Blog for restaurants and gastronomic entrepreneurs

5 strategies to attract customers to your restaurant

5 strategies to attract customers to your restaurant

A large part of your diners are highly adept at new communication technologies, and your restaurant should guide its efforts to venture into platforms or applications that facilitate knowing your dishes, promotions, prices, schedules and table availability, to attract customers to your restaurant .

 

 

Who are the customers of a restaurant?

The customer of a restaurant can be internal or external, the one we have more in mind is the external customer, the diner who visits our establishment and tastes our dishes, but the internal customer of a restaurant is an important figure that must be taken into account.

Internal customer of a restaurant

Unlike the external customer who visits us to purchase our products or services, the internal customer is a member of the restaurant, is the one who receives and serves external customers.

With your internal client it is important to encourage commitment, how?

WINNING YOUR TRUST, You must reinforce your empathy, open the dialogue and give solutions, not scolding, this will help to instill trust among your collaborators.

GENERATING MOTIVATION, When a collaborator knows "what" he is doing things for and makes sense of it, he releases an emotional energy that helps him better face challenges, for example:

A new collaborator who starts as a waiter must be told that with certain results and in a certain time he can access another position, make it clear what is the way to grow in your restaurant.

External customer of a restaurant

It is any person who visits your restaurant or who follows you on social networks, now in the digital age the presence of your restaurant extends many kilometers outside your service area.

With the previous point well founded, you can ensure that the experience of your external clients is pleasant, because your collaborators will be in a healthy work environment, with goals and who cares about them, this feeling will be transmitted to your external clients.

Now that you know who your customers are What can you do to attract them to your restaurant?

1. What is the current ONLINE situation of your restaurant?

Imagine this situation, a tourist arrives in your city, be it national or international with his group of friends, and the first thing they want to do is try the food of the region, they will probably do any of these 2 things: 

1) Ask the locals where they can eat

2) Search their phones from google: Places to eat in ...

And trust me, it's most likely this second option. The question is: Would your restaurant be one of the first options in their search? 

Before starting with the article, let's do a very practical exercise. Open a new incognito tab in your browser and type the name of your restaurant, then hit enter. You will be surprised by the search data, so I suggest you take note of the first 5 results.

You should see something like the following;

  • First, it is possible to find the website of your establishment.
  • Followed by google maps with the location of your restaurant and opening hours.
  • In third place your social networks such as facebook or instagram can appear.
  • Fourth, you are likely to find your restaurant in a directory such as tripadvisor or Yelp.

These data are the main ones that should come out if your restaurant is registered in the main search engine that is Google. 

Compare your results and check if you are present in any of the first sites.

Do you appear? 

You can inspect the control you have on each platform, be it google, website, social networks or google my business, wherever your brand is. On the other hand, it is likely that a client will position your restaurant in google maps and need apply for ownership of your business to manage it.

If you are not part of any of the aforementioned platforms, then it is time to get down to work and start having a trace on the web, to include digital strategies that are a magnet to attract new customers to your establishment. 

 

2. The presence of your restaurant on the internet

A basic step, but one that you must take into account to start a marketing plan for restaurants and attract customers online, is the presence on the internet, many restaurants when opening create their facebook page to promote their restaurant, locate their premises in google maps and they begin their first steps on the internet, however it is important to consolidate the name of your restaurant, because you face a large number of potential competitors.

 

If your restaurants have a distinctive name, it is very likely that you do not need to devise an additional strategy for their positioning, otherwise, you will have to promote a new restaurant, take into consideration if the name uses a common term, if yes, It is necessary to reinforce the name with a distinctive feature of your restaurant and use this small text in all digital media where it is available.

Some examples: a restaurant called Alfredo's may have a lot of competition to position itself on the internet, by adding artisanal, charcoal or pasta lovers, it changes the turn of the business and provides better opportunities to consolidate its presence.

Consider adding this little slogan on the restaurant's platforms or digital media to climb to the top of internet searches.

 

3. Recommendations improve the perception of your restaurant

In restaurant marketing there is a term known as the snowball effect, which describes how the impact of a small recommendation influences the consumption decision of a wider circle, this effect is multiplied in the digital age because That positive comment remains on the internet indefinitely, motivating the consumption of new customers.

 

Recommendations are a trend for restaurants in 2019, it is essential to bear in mind the comments of customers with negative experiences, since they question the attention and service offered by your restaurant.

 

For this reason, it is important to capture the positive experiences of your customers to generate a favorable score both on social networks and on other digital platforms, for example: if your restaurant has 5 4-star ratings on Facebook, and a customer rates 1 star, Your average will drop from 4 to 3.5, but if you have 20 4-star reviews and a customer rates 1-star, your new average will be 3.85, which will be rounded to 4.

 

4. The best ways to request recommendations

Comments in digital media are a double-edged sword, no restaurant is exempt from receiving a criticism, so it is important to motivate positive comments that help describe the experience that is lived in your gastronomic business.

 

We share some ways to obtain the qualification of your clients:

  • Free WIFI, take advantage of this medium and offer your Wi-Fi password along with a legend "Tell us about your experience in our restaurant?" with the links to the platforms where you want to receive ratings.
  • On the ticket, When the client requests the account, it is an opportune moment to request their experience, with Soft Restaurant® you can add additional information to your ticket.
  • Promotions, the dynamics in social networks are a good source to get feedback from your customers.

 

Keep in mind that each comment deserves an answer, get creative and start winning new customers and creating a digital community around your restaurant.

 

5. Create new experiences for your customers

The taste, price and availability are just some of the essential factors for the success of your restaurant, currently an additional vector is needed, experience, create moments that influence the mood of your customers, be a place fun, exciting, intimate, healthy, etc., this can be a daunting task, but restaurants of all sizes incorporate unique experiences that their customers love.

 

The customization of the products creates a very attractive experience for the new generations, restaurants that apply this ideology, offer options in their menu where the diner can make their own pizza, pasta, salad or sushi, having a positive result in sales, in the loyalty and satisfaction.

 

Themed days are another option that creates strong experiences among your customers, dedicate a day of the week to a musical genre, promote a product or carry out an activity, some examples of promotions for restaurants: live rock Monday, 2x1 pasta Wednesday or Friday Godínez, surely there is a theme that goes according to your restaurant and that ultimately your customers will enjoy.

 

Restaurants perform personalization in the service, making the customer's visit an important event, they achieve this thanks to technology by recording customer data through a point of sale software, these data are of help so that the waiter knows the name of the client, to know what dish he consumed in his previous visit and the terms or additional ingredients that he requested.

 

Creating experiences in your restaurant helps to generate organic content on social networks, this is pure gold to promote a new restaurant in digital media and get new customers.

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