Tips for Marketing a Restaurant in a Downturned Economy

In a downturned economy, restaurants are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a steady customer base and keep their tables full.  However, there are several tips you should follow when the economy isn’t looking its best—they will help keep you sane (and your restaurant afloat) through the worst of the economic crisis.  

1.       Focus on low-cost marketing strategies.

There are many effective marketingstrategies that cost little to no money, and can help boost your sales more than most of the higher-cost strategies such as print, television, and radio ads.  Since most customers are making online social media and group discount opportunities like Groupon, start with those avenues to attract customers and keep in constant contact with the ones you already have.  

2.       Increase your visibility.

Again, this doesn’t have to cost a lot but can have enormous benefits for your restaurant.  Increasing your visibility means reaching out to your customers on a daily or weekly basis through email campaigns, social media posts, blogs, direct mail, or any other strategy you can find to get your restaurant’s name “out there.”  Getting involved in community efforts also helps to increase your visibility, while also showing your customers that you care about the well-being and progress of the community.  

3.       Update your menu. 

If there are items on your menu that do not sell and/or have a low profit margin, get rid of them.  Do this before you adjust pricing, and if you must adjust the price of your items, do so subtly.  Also, if you feel you need to raise prices, consider other things such as reducing portion size.  In an increasingly health-conscious society, the reduced portion size will be less negative from your customer’s point of view than an increase in price will be.  You can be sure that your customers are feeling the weight of a downturned economy to the same extent you are. 

Do you have any tips for marketing my restaurant in a downturned economy?

Reasons To Outsource Social Media And Inbound Marketing For Your Restaurant

A successful restaurant is one that usually has great marketing and a lot of communication with its customers.  In order to get to that place though, restaurants have to take advantage of the multiple opportunities in social media and inbound marketing to boost awareness of their location and menu, and in doing so, attract as many customers as possible.  

Inbound marketing is not only a proven tactic for effective marketing, it generally costs 62% less Cost per Lead (CPL) and has a higher conversion rate (55% higher, to be exact) than other forms of marketing like print media, radio, and television ads.  Most successful businesses, both small and mid-sized ones, have incorporated inbound marketing into their marketing strategy, and it almost always pays off exponentially. 

The reason you should consider outsourcing your inbound marketing—which includes your social media marketing efforts—is because this type of marketing requires a lot of expertise.  Approaching it in the wrong way not only results in ineffective efforts—it can also seriously damage your business’s reputation and brand image.  This is why from day one of your inbound and social media marketing efforts, you should have a solid plan and goal in place for everything that is sent out or posted online.  A lack of professionalism, communication skills, or expertise about the ins and outs of this kind of marketing could be disastrous for your business and negate all of the time and effort spent in doing so.  

Many online marketing companies offer these services at a fraction of the cost you would be paying for more traditional forms of marketing, such as print or radio ads.  They also provide important status and click-through tracking to determine which campaigns are working for you and which ones your targeted customers are not paying attention to.  This will save you valuable time and money in making sure that your customers are responding positively to your inbound marketing campaigns. 

Tips for Marketing Your Restaurant To Your Current Customers

A restaurant’s marketing budget should be between 6-8% of the total sales it brings in yearly.  Despite this relatively small number, many restaurants spend closer to 85-90% of their budget to attract new customers.  In addition, often, restaurants make the mistake of focusing the bulk of their marketing to bring in new clients, when they should rather focus their marketing on the customers they have—even if it’s only a small amount of people. 

Below are some effective ways you can directly market to your existing customers:  

1.       A Newsletter

A newsletter is a great way to offer your guests important information about specials or coupons, as well as new menu items that you plan to add or have already added.  Having these newsletters available when guests enter will give them an opportunity to read about your restaurant while waiting for their food.  You can also have guests sign up to receive the newsletter electronically via email, and offer an incentive (like a free drink or a free menu item) for doing so.  

2.       Food Testing

Wherever customers congregate in your restaurant is an excellent place to have an upbeat, smiling member of your staff offer them free tastes of food.  This is a great way to introduce new menu items or highlight specials since customers are always appreciative of free food.  

3.       Themed Dinners

A themed dinner is a great way to bring customers in on particularly slow nights.  Advertise the availability of the themed dinner within your restaurant so that your current diners will see it and be inclined to return.  Examples of themed dinners can be: 2 for 1 specials, Specials for Mothers/Fathers, child discount or free child’s meal, healthcare employee discount nights, teachers’ appreciation nights, etc.  The list of possibilities is endless.  

4.       Prize drawing

Who can turn down a free dinner or a free bottle of wine with their dinner?  Offering prize drawings, such as asking customers to put their business card in a bowl, is a great incentive to bring current customers back.  You can also be sure that they will tell their friends about your restaurant. 

Are there reasons why I should outsource my social media and inbound marketing efforts?

Restaurant Marketing 101

Marketing your restaurant isn’t an easy process—anyone who has opened a new restaurant and attempted to market it knows this.  However, creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to be as complicated as many people make it.  Knowing which facts to consider is half the battle, and once you determine the right questions to ask, marketing becomes a much easier task to take on.  

Here are the first questions to ask when creating your restaurant marketing plan:

1.       Who are my target customers?

2.       Who is my competitor? 

3.        What is the status of the restaurant industry in my area? (How are other restaurants doing?)

The reason why the target customer question is the first to consider is because this question will be the most important one to ask – and the one that will require the most focus.  If you want to have competitive advantage in the restaurant industry, regardless of who you are competing against or the area in which your restaurant is located, you will have to always put the customer first.  Regardless of how great you think your service is, it’s what your customers think of it that matters most.  

People are attracted to restaurants that are clean, consistent, positive, and personal.  This means that in addition to providing a clean and attractive environment for your guests to eat, you will need to make sure that this is provided consistently.  In addition to this, every piece of marketing that you send out – every statement you make, whether in person or in print – should be positive and personal.  The more personal you can make your marketing (for example, acknowledging birthdays and names), the more effective it will be.  

Finally, don’t make the mistake of only focusing on marketing when things are not busy.  You should be focusing on marketing every day—even when your restaurant is overflowing with guests and all the tables are full.  Your best and most effective marketing strategies will happen when customers are present, and this is when you should be building loyalty and relationships with them.  Their word-of-mouth referrals to friends, co-workers, and family members will do more to keep your tables full than all of your marketing efforts combined.