Restaurant guide offers food for thought

Reprinted from Metro Plus Business

What could be better than a guide to local restaurants that includes alphabetical listings, category listings, maps and menus? A guide to local restaurants that includes alphabetical listings, category listings, maps and menus and slips easily into a glove compartment, purse or large pocket.

In designing its area restaurant guide nine years ago, the retail advertising staff at The Courier of Conroe, understood that, sometimes, smaller is definitely better. That’s why they packed an enormous amount of information about area eateries into a handy 10” x 6” guide, called “The ‘I don’t know … What do you want?’ Guide to Dining in Montgomery County.”

“We made it this size because it’s meant to be kept by the phone or in the car or a briefcase,” explains Retail Advertising Manager Karen Mauermann. “The format has been the same since the start, with full pages of restaurant menus and an alphabetical index in the front with brief descriptions and then an index by category. Over the years, we’ve made only minor changes here and there because it has worked so well as it is.” Mauermann notes that keeping the guide’s design simple is a key to its success. Other than being printed on brighter stock to give it a clean appearance that won’t yellow during the year, the guide is utterly straightforward: a four-color Metro image on the front cover, a color ad on the back cover, and black-and-white ads and menus in between.

One thing that has changed a bit over the years is the guide’s publication date.

“We found out that June is the best time to publish it because families tend to eat out more in the summer when school is out,” Mauermann recalls. “Once we put it out in January, and it wasn’t nearly as successful.”

The guide is developed for and sold by both The Courier and its sister newspaper, The Villager of The Woodlands, Texas. Advertising representatives from both publications sell pages in the guide, and the two publications split the profits from those sales. This way, the guide can cover more territory, generate greater revenue, and provide readers with a wider range of dining options.

Adds Mauermann, “The idea is to sell to as many different kinds of restaurants as we can — and to stay on top of the new restaurants that open up during the year. The guide has worked so well for so long because so many advertisers stay in and then we’re constantly getting new ones. We’re in a rapidly growing area, so the number of restaurants keeps expanding.”

While the length of the guide may vary a bit from year to year due to economic ups and downs, it has been both extremely stable and profitable during its nine-year run. “The secret to its success is that it’s a simple concept and a simple thing to sell,” says Mauermann. “If we have a restaurant’s menu, we can put together an ad. Other than checking for accuracy, there’s not a whole lot more to it.” For more information, contact Karen Mauermann, Retail Advertising Manager, The Courier, Conroe, at 936/442-3439.