How To Attract More Customers To Your Restaurant
Restaurant marketing strategies are equally important to other types of businesses. When you have just started your restaurant business, you will need a lot of customers to ensure that your business is successful. Therefore, restaurant marketing strategy is the biggest role player in bringing up your new business. Below are a few market strategies that you may try.
Have your restaurant marketed in hotel or motel rooms. People who are on vacation or travelling would love to know where they could enjoy excellent meal in your area.
One excellent restaurant marketing strategy is by calling or visiting hotel or motels which are located nearby your restaurants and ask the hotel manager whether you are allowed to place coupons and menus at the lobby area and rooms. Some hotels provide their guests a list of tourists’ spots. Enquire if you are able to add your restaurant into that list.
You may try to sponsor partly of any events organized at your area such as sports or concerts. Many people from different places will attend such events and therefore you can expect a good publicity from here.
Enter cooking contests where you can have your cook to participate in. This type of contests is usually covered by a lot of local as well as international magazines. If you manage to win a prize, then you are able to bring in more customers than before.
Giving out samples in popular locations such as shopping centres, parks and etc can be very effective as well. When one stops to taste on your sample, simply distribute flyers and coupons too. This will bring in high tragic to your new restaurant.
Other than that, you may offer special menu or prices on special days. You can also offer buffet during peak time at special prices.
The worse thing in the world you can do is go out and Market a restaurant that isn’t ready for it… You could market yourself out of business …and quick! We have all heard the old saying “You have to have your ducks in a row” well in this case you have to have your ducks, chicken, burgers, service staff and system in order before you fire up all these great ideas.
Restaurant Advertising that Pays
It has been the norm for years now that we can quickly get any restaurant firing on all cylinders, running real tight and easy for the owner and start pushing huge marketing returns through the doors. Typically, restaurant marketing decisions are made when some advertising sales rep walks in the door and seems to give the restaurant owner a good pitch on why they should use his paper or coupon book. Since most restaurant owners are already overworked they rely on the sales rep to come up with the advertisement and the restaurant owner makes sure it “looks good”. However, advertising sales representatives are selling space not results. What you bought is advertising space and what you want is results. You need a different kind of advertising.
Restaurant Advertising
There are two types of advertising, image or institutional advertising and direct response. Image advertising is what very large companies do, Coke, McDonald’s and Goodyear.
Their advertising is designed to make you aware of their business and HOPE that eventually that awareness will translate into you purchasing their products. I don’t know how a blimp flying above a stadium translates into tire sales but it must, somehow. It’s a very indirect method of getting results. With it comes lots of waste.
McDonald’s with its $1.2 billion global marketing budget and its nearly 14,000 restaurants, in the United States alone, can afford image advertising. However, most restaurant owners don’t have the money or the number of outlets to last long enough to see any benefits from image advertising. For the single or several unit operator, this kind of marketing is a recipe for disaster. Despite this fact, many restaurant owners continue to use image advertising.
Direct Response Advertising
What restaurants need is direct response advertising. That is, marketing that is designed to produce measurable results every time; marketing that is proven and targeted to reach only people that are similar to your best customers. That is target marketing.
Focus your marketing resources where it has the best chance of success. If you can’t measure the amount of business you get from some form of advertising then don’t do it. You need to get hard nosed about this. This should save you thousands of dollars a year.