Opening a quick-service restaurant (QSR) can be a lucrative business venture. The quick-service industry led the growth of overall restaurant spending in Q1 of 2018, which increased 6.6 percent, according to First Data. But, building a customer base from scratch can feel like an uphill battle. Whether you're just now taking ownership of an existing QSR or your restaurant is entirely new, it's necessary to focus your marketing efforts on establishing a brand image and attracting new customers.

Here are three marketing strategies that you can use to achieve these objectives.

Don't go it alone. Today is the day you browse and bookmark a few key marketing resources to make your everyday business tasks run smoother.

Here are our top picks for staying in the loop on marketing trends, getting tips for executing your tasks and testing whether or not your efforts are successful.

Top 5 Resources for Marketers

In addition to reviewing the internet properties you manage (and your competitors!), it's a good idea to check in regularly with a few expert resources.

No email marketing campaign is perfect. No matter how strong your results may be, there's always a case for uncovering small improvements that can push your conversion rates even higher.

The trick is identifying those opportunities without disrupting the strategy that's brought you success to this point. A/B testing is the logical step for finding new efficiencies and ways to elevate your results. Here are four considerations to make sure this testing delivers quality, actionable results.

Pick the Element You Want to Test

Most marketers realize that A/B testing only works when you change one element and keep everything else the same. But it's not just subject lines, calls-to-action and email copy that can be tested: Delivery time, newsletter design and layout, images and other rich-media content can all be tested to see if they influence performance.

Mobile marketing is all about reaching potential customers at exactly the right time, giving them answers just as needs arise.

Google refers to these crucial seconds as micro-moments, in which a person on-the-go realizes a need and enters a query on their mobile device to find an immediate solution. And micro is an apt description, as mobile searchers have a sense of urgency, so the window of opportunity is small.

For businesses that have a physical location or serve certain geographical areas, being the first name that appears on mobile SERPs means having ads with location targeting.

If statistics are any indication, your automotive advertising budget probably isn't getting any lower. According to Statista, ad spend by auto dealers rose from $566 million in 2010 to $2.4 billion in 2017.

That's a sizable increase, with the steepest hike occurring between 2015 and 2016. One likely reason car dealers are spending more on ads is that they've seen firsthand that paid tactics can increase sales, and they've also probably observed changing customer behaviors.

Getting Started

Over the last decade, more people have begun to research and shop for big purchases online — even cars. Keeping up with the trend means upping the ante on your ads, but how do you set an automotive advertising budget that doesn't cut into your profit margin?

Amid a backlash of fake news claims online, the advertising and marketing industries are keeping a mindful eye on audience response. To maintain credibility and bolster relationships, integrity and honesty have become elevated priorities for publishers of all types. That's why transparency in advertising is the latest guiding principle for marketing pros everywhere.

In 2016, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) named "transparency" the Marketing Word of the Year and even created a Production Transparency Task Force to police nontransparent advertising agency practices and develop ways to improve. Nearly a year and a half later, it remains as important as ever.

When you attend a wedding, you make sure your outfit matches — dress with shoes, tie with jacket and the entire ensemble with the formal setting of the event. The same principle should be applied to your advertising efforts. Contextual targeting ensures the content in your ad matches the content on the page where the ad is displayed.

A Growing Trend in Digital Marketing

As publishers get smarter about ad placement, the conversation is moving beyond weighing the benefits of banners and side margins. Instead, publishers are working with marketers and advertisers to ensure that the web page where an ad resides shares common themes with the ad shown there. That's contextual targeting.

When you hear the term "college student," what comes to mind? If you're imagining someone in their late teens or early 20s who lives on campus, depends financially on their parents and attends classes full time, you're only partially correct. Over the past decade, the number of nontraditional students has grown exponentially and continues to change the face of universities across the country.

But what exactly classifies a student as nontraditional? The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) categorizes a nontraditional student as someone who has at least one of the following characteristics:

Most small and medium-sized businesses are familiar with the value of building a brand. Getting to know customers and making connections with the surrounding community can go a long way toward ensuring long-term success — no matter the industry.

While some business owners may have success pouring tons of capital into a multi-faceted brand building campaign, such an expenditure is not always possible, especially if you've recently opened a new business. If you're building a brand on a budget, here are three quick tips to help you get started.

From a Marketing 101 class to the boardroom of a multi-billion dollar organization, business-minded individuals at every level know a value proposition can make or break a company's digital success.

If that sounds dramatic, remember that this simple message is your single best bet for convincing your audience to take the next step. Done well, a value proposition can help retain loyal customers; done poorly, it can stifle growth.

Many companies fail to display any values at all online. Peep Laja, founder of CXL, noted that a poor (or missing) value statement is one of the most common shortcomings of business websites.

If you have yet to share yours, you're not alone. This article will explore how to create and test your value proposition.