#restaurantmarketing #millennials #marketing

Outshine the Competition: Creative Ways to Make Your Restaurant Thrive

Introduction

The restaurant industry is a delicious but highly competitive field. With endless options for hungry diners, it’s getting harder for restaurants to differentiate themselves. If you want to create a restaurant that thrives and becomes a beloved local institution, you need to find ways to stand out. Let’s dive into some creative strategies to do just that!

1. Curb Appeal: Make a Great First Impression

Location is essential, but don’t stop there! Think of your restaurant’s exterior as your first chance to wow potential customers. A splash of bold color, eye-catching window displays, or unique signage can make someone stop and take notice. Make sure your restaurant’s outside reflects the vibe and energy of the experience inside.

2. Pop-Ups: Expand Your Reach

Take your culinary creations on the road! Food festivals, craft markets, or other local events are perfect for a pop-up booth. Introduce your food to a new audience and test out new menu concepts. Since these events aren’t strictly focused on fine dining, you’ll stand out with your commitment to quality.

3. Guest Chefs: Spice Things Up

Invite a renowned guest chef to take over your kitchen for a special night or weekend. This creates a unique dining experience that gets customers talking. Even better: host a guest chef competition where diners judge the dishes – a bit of friendly rivalry turns your restaurant into an exciting event space.

4. Promotions With a Twist

Sure, holidays are great for promotions, but surprise your customers by offering something special on a less predictable day. A tempting prix-fixe menu on a Monday night, for example, can draw people in on a slower day of the week. Bonus points if the menu features items only available during that promotion.

5. Trend-Setter Status

Don’t just give customers what they want, show them the next exciting trend in food! Do your research: what does your target demographic love? What aligns with their values? Knowing those answers lets you incorporate new ingredients, unique dishes, and fresh concepts that make your restaurant feel ahead of the curve.

6. Community Connection

Become a beloved neighborhood spot by getting involved in your community. Sponsor a local charity event, or launch a unique food donation program to help those in need while reducing waste. This positions your restaurant as a business that goes beyond mere profit, establishing deep connections within your area.

Conclusion

Standing out takes effort, but the payoff is immense. Don’t be afraid to experiment with these ideas; even small changes make a difference. Remember, your restaurant is about more than just food–it’s about creating an unforgettable experience for your diners.

Restaurants – How to Create a Successful Strategy Utilizing Technology

For restaurants, technology is extremely useful and they have become more important as time has gone on. As with any other business, restaurants are always looking to become more efficient and save money; for example, taking orders is now nearly always technology rather than the old paper and pencil. However, many smaller restaurants still worry about technology because they find it hard to utilize the benefits without worrying about the many challenges.

Over the years, we have gained an understanding of the main concerns and want to address them in a brief guide here today. With technology, you do need to be careful or else face a costly experience trying to repair mistakes so we have compiled some useful tips down below.

Find the Balance – As you may have seen, new analytics systems allow you to review your business and customers in greater depth than ever before. With Big Data, you can schedule staff, look after stock, streamline the purchasing process, optimize your marketing, and complete other tasks in a more efficient manner.

However, sometimes this can also be a negative because restaurant owners can see nearly everything they could ever want and need within a couple of clicks or touches. Once you get hooked on the percentages and various numbers, it becomes harder to make sense of it all so you need to find the right balance. Rather than staying up all night looking at different numbers, you need to focus on the most important factors and data sets that you can control.

Help the Customers – Often, restaurants employ new technology at the cost of the customer experience but, it should go without saying, this is detrimental. As a restaurant owner, you know that your customers are perhaps the most important factor so technology should only ever be introduced if it improves their experience. For example, mobile ordering, an app, or a digital printing device will all make your service faster and more accessible so these would be a good addition. If you find something that does not benefit the customer, put it to one side and move on to technology that does offer this help.

Remember Compatibility – At all times, technology seems to be moving forward and this seems great at first. This being said, you still need to remember your current systems and keep in mind that not all technology has been built to work alongside other hardware of software. If you are researching new technology, make sure you check what you have currently so you aren’t left disappointed. When compatibility is an issue, it either leads to more purchases to make it right or trying to get a refund and neither of these are fun.

