Ultimate Guide On How To Get More Customers To Your Restaurant

Attracting customers to your restaurant can be extremely difficult and time consuming. This guide has been written to help restaurant owners learn how to attract new customers. It is also extremely useful for new restaurants looking to bring in more customers.

 

 

Social Media Marketing

We will start with the essential small business marketing strategy, social media. Build a community around your restaurant business. Doing this will create customer retention opportunities and social proofing. It is becoming increasingly harder to achieve exponential organic growth on apps like Facebook so some time and effort needs to be assigned to achieve this. Create content that is relevant to your business and local area. Inform customers of your social channels whilst they are in your restaurant is a must. Aiming for a more mature audience? Use facebook, here you will find an audience of 30-60, aiming for an audience younger then that will require new and emerging apps.

 

Email Marketing

Too many businesses and marketers are drifting away from one of the stalwarts of digital marketing, and sadly, it is quite simply because of that. Email falls under the traditional methods of marketing, however, Email marketing stats are some of the best! Build your email list with customer emails and offer them unique promotions that are not available anywhere other than email. This creates a personalised and meaningful experience that the majority of customers crave.

 

 

Photography

Without doubt one of the most important parts of getting customers through the door is to show them exactly what they will get. High quality food & drink photography will blow your customers away and showcase your head chefs incredible menu and talent. These high quality images can also be used in your social media strategy! A beautiful image accompanied by some expert copywriting will be a winner amongst your followers.

 

Local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is exceptionally complicated and requires someone with good marketing skills and knowledge. However, local SEO is achievable even with basic marketing skills. Simply registering your business officially on Google My Business will be giant step to improving your local search engine rankings. It will cover you for organic traffic and branded traffic.

Organic traffic will ensure your restaurant does not miss out on local search terms and keywords. For example, if you are an Italian food restaurant in Ipswich, Google will place your business in organic search for for terms such as, ‘Italian restaurant Ipswich’. This will undoubtedly provide you with an increase in new customers contacting via telephone or instant message.

Branded traffic is a necessity if you want your restaurant to be accessible to your customers at a touch of a button. It is a key element of customer retention, knowing your customers can quickly search for your business name and up pops your Google My Business profile. This will provide them with key information such as, menu, opening times and contact detail.

Extra Tip: Get those google reviews! Not only is this beneficial to your Local SEO strategy and ranking position, it is also great form of social proofing which is very powerful.

 

Events & Sponsorship

Once you are up and running, events can be a great way to get people through the door who have yet to visit. Offer wine tasting or Gin tasting sessions, which are extremely popular at them moment. At the end of the session you can provide the attendees with promotions and offers to entice them back for a meal.

Attend local events! Most people prefer to support smaller businesses in their communities. This is a great way to meet other business owners and build important relationships that will benefit your restaurant in the long term.

Sponsoring a local charity event or sports team is fantastic way to get your restaurants name out there. Supporting a community football club can really help boost your reputation amongst the local community.

 

Traditional Advertising

Traditional advertising methods are still effective even in todays digital media dominated world. However, be aware that costs for this strategy are high, which may harm your return on investment. A local radio advert would be an affordable and beneficial advertisement for your restaurant. If you are planning for a grand opening, then a months radio advertising would be a great option to build awareness and get those customers through the door.