You might be familiar with the timeworn quote attributed to John Wanamaker. "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." The average restaurant marketing budget is two to six percent of sales. Casting half of that money to the wind is expensive.

Wanamaker was a successful merchant in the mid-19th to early 20th century. His aphorism might make sense given the period. Still, the sentiment behind the quote has long persisted among business people who struggle with identifying which marketing and promotional efforts are working and which are not.

If Wanamaker was perplexed by the dearth of data to drive his marketing decisions, we might find ourselves equally perplexed by the ocean of data available today and the technology to capture it.

Every entry on a POS [point-of-sale] system, whether it is a menu order, loyalty app transaction, social media review, or any other customer touchpoint provides a restaurant with data. Many independent restaurants compile tremendous amounts of data, even if it is not always immediately - if ever - usable in time to drive decisions.

If your restaurant is using technology for credit card processing, point-of-sale, loyalty programs, and participating with social media platforms, then you have a lot of potential data with which to work. Whether that data is usable is another issue. Usable data provides actionable information to help identify trends, reduce costs, and gain insights into how to provide a better experience.

In this article, we learn how two successful operators view data-driven marketing. Shawn Walchef, founding owner of Southern California-based restaurant concept Cali BBQ and restaurant marketing company Cali BBQ Media, is an avid adopter and promoter of technology to acquire and retain patrons and build brand awareness of his concept.

Darren Des Roche is Chief Operating Officer of Seattle-based GameWorks, a restaurant for gaming aficionados. He leans a bit more on old-school, tried-and-true methods to acquire information to inform his promotional strategies. Nevertheless, both Darren and Shawn share common perspectives on making data actionable to drive business. At the top of the list is the importance of the human touch.

Every Successful Operator is a Data Analyst

Wanamaker’s quote might seem disingenuous - if not suspect - given his massive success as a retailer. Data is information. And marketing data is information that tells us how we can acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and increase customer lifetime spending. One can imagine Wanamaker talking to his customers and employees to determine which of his advertising campaigns was driving business.

And even if his sales were tracked in a daybook by a clerk with a fountain pen, Wanamaker would have a great deal of data regarding what was selling and who was buying it. He could easily find out the number of subscribers to the regional newspapers and where they lived.