Blog for restaurants and gastronomic entrepreneurs

6 marketing strategies to boost your restaurant on a low budget

6 marketing strategies to boost your restaurant on a low budget

 How many times have you been suggested to increase the publicity of your business? You have been told that you require a larger marketing budget for your restaurant to be successful. In many cases this may be true, however it is also true that many companies and businesses currently manage to position themselves in the market by establishing very low budgets with more effective results than businesses with traditional marketing.

Therefore, we share these 6 strategies that you could apply in your restaurant to seek a greater influx of customers and therefore increase your sales.

1.- Social networks and content generation

As you may have heard before, social networks are currently one of the most effective communication methods to reach your customers, only in Mexico according to the website The report of Statista (2016) there are more than 40 million Facebook users. However, despite the fact that Facebook is the great dominant in social networks, there are many other networks that can help position your business and with which you can benefit, such as:

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Snapchat
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube
  • Trip Advisor

Each of the social networks can help you in different ways depending on the client profile your establishment is targeting. Advertising in them is still one of the most effective today and with a controlled budget you will be able to obtain positive results, however remember that we are looking for a lower budget, so you should look for is the interaction in daily life with your followers, with publications, photographs or videos that help to position your business and seek viralization to have a greater reach. For this you will mainly have to invest time to keep communication active and not forget to publish constantly. On the other hand, nowadays users of social networks also seek information of interest or general culture that helps them gather knowledge, so that you as an entrepreneur, chef or business administrator can also generate relevant content for them and share it through From a blog linked to your website, you will be able to write about topics such as eating tips, nutrition, exercises, etc. additional information that helps position your business as a friend that gives me advice and relevant information that I am even willing to share.

2.- Partner with other local businesses

A strategy that can help you especially when customers do not know you in the beginning, is to associate with other businesses in your city, which help you achieve presence of your brand, in this sense you can seek through it the reciprocity in which Both can benefit from it, in some cases you can even get free advertising in local media, offering coupons for consumption in your establishment or courtesies. Business Chambers are also a great opportunity to meet with other businessmen in your area, to develop a joint alliance program.

3.- Organize events for the charity of associations

An alternative to publicize your brand is to associate with a non-profit organization and have your business benefit a brand. You can organize events for the benefit of animal care and protection, family assistance, etc. This will allow you not only to help the cause but also to have a positive impact on society that continues to support the positioning of your brand and to maximize brand presence. The organization of events together can attract customers to your establishment who are in favor of the cause you support and who can also recommend you to their acquaintances. In this sense, you must be very careful to always be honest and not forget to comply with what is agreed with the organization, since if there is any breach this could work negatively for the business.

4.- Digital presence

In addition to the presence in social networks, today your business must maintain its presence on a website. The website of your restaurant continues to be an important element for your business, especially because it can also help you when you have a restaurant that can become a franchise model where you are not only looking for more diners, but also investors who may be interested. in replicating your business in other cities. In addition to your website, we recommend that you keep your information up to date on services such as Google Places, where you can promote your business for free, for more information about this service click click here.

5.- Stay up to date and offer attractive promotions

Today many restaurants compete with promotions to seek to catch the market, however, promotions do not always end up being attractive to the consumer, so they are not effective, in this sense we invite you to interact with your followers on social networks to know what types of promotions they like, to carry out these surveys you can apply free tools such as Google Docs or even polls through Twitter.

6.- Maintain contact and communication with your clients 

An effective way to maintain communication with your customers is mailing, which will help you not only to send promotions to them but also to be able to share relevant information that you have previously generated or achievements of your restaurant. In order to work on a mailing strategy with your clients, you will need to devise a plan to obtain their email and use a specialized mailing service, in this case we recommend Mailchimp that offers you a very complete free plan and that also trains you online to take advantage of its service. To get the customer to deliver their email, you can launch a promotion in which in the consumption ticket you invite the customer to earn a discount on their next visit by answering a survey and using the Google Docs tool that we mentioned in the previous point. a record of customer emails to build your database. If you are a user of Soft Restaurant® At your point of sale, you will be able to configure the ticket format to add the legends that allow you to invite the customer to answer the survey and that this becomes automatic. Conclusions We hope that these ideas can help you develop an effective strategy in your business, remember that the fact that you have a reduced budget should not be an excuse to attract customers to your establishment, today we can even find strategies aimed at taking advantage of events or digital phenomena As in the case of Pokemon Go, in which establishments take advantage of the influx of customers in favor of their restaurants, if you want to know more about this case, please consult our publication here.

So now you know, there is no reason why, with creativity, time and a low budget, your business can succeed.

Guillermo Mantilla Product Owner Soft Restaurant®