No matter how long you have been in the foodservice business, growth is a common objective. To achieve this, your restaurant would need to have a substantial number of loyal customers indulging in your delicious meals frequently.
Statistics show that UK households contributed an average of £89.5 billion to the foodservice industry in 2018. Even with the impact of the pandemic, the figures are expected to rise significantly in the coming years.
However, you cannot take advantage of these opportunities to increase your customer base without implementing the right strategies.
So, how can you attract more clients to your restaurant to enjoy the benefits of growth? Here are a few tips.
1. Reach out to local foodies in your area
You can never underestimate the power of local celebrities, and for restaurants, you would need the foodies!
Food lovers have a fantastic way of projecting food to their friends and family. With the increasing power of the internet and social networking platforms, a celebrated local food lover can work magic recommendations with just a mention on their social media accounts.
You can have an influencer promoting your restaurant on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. You can create a discount code for any local food lover you decide to work with to monitor the customers that troop in with their recommendations. You can offer your local foodie special offers as they recommend more customers to your restaurant.
2. Capitalise your hours
You can understand the macro trends in your customer’s patterns to help track when you make the most sales and maximise profit.
When you study the trend patterns, you will observe drops and peaks at some times in the day, some days being slower than others and some specific periods in the year.
Suppose you record slower sales on early days in the week. Then you should consider giving discounts for such days. By doing so, you can turn your quiet days into profit-making days.
Sometimes the trends will indicate much traffic at night. If your eatery is located in a busy city like London with significant incident rates late at night, consider hiring security guards to monitor the entrance. Your choice of security personnel should be of the highest calibre, highly trained, licensed, vetted and capable of managing all forms of security challenges from CCTV surveillance to mobile patrols.
3. Collaborate with local businesses
Most restaurants try to attract customers by giving discounts and exciting offers. However, this alone would not attract as many customers as you would wish. Therefore, you need more creativity to spark your target audiences’ attention.
A great way to achieve this is by collaborating with established local businesses to advertise. If you are a restaurant, you are fit perfectly to partner with entertainment venues, movie theatres and other local fun places. Pizza joints are best suited to partner with video arcades, while diners will work best with regional civil theatres.
Doing this promotes both businesses to drive in more customers for everyone. Customers can purchase event tickets and get discounts to buy four or three plates for friends and family.
Your partnership with the local entertainment hotspots can request proof of buying from your restaurant to get discounts on event tickets. It is a win-win for everyone in the collaboration.
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