Data Security – For marketing purposes, collecting the data of customers is fantastic news because you can assess purchasing behaviors and send out targeted leaflets or emails. In terms of challenges, the biggest seems to be the fine line between looking after customer information and being silly and neglectful with it. If there is a data compromise in your systems, your business will lose money possibly in compensation but the biggest issue comes with the damage to your reputation. Once people learn that the information of customers has been leaked, you will lose trust and credibility for a long time moving forward.

Set Goals – Finally, you need to have goals with the introduction of technology and we have already seen one of the biggest with ‘enhancing the customer experience’. After this, it might be to improve scheduling or to cut costs. As long as you bear the customers in mind at all times, you can create a successful implementation plan so it all goes smoothly.

Ultimately, technology has been seen as something to support restaurants for many years. Now, however, we know that it can be a strategy and you can ensure smooth transition with these five tips. As long as you keep this information at the forefront of your thinking when looking for new technology, there is no reason why you can’t rise past the many challenges and concerns!

Reaching Millennials – 3 Fantastic Tips

When it comes to marketing nowadays, we are in a unique time where different age groups need to be targeted in very different ways. Before we saw the introduction of technology, there were only a handful of marketing methods whether it was appearing on the local radio or posting a leaflet on a nearby noticeboard. Today, the market is very different and restaurants are struggling to keep up.

As a restaurant owner, you will know all about this change but are you taking advantage of the fact that young people check their phones dozens of times in a single day? Furthermore, were you aware that around 50% of all 18-to-35-year olds feel as though brands should be offering loyalty schemes. If you didn’t, this is the guide for you because we have some superb advice on how to target the millennials in the market.

When it comes to marketing, we know that the most effective strategies come when you target the area a certain demographic congregates. With millennials, we know that they spend a significant amount of time on smartphones whereas this option of marketing just doesn’t exist with older generations. In addition to this, recent studies show that millennials are expected to spend $200 billion per year.

For businesses in the food and drink industry, millennials are huge business because an Aimia survey showed that restaurants and coffee shops see millennials as their most loyal customers. On the flip side, millennials agree and over half of those aged between 18-24 are loyal towards a single restaurant. If we were to assess the market right now, we would be disappointed to see that most restaurants still aren’t taking advantage of all the information we have provided and more. However, it isn’t too late so you don’t need to give up; as time goes on, we continually learn more about how each section of the market operates and this knowledge will be pivotal going forward.

If we look at the performance of loyalty schemes in recent years, we know that they are popular but they have actually decreased in recent years despite being such a useful tool for brands. Not only does it offer a USP over competitors, loyalty schemes entice the customer to come back anytime soon and we all know how important returning customers are in the food service industry. Despite this decline in such schemes, we know that this age group wants to go out and spend money and therefore their loyalty is just waiting to be snatched by the right business; today, we have the tips to make sure YOU are this business.

Below, we have three methods of attracting millennials in 2017;

#1 – First things first, you need to build a presence on mobile devices. Considering millennials spend a large amount of their time on a mobile device, surely it makes sense to position your brand here too? Of course, we aren’t saying that you need to spend thousands on a fully-functioning application (although this would help). Instead, we suggest at least having a mobile-ready website that they can browse when looking for somewhere to eat. When your brand is available online, they can find you on the way home from work before then visiting later in the evening.

#2 – Next, we suggest personalization wherever possible because millennials are now happy to share their information online. With this in mind, offer them discounts and offers when they sign up and this brings two main benefits; not only do you entice them in, you have their information for future reference. If you have a mobile app, this is enhanced because you can see exactly what they order, which stores they visit, how they prefer to pay, and how they like their food. With this information, the next offer you send can utilize all of this information and you are likely to see their custom again soon. Ever noticed how pizza companies send you offers that fit perfectly with your regular orders?

#3 – Finally, you should be making it as easy as possible for all customers to join a loyalty program and return. When they are in your restaurant, you have their attention so this is the time to make sure they come back numerous times in the future. Once you have the loyalty available on mobile, you are helping them to help you which is important. Suddenly, the guests are in control of their rewards and you open a brand new door of opportunity to offer those tailored rewards once again.

If you are going to embrace the millennials on mobile, make sure you get started this year before it really is too late. Nowadays, it doesn’t need to take your whole marketing budget and more because reliable services are affordable. As long as you get started soon, you can attract millennials and keep them coming back time after time with good loyalty schemes.