Doug Reifschneider – Restaurant Practice Lead

Doug Reifschneider

Photo of Doug Reifschneider

Doug Reifschneider is a dynamic marketing leader. He has over 25 years of experience in the restaurant industry. He has a  history of driving growth through brand strategies. While at Firehouse Subs, Mr. Reifschneider helped:
      • achieve a 4X increase in locations, to 1,030 restaurants
      • generated $684M in revenues
      • Increased annual sales by 19.4%
During his foodservice career, he navigated the ever-changing marketing/advertising environment. The advertising menu was a shortlist of advertising tactics 20 years ago. Today, there are hundreds of online and offline options. Doug navigated the evolution. He is always looking for new technologies to exploit such as Blockchain.
 
Throughout his career, he strengthened brand equity. Doug also grew the customer base and boosted revenues. He achieved success through the development of innovative marketing campaigns.
 

Doug Reifschneider’s Core Competencies

 
    • Brand strategy
    • Marketing analytics and sales analysis
    • Coaching, mentoring, and team building
    • Collaboration
    • Value proposition/Unique Selling Proposition (USP) discovery
    • Marketing technology/UX
    • Media planning and buying
    • Google Analytics – certificate for Advanced Google Analytics
    • SEO – certificate from SEMrush for Site Audit Exam
    • Agency management
 

Drivers/Motivators

 
    • People – business is about relationships
    • Analysis – to aid decision making
    • Integrity – Doing the right thing
    • Context – seek to clarify and understand
 

Background

 
Reifschneider grew up in the foodservice industry. He is a marketing veteran with 25+ years of progressive field, agency, and corporate marketing experience.   Doug started in the restaurant business in the field by teaching franchisees and company operators how to conduct local restaurant marketing (LRM). He also formed advertising co-ops. Doug mastered the use of traditional media such as TV, radio, print, and Out of Home (OOH).
 
In later years, Reifschneider focused on digital advertising options. As noted earlier, he combined traditional and digital advertising to grow sales.
 

Leadership

 
Doug progressed into leadership roles at Hardee’s and Fazoli’s. He learned how to grow sales in a competitive marketplace while mentoring his team. As a result, he learned how to combine media spend and LRM. The result was communicating the right message to the right target customer at the right time. Doug was a key part of the executive team that grew the Firehouse Subs brand 4X in ten years. To help fast growth at Firehouse Subs, Doug built the marketing team from the ground up.
 

Branding

 
He has direct experience with various branding processes. Doug supervised the rebuilding of the tech stack at Firehouse Subs and Pita Pit USA.  Each brand has one app. And one app only. It is important for a restaurant to have one app for digital ordering and loyalty. The functionality packaged in one app ensures a seamless user experience.

History

 
    • Vice President of Marketing – Pita Pit USA
    • Vice President of Marketing Services – Firehouse Subs
    • Director of Marketing – Firehouse Subs
    • Director of Field Marketing – Fazoli’s Restaurants
    • National Account Executive – WorkPlace Print Media
    • Vice President of Account Services – Dallas advertising agency – Pizza Hut and Rent-A-Center business)
    • Area Marketing Director – Hardee’s Food Systems Inc.
    • Field Marketing Manager – Wendy’s International
    • Regional Marketing Manager – Hardee’s Food Systems Inc.
    • Field Marketing Manager – Taco John’s International
    • Marketing Research Manager – Taco John’s International

Contact Doug at reif78@gmail.com

Videos – see Doug in action on Zoom

Growth Gears is a Primer on the Development of Marketing Strategy.
https://youtu.be/K6EGT25lk88
Doug Reifschneider, Chief Outsiderschiefoutsiders.com/profile/doug-reifschneider July 17, 2020

Doug Reifschneider Presents “Stop Random Acts of Recovery”
to ITB Partners at our May Meeting.

Video link

https://youtu.be/9I7EgQjFnnE