Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Being the best at something is not usually the key to a marketing success. It helps, of course, and I'm not saying you should ignore the recognition. It's just that you need to make sure you've done all the other things if you want to attract customers.

First, how many people (in your target audience) know what saomai is/are? Even if they knew you had the best saomai, would it matter to them? You may need to do some education.

Second, typically the most important factor for restaurants is location. Are you in a place that's convenient for your primary target audience, or do they have to search for you in an unfamiliar part of town?

You probably want to make sure your menu is diverse enough to appeal to people who don't know or care what saomai is. And you want to check all the "touchpoints" for your restaurant brand. For example, great saomai with surly waiters won't work. The attitude of the person greeting people is a factor. How you answer the phone is even a factor.

Go through the list of all your touchpoints -- including pricing -- and make sure you don't have a fatal flaw somewhere else. Only after everything else is where it needs to be should you embark on your "challenge" promotion. You might find that you issue the challenge and nobody responds because they know that having the best saomai isn't the key to success in the restaurant business.

Hope this helps. Good luck. I'll show up for my saomai shortly. (Yum!)