Restaurants and cafes have become an important part of our life. From birthday celebrations to weekend dinner plans, they are an integral part of our life. According to the National Restaurant Association, of the US, there were about more than 1 million restaurants in the US itself and 500,000-plus in India.
With so many culinary options and different dining styles available to customers these days, competition in the restaurant industry is fiercer than ever. Additionally, the pandemic crisis has left no choice but to build a thriving, successful, and long-term restaurant marketing strategy to stand out from the competition and have a strong customer base.
Here are some ways to increase your customer base. Let’s have a look: –
- Interact with food bloggers
The trend of food blogging is here to stay. Today, there are plenty of food bloggers helping restaurants and cafes to reach out to the customers, with the help of their followers.
You can reach out to the Top food bloggers or the nearest one and interact with them in the following ways:
- Offer free trial dishes to them
- Ask them to review your dishes
- Invite them to host their next blogger meet-up in your restaurant or cafe
- Offer discounts to them
- Collaborate with them and offer their followers discounts and coupons
Once it is done, you just have to be patient and let the customers flood in!
- Free WiFi for Customers
The easiest way to earn customers is to offer free WiFi. Now, this can get a little expensive but it’s charm works. WiFi is the best way to attract more customers from the age group of 16-24 years. Do not believe us? Check out these statistics.
According to a survey from Marketing Firm Purple based in the UK, 60% of the restaurants can have increased customer loyalty with free WiFi. Additionally, 65% of the restaurants believe that offering free WiFi to the customers has helped in gaining repetitive visitors.
Many visitors look out for free WiFi while trying to find a good restaurant. Your WiFi facility can help your restaurant stand out in front of others. This can help you in attracting more customers and thus, extend your customer base.
- Regular Offers
Regular offers can extend your customer base permanently. According to RetailMeNot, in the US, 80% of the customers are more likely to visit a restaurant with deals.
You can give various offers to customers in the following ways:
- Discounts
Discounts are the best way to attract customers. You can give them various discounts on weekdays, between certain time hours, or on a certain bill amount. This will ensure an increased customer base along with increased profits.
- Food festivals
Many restaurants like Barbeque Nation India host various festivals to ensure variety in their dishes and also diversity.
This is a great idea for customers looking for an assorted platter and unique taste.
- Food deals and combos
You can give your customers different types of deals such as reduced prices during happy hours, money-saving combos, one on one offers, and many other such deals.
- Online ordering services
You might be acquainted with various third party delivery services. However, having your restaurant’s online ordering services can get you a lot of benefits. According to researchers, 70% of customers, in the US, prefer a custom service as compared to third-party services.
It can help you in the following ways:
- Increased restaurant branding
- Customer data retrieval
- No commission rates
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer loyalty
- Safe and hygienic services
We, at Grubly, can help you create your own personalized website and online ordering service.
- Communicate with customers
It is important to communicate with your customers offline as well as online.
You can answer various queries posted on different food reviewing apps. This can prove your loyalty to your customers and gain customer trust just with quick and efficient answers and improvements.
You can also take feedback from all your customers and ask them about their opinions.
You can also contact various news outlets and invite them to try out your dishes and review them on their newsletters and magazines.
- Host events
Hosting events can also get you to extend your customer base. You can organize various events like fundraisers, stand-up shows, poetry recitations, live music shows, and dish tasting as well.
It can help to increase your customer base by letting people know about your restaurant through the various events you host. You also get to collaborate with various local business owners, vendors, and influencers.
In this way, it can help you to gain more customers along with increasing and promoting your restaurant.
- Get creative with Social Media
Today, Instagram has around 80,590,000 users, just in India. Just creating a social media handle on any site can help you reach out to a wider audience.
The customers will be unaware of all the offers and deals unless you’ve got the proper medium to inform them. Social media helps you form that connection between you and your customers. You can update your customers easily with the help of social media.
It can reduce the total cost of advertising once you have established yourself on social media. You can get creative with the images and captions, you upload on your restaurant’s handle to attract more customers to your page.
Conclusion
In the end, it depends on you to choose any of the above strategies to attract more customers to your restaurant. It is all about using creative and unique ideas to sustain and make a name in the thriving restaurant world.
