Owning and operating a restaurant is challenging, but it is always possible. Sometimes, you only need guidance from entrepreneurs who have already succeeded in the industry!
Marketing does not work miracles
Marketing is the final step you must take once all the elements of your restaurant are in place. A concept that is well defined, with a good menu and efficient management, is highly responsible for your sales growth.
You must use marketing to earn additional revenue or boost sales at critical moments. Still, it is not the magic solution to a wrong location, a misconception, or a menu that has happened without calculating the profitability of the dishes.
The best thing will be to analyze what is failing and find the proper training to solve your problems at the hands of an expert.
Use social media
Restaurants promote their business and introduce their brand outside the borders for free. That incredible opportunity is represented by social media platforms, which are considered the world’s largest digital market. If your restaurant does not leverage the social media channel’s advantage, you are at the most considerable risk of making maximum clients.
Promoting your business or brand on social media is effortless, free, and takes minimum time. It lets you connect with clients from any corner of the world individually. Also, you can create a worldwide community beyond your physical location. It can only happen by sharing pictures of your food and staff, commenting on followers’ posts, and providing exclusive offers. Social media platforms will help you increase restaurant sales and inform you of the trends you can follow to inspire your potential clients.
Location matters a lot
In the School of Online Catering Gastronomic Marketing, we have heard everything about the location. For example, those who say that it is something that you do not have to worry about because customers will go anyway.
We are still recovering from that.
On the contrary! The location is so important because your sales will also depend on it.
The large restaurant chains spend a lot of money in safe and ideal places for their model, while others opt for a cheap rental, regardless of the area, hoping that people decide to eat there.
Think that if, for example, 50% of a restaurant’s traffic comes from being in an area of high traffic and excellent visibility, a smaller location will generate half of that income.
Do not overdo the rental expense
What we just told you in the previous point does not mean you should search for the best place in the city.
Because let’s not kid ourselves, your budget is not unlimited.
But that will not prevent you from choosing the best option either. We recommend that once you have cleared your business model and identified your client, look for areas where your client works or lives but where it is easy to contact him.
Pay attention to how customers use your restaurant
Paying attention to your customers will tell you much about what they want since it may not be what you have thought they would like. For example, in a juices chain that also offers Açaí bowls and gourmet toast, the company convinced them that their most profitable business model was a small local Takeaway. However, anyone passing by could see how the customers wanted to use the few available seats and take what they had requested.
After consulting with an expert, they decided that their next opening in an area with a large parking lot and where the traffic of customers who would come by car was very high would be coffee-style. Undoubtedly, this would increase sales since now they would have spaces where people can enjoy their Açaí bowls instead of forcing them to take them to another place or have them eat them sitting in their cars.
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