Marketing your restaurant has become increasingly competitive, and considering the average restaurant spends from 2-4% of sales on marketing, it's essential that those dollars are well-spent.

In this survey, we asked operators to share their best marketing practices. While some of the results were expected, we were impressed with the creative approach that operators used to turn often-used marketing tactics into profit-enriched success stories.

Find out how creative restaurateurs added value and appeal to the following marketing best practices.

• Maintaining a database of your guests

• Birthday clubs

• Newsletters

• Direct marketing

• In-house promotions

• Sponsoring community events

You can view the results and analysis for the following questions:

What is the most effective marketing activity you are involved in on a regular basis?
What is the most successful one-time promotion that you've ever done?