Restaurants and the food industry are facing a lot of challenges for survival and profit. The truth is, starting a restaurant can be daunting, where there is the barrier of entry is low. But, deciding the types of cuisine, location, pricing, staffing, etc., are challenging. Not to mention the constant battle to attract customers.

Well, customers keep your restaurant going. I remembered seeing a catchphrase outside a restaurant that says, “If you don’t eat, we will all starve.” When I first saw this, I don’t quite understand, but delving deeper into patronizing that restaurant, I finally understand that if the restaurant doesn’t get customers, they won’t survive. It’s so simple and yet, meaningful.

Many restaurants rely on food quality to attract customers. Yes, this may work without much marketing techniques and campaigns, but solely by word-of-mouth advertisements. But honestly, the effect can be slow to draw in more crowd. So, let’s dive into the traditional marketing principles on how your restaurant can speed up the customer acquisition and retention process.

Get Restaurant Customers

You always need new customers to your restaurant. If you have enough regular customers to keep your restaurant afloat, that’s good for you. Else if not, you need to work harder to get more new customers. I know some restaurants survived for many years and relied heavily on regular customers, but they have come a long way.

So, if you are just starting your restaurant or already in the mid of doing so, it is essential to be creative and flexible to draw more customers. Simply, how do the potential customers get to know your restaurant and food? What makes your restaurant so special that customers should visit you and not your competitors?

Let’s dive into the marketing-related factors to get your new customers

Restaurant Marketing

Should you have a website for your restaurant?

The website is a digital front for businesses to be found online, and yes, I will highly recommend a website for your restaurant. The design, layout, and information on your website can model how you want your restaurant to appear online. It’s not easy, but in the modern era, it’s close to a must-have for almost every restaurant. Well, you can always check if your competitors have it?

The good news is, you can always outsource the work to freelancers or do it on your own. Just choose a simple web hosting package, use simple web page tools such as WordPress, Wix, or other 3^rd party tools to design your website. Choose a theme for your website that gives your customers a digital feel about your restaurant food, servers, chefs, ambiance, etc.

 

 

It will be useful to outline your cuisine, key chefs, food specialties, location, contact numbers, etc., on your website. Having a website will provide more confidence to potential customers that you are serious about your business. Additionally, you can display other promotions, news, events, etc. on your website that communicate what’s happening at your restaurant.

Don’t forget to design your website on a mobile view (it’s called responsive design). This means potential customers can view your website on their mobile browser. More than 90% of users are coming surfing from their phones, so a responsive website commands better attention and reach. Kindly note this requirement on your design when building your website.

Also, do remember to design a notification module on your website. This notification module will request your website visitors to allow alerts to appear whenever you update your site with new information. It’s an easy way to deliver information to your visitors, but try not to spam them. The usual sign up rate for notification alert is usually less than 5%.

What about your restaurant food menu?

Yes, you need to place your restaurant food menu everywhere, both offline and online, to get more awareness. But, it’s up to you if you want to display the pricing of your food dishes on it. Most restaurants post their pricing along every menu item to give potential customers a feel on your price.

The food menu should be a solo page on your website. Should you proceed with your social media account, do have your menu there too. Facebook has a simple front that allows you to display your food menu.

Print a lot of your menu and place them on a stand outside your restaurant. Encourage passer-by to get a copy of your food menu as they go along. Distributing the printed food menu is a low-cost marketing technique to draw the walking crowd around your restaurant. 

What about your restaurant’s food photos, descriptions, and videos?

Oh, this is an art of its own. You should always snap pictures of your food dishes and place them on your website or social media accounts. Provide descriptions on each photo that include ingredients, name of food, etc. Please use a high-resolution camera to take the pictures. You need quality photos to impress potential customers because people eat with their eyes first.

Now, prepare tonnes of food videos too. You should video shoot your chefs cooking these dishes at your restaurant. These videos will come in handy on your website and social media accounts. It’s a FREE and convenient way of advertising your food to potential customers.

What else does your restaurant offer?

Besides food, what about drinks, desserts, beer, wine, finger food, etc. Think about a full course meal that a customer can get from your restaurant. It’s not just about the main dishes, but other items that complement the main dishes. Your customers want to know what they can get from your restaurant.

If you have unique drinks, desserts, alcoholic beverages, etc., you might want to share a little more about these items. It will help you to distinguish against your competitors and give potential customers the reasons why they should visit you. Yep, anything that’s unique should always be marketed aggressively.    

What’s your restaurant story?

If you have a good story to share about your restaurants, that’s great. Your story can include your mission, objective, or other culinary focus or cultural factors, the theme of food, etc. Simply, you want new customers to know and remember you from a different perspective other than the food you offer.

Restaurants that have a unique theme or story get more attention. It’s a more natural way that customers follow your story, and then your food. So, if you have a good story, mission, theme, culture, etc., take full advantage of this and push harder.

