Easy and Effective Restaurant Marketing Ideas
Quick Win 1: Bring 'Em Back Restaurant Coupons
Give all first time restaurant customers a coupon with a simple offer redeemable on their next visit (perhaps a free of charge aperitif, dessert or after dinner drink). The offer should have no conditions and really should be redeemable next 6 months. Tell the customer to bring in the restaurant coupon and make sure to ask for information you can add to your database. Measure the results, modify the offer if needed, and if it brings you more business, make this section of your marketing system.
Quick Win 2: Cut Restaurant Costs
While you are busy, it literally pays to take the time to review your restaurant costs every 6 months. An easy way to increase your bottom line is to spend less. When did you last renegotiate your credit card charges? Are you getting the best deal from your own wine merchant? Review your menu and check your profit margins - which are the dishes that provide you the very best margins? Create a special menu with these dishes to sell more. Eliminate your 3 worst-selling dishes and the ones with the worst margins. You will end up surprised at how this regular housekeeping can affect your bottom line.
Quick Win 3: Increasing Restaurant Prices
"If your prices are 10% too low you have to do 3x the work to help make the same profit. If your prices are 10% too much you can lose 43% of one's business and still maintain the same profit." - Larry Steinmatz
One of the quickest ways to improve your restaurant profits is to raise prices. Only a few dollars on several well-selling items offers you exponential growth immediately. That may sound like a frightening idea, but take a closer consider the psychology of pricing and purchasing behavior and you may understand why 80% of restaurant businesses undercharge for their services and products.
Except in some particular cases, a lot of people usually do not make purchasing decisions on price alone. Don't believe me? Just take a look around at the sunglasses folks have on around you. I bet you see a great deal of Ray Bans and Dolce Gabbana sunglasses. This just shows that there are other criteria for purchasing behavior than price.
So anything you do, don't ever reduce prices, and certainly don't start a price war. You do not want that to be your competitive advantage because anyone and everyone can undercut you. On the contrary, you should think about raising your prices. https://www.legendhotchicken.com/hacienda-heights let fear of competition or insufficient confidence stop you. Should you have true differentiation, you have targeted your audience correctly and they visit a perceived value in your product they are willing to pay for, then you can certainly charge premium prices. Actually, they'll expect a premium service and will feel privileged, and you may find yourself selling a lot more.
In most cases you will discover that dropping prices to sell more actually loses you money, while raising prices, even if you sell less, raises your margin.
Even if it seems like a difficult thing to do, test different higher price points for various offerings. Tomorrow raise your prices by 10%. You can view not only how the price rise affects your organization (you will either lose business, gain business or stay exactly the same), but you can then look at your income and adjust accordingly.
A lot of the restaurant owners that we work with have observed the following pleasing phenomena: they raised prices and discovered that not only did they will have more customers (the restaurant is regarded as higher quality), however they had a far more reliable and less difficult clientele that also spent additional money and had higher overall tickets.
Quick Win 4: Celebrate Birthdays at your Restaurant
Birthdays, by their very personal nature, are a perfect time to distribute an extremely personalized offer. Of all occasions, here is the most effective so far as restaurant marketing campaigns go. Make sure to gather birthday and contact information in your exit surveys and start a birthday campaign. Send a contact or snail mail with a restaurant coupon for a complimentary dessert, drink or meal by the end of the month preceding the individual's birthday month. Allow them to use the restaurant coupon for the whole month of their birthday.
You can even propose additional birthday services. Think of ways that would make your visitors life easier - supplying the cake at a special price, giving a special group rate, or including party favors.
A special surprise like a complimentary piece of cake with a candle and the customer's name and birthday wishes written on it is sure to interest the child within any customer. You would be amazed at the invaluable positive word of mouth a simple gesture like that can create.
You can even work with a birthday campaign as a way to recruit new customers by buying lists with birthdays and postal codes and sending out your personal birthday offer in an effort to introduce your restaurant.
Birthdays are very personal, and as we will learn, business is personal. Don't pass up this fantastic possibility to reach out to your visitors and make sure they are happy.
Quick Win 5: Referral Restaurant Gift Certificates
Try out this activity now for an immediate increase in your restaurant customer numbers. At the end of a meal, give happy customers 3 different gift certificates with a quantity off for his or her next meal at the restaurant (or any other offer that you are feeling is compelling). Then give them 2 more of the dining certificates and have them to share the certificates with their friends. The offer ought to be compelling and have no conditions apart from a time limit. Supply the recipient plenty of time to redeem the certificate. Perhaps make the certificate good for 6 months, or for specific down times that you will be trying to fill.