity must be tracked and analysed to assess what works.

Here are some case studies of businesses that are using Pinterest successfully to promote their brand and their products.

The Kotex campaign

Implemented in Israel, the Kotex brand identified fifty influential women based on what they were pinning on Pinterest. Each woman was sent a customised online gift pack. When she pinned the gift, she received a real gift pack via mail. Tracking revealed that each woman who was sent the gift posted about the gift, not just on Pinterest, but also on other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and exploded the reach of the 50 gifts into over 2 200 interactions. It also resulted in close to 694 850 impressions, an incredible return for 50 gift packs. The brand creatively leveraged Pinterest to attract high engagement based on the simple premise that free gifts are always appreciated and talked about.

The Pinterest Lottery from British Midland International

British Midland International held a contest called “Pinterest Lottery” where randomly chosen fans won trips. Numbered posters with logos from five destinations were posted on the brand’s Pinterest boards and users were invited to repin at least six images. By the end of the week, British Midland selected a number and the users who repinned images with that number were eligible to win two free round trips to any British Midland International destinations.

Lands’ End Canvas’ “Pin it to Win it”

Apparel brand Lands’ End Canvas’ promotion called Lands’ End Canvas Pin It to Win It” invited fans to pin items from their website to their specific pin boards for a chance to win the items they pinned.

After a business launches its profile on Pinterest, the next step is to create highly engaging promotions, inspiring its fans to follow their profiles and pin items from their web pages. This keeps the brand’s target audience connected, interacting with the brand and building brand loyalty. Here are some tips to achieve this:

Pinterest has over 1.5 million unique visitors every day and 80% of these users are women. This is a highly prospective market for brands focused on women’s interests.
Make a plan to post pictures consistently, since pins at the top of the feed get the maximum views and repins / shares.
Cross promote via other channels by adding a follow on Pinterest button and connecting your Pinterest account to your other social media profiles and promoting it on Facebook, Blogs, Twitter and Google Plus.
Regular interaction by following users, commenting on their pins, repining and liking them is a must, so that they can follow you back.
Post product images, ideas and tips and encourage fans to pin their views and ideas to keep them engaged.

Pinterest can help brands build unique relationships with their target market and help them promote themselves through social media. Are you using Pinterest for business?

Writing a marketing plan

Designing and implementing a strong yet flexible marketing plan is the foundation of a successful business. A marketing plan must include a mix of different tactics based on an analysis of what has worked in the past and which activities did not yield the expected results.

A business usually defines its market as a particular group of buyers and before the marketing plan is conceived, the first step is to identify the target market, niches within the target market and understand its different needs for your product or service. This begins with market research to understand its expectations in order to devise strategies to meet them. Although businesses set long term goals, detailed marketing plans are usually finalised for one year based on the year’s goals and budget. A quarterly assessment shows any changes that must be made in the focus of the plan.

Here is a sequence of actions to write an effective marketing plan:

A mission statement stating the nature of the business, its services, its target markets.
A description of the target market, its size, its segments and user profile
A detailed description of products and services being offered
The budget required to reach the products and services to the market. This includes staff, services, logistics and other marketing and promotional costs
A break up of marketing and promotional tactics proposed to be used for different target market segments and the time frame for monitoring these activities. This includes keeping track of industry trends and forming strategic business alliances. Marketing strategies can include online and offline networking, direct marketing in the form of sales letters, email marketing, flyers, online advertising focused on specific target markets, campaigns to increase product awareness, online article marketing, direct sales, mobile marketing, social media marketing, brand building, trade shows, etc. Through constant monitoring and evaluation, tactics that work can be repeated while those that do not work must be dropped.
Competitor analysis. This is an on-going exercise and a part of the market plan in order to achieve the right positioning. This involves a SWOT analysis where you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats vis-à-vis the competition. In general, competition revolves around a combination of price, product and benefits. This will help create your own Unique Selling Proposition (USP), which is the message that will go out in your marketing communication.
Quantifiable marketing goals. This covers what you want to accomplish in twelve months, the markets you plan to reach and how you plan to cover them and your revenue goals.
Monitoring and tracking results to see which strategies generate leads and sales, the customers’ response to these strategies and what appeals to them.

While evaluating the marketing plan periodically, it must answer the following questions:

Were the goals reached?
Were the marketing campaigns successful?
Did it achieve the expected return on investment?
Did it result in conversions as expected?

In the course of the assessment, if new markets emerge, the planning team looks at ways to explore and reach these markets.

In summary, the marketing plan must set clear and realistic targets that are measurable, specify clear deadlines for meeting these targets, indicate the budget for each market activity and also allocate accountability to the people responsible for each aspect of the plan.