The food industry has a lot of competition and in order to gain success in the field, the most important thing to consider is visibility. Do people know about your restaurant?
If you have just started a fine dining restaurant and are ready to take it easy after the first few hectic weeks, think again! You need to quadruple that effort if you want your restaurant to be a successful venture. Most of that work needs to go towards gaining exposure for your brand. You need to establish yourself as a new venture that people can then try out.
Even if your place isn’t new, you can try some tips and tricks to attract fresh new clientele that you haven’t yet approached for business. Most people have a favorite local restaurant, while others are willing to try out a new place if offered something interesting.
Here are some strategies, which are useful for your local restaurant.
Brand recognition
The first step is building a brand name that people can recognize. People need to have a clear picture of what your brand stands for. Are you a vegetarian restaurant or a local bistro or a fine dining restaurant? Your social media presence, website online ordering and takeaway menu and marketing campaigns should clearly define your brand. Try getting a logo designed, that portrays your brand best, and has a recall value.
Social media presence
Aim at having a strong social media presence. Ask your regular customers to share their reviews on various platforms and across channels. Restaurant apps like Voolsy give their users the option to give restaurant ratings. Aim to get the most positive restaurant ratings.
Google rankings
We all know getting to the top results in Google searches can be a tedious job. Your activity across channels matters and so does your website. Try and optimize both while sharing useful information with your audiences. Google Business listings can come in handy to enhance credibility and improving online visibility.
Pro tip: Put your local restaurant on Google maps. It’s an easy way to get on top of that list.
Get information
Your aim is to get as many email addresses and phone numbers as you can. Incentivize signing up for your newsletter. Try to upgrade and maintain a strong customer database that you can communicate with regularly via promotional offers and incentives. Restaurant automation apps like Voolsy will reach out to their customer database, every time you have promotions, and hence are a good marketing tool.
Create contest giveaways
Contest giveaways are a great way to reach out to your audience. Create intrigue in your brand by hosting an interesting event. You can give away discount coupons, or tell the customer that their second visit comes with a heavy restaurant discount. Just create opportunities for people to make all their dining out plans at your restaurant.
Visual content
People react really well to visual content. Make sure your social media has lots of pictures of your mouth watering wares. You can also consider incentivizing people to share their photos in your restaurant. Voolsy helps make it easier to share photos of meals on social media, giving your brand more visibility.
Be authentic
Keep an even tone to all your social media presence. The brand should be well established with clear indication of who you are. If you own a western themed local bistro, you can share pictures of classic western movies and have contests in that tone or if you run a fine dining restaurant, share classy pictures with rich ambience.
Learn from your mistakes
Take restaurant ratings seriously. Making sure you take feedback from customers, not only helps improve your local bistro, but also, helps make a slightly dissatisfied customer feel like his voice has been heard.
Work in partnership
Collaborating with another service platform like a food delivery service or a restaurant automation app like Voolsy will make sure your brand reaches their already established customer base.
Stay current
Try and stay ahead of your competition by planning for tomorrow today. Stay current with business technology. The next step in restaurants is automation apps like Voolsy that bring the convenience of apps and smart phones into the world of dining out. Getting in on these trends before everyone else will ensure that you have an edge over the competition.