Running a successful restaurant business can be challenging. After all, 60 percent of restaurants do not survive after the first year.
Among other things, maintaining a steady footfall of customers is crucial to prevent your restaurant from shutting down. But if you want customer loyalty, you need to first increase your customer outreach. A carefully crafted strategy that is based on effective marketing tips for restaurants helps you achieve just that.
Here are five marketing tips for restaurants that can help you develop a powerful strategy to draw in more customers:
1 – Upload an online menu
The menu plays a crucial role in helping customers decide which restaurant they want to try out. Internet-savvy customers always make it a point to browse through the menu online before ordering in or dining at a restaurant.
Invest in creating a well-designed, descriptive, and easy-to-access online menu. Make it a point to include your signature dishes on the menu.
If you are offering something special to customers, like boxed lunches for busy corporate professionals, always highlight that. Lastly, don’t forget to update your menu if there are any changes.
2- Have a strong social media presence
50 percent of customers turn to social media to learn more about new restaurants. So set up a Facebook business page, a Twitter account, and an Instagram business account to establish a social identity of your restaurant.
You can use these profiles to advertise your restaurant and interact with the audience to boost engagement.
Listing your restaurant on Google My Business is also a fantastic idea. It ensures that your restaurant shows up whenever local customers in the area look up for restaurants for dining-in or deliveries.
3- Partner with food aggregator apps
Signing up with a food aggregator app can improve the visibility of catering companies/restaurants and increase sales volume by over 10 to 20 percent It also leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction as the food aggregator apps ensure that the orders are delivered on time.
Joining an aggregator platform such as CaterCurator is also a wonderful way to discover numerous corporate clients and individual catering customers.
Since the pandemic has forced restaurants to shut down their dine-in operations, partnering with food delivery aggregators can help you to stay afloat and attract more customers.
4- Use online reservation tools
Calling restaurants to book a table is no longer fashionable. 40 percent of customers prefer online reservation tools. These tools make your business accessible round the clock so that customers have the freedom to make a reservation whenever they want with just one click.
Maintaining an online reservation portal works out much cheaper for the restaurant, compared to retaining a specific person to manage the phone bookings.
It also helps to streamline your operations, increase efficiency, and minimize food wastage as you get to know the exact headcount expected during lunch or dinner.
5- Create a stunning website
70 percent of your diners are likely to look at your website before they decide to grab a bite at your restaurant. A visually appealing and mobile-friendly website can convince new customers that your restaurant offers an enjoyable dining experience, increasing their chances of dropping in.
Conclusion
Increasing your customer outreach is crucial for taking your restaurant business to the next level. However, simply serving a delicious plate of food is not enough to attract and retain new customers.
You have to proactively engage in marketing your restaurant to ensure that the customers keep coming. We hope that these marketing tips for restaurants inspire you and help you to boost your clientele.