 

 

Restaurant Pricing

What’s your restaurant’s food pricing?

I have discussed pricing on the restaurant menu earlier, and it’s your decision if you should list your price. Let’s explore the price, food, and customers. Knowing the demographics of your customers will help you to price your food and beverage within the affordability of your customers.

You must know how your competitors priced their food and other restaurants’ pricing around your location. I will discuss location marketing later, but at this stage, you should be aware of food prices. If you are working on discount programs, it makes sense to price your food and drinks a little higher than average to buffer the discounts given to spur up sales from time to time. 

Should you offer promotional food pricing?

Offering promotional food pricing is a must, especially if you want to increase your customer traffic during off-peak hours. For example, a lot of restaurants offer special set lunch to compete for the working-class lunch crowd. These offers typically end around 2:00 to 2:30 pm on weekdays.

But what about 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm where it’s usually a lull period for most restaurants? Well, besides a special price, what about a one-for-one offer, or a main course with a free drink and dessert? It’s up to your creativity, but take note that most customers are remarkably price and value-sensitive. If the price or value is too great not to be missed, then you will get your off-peak crowd.

Restaurant Location

Where should you advertise for your restaurants?

If you don’t intend to advertise for your restaurant, just go ahead to skip this point, but if you do, which I strongly encourage, you should consider both online and offline advertisements. Depending on your advertising budget versus the demographics of your customers, you need to select the advertising media wisely.

Traditional news media such as the newspaper is as good as dead. Unless if your target customer is the older generation, then go for it, otherwise don’t waste your money. Advertising on the radio is cheap, but the effect is not as good as going online. Advertising on TV is another waste of money too.

I will discuss advertising on search engines and social media in the next few points. For now, you should reconsider if traditional media is an excellent advertising fit for your restaurant.

What about business collaborations for your restaurant?

Oh, I love business collaborations with other retailers. Why, because it’s FREE. That’s capitalizing on the customer traffic around the location of your restaurant. However, before you jump on it, be sure to know the demographics of your customers well. For example, if you are targeting young couples of ages between 25 to 34 years old, it makes sense to understand other retailers serving the same customer base.

Once you have identified the retailers, place some flyers or discount coupons with those retailers. Offer similar arrangements with those retailers in exchange for this collaboration. For example, work with Retailer A to give a 50% coupon at your restaurant if the customer spends a certain amount there. Likewise, in exchange, you can offer a coupon to Retailer A if your customer spends a certain amount.

Collaboration with other businesses costs nothing but goes a long way to share the same customer base. That’s a win-win for everyone.

What about placing signboards for your restaurant?

Depending on the location of your restaurant, placing banners or signboards makes absolute sense when customers are nearby your restaurant. Depending on the size of the signboard and customer traffic, you might be able to get some good deals for a short- or long-term lease.

Signboard advertisement makes a lot of sense when there is good customer traffic around the location of your restaurant. It’s about extending your restaurant front to a walking distance of about 0.2 miles. Unfortunately, it is tough to measure the return of investment on signboard advertisement.

I know some restaurants display special discount codes on these signboards as a measure of effectiveness. So, you might want to start on a short-term signboard lease before deciding if it’s worthwhile to extend the signboard lease.

 

 

Restaurant Promotions

Should your restaurant be active in social media?

Beyond 2020, this is no longer a question, but more of a must for any restaurant to survive and get closer to new and existing customers. Why? Because traditional media and email are less useful to get new customers.

However, venturing into social media is a painful, tedious, and time-consuming process. Why? Because your social media followers or potential customers need engagements, and the time to respond to any comments or questions should be made less than a day.

So, if you are in long-term customer engagement, social media is the right path for you. However, you can always buy time with money by paid advertisements on social media to extend your reach way faster than organic traffic.

Should your restaurant have a Facebook page?

Facebook has more than 2 billion users worldwide. It’s a platform that will help your restaurant to establish a shop front, gather reviews, and engage potential customers.

It’s too much to explain about Facebook here in great detail, but I will just mention a few key features that you need to set up the Facebook page for your restaurant. First, choose a theme using the business category on Facebook for your restaurant. Create your restaurant page and start posting a few photos of your food and videos of how these dishes are cooked. These Facebook posts will give potential customers of your presence, and remember to include your restaurant menu, promotions, etc.

Next, set up the Facebook Messenger to start communication with your followers. Be ready to respond to the text, voice, and video calls on any inquiries. If you would like to sell gift cards or vouchers, Facebook Marketplace is an excellent place to start. Finally, ask your regular customers to follow you on Facebook. Your customers will start receiving notifications whenever you make a new post.

Remember to download the Facebook app onto your phone. It’s the easiest and fastest way to respond to your followers and potential customers.

What about an Instagram account for your restaurant?

Instagram is the fastest growing social media that has crossed the 1 billion user mark. I am very active on Instagram, but it is taking too much of my time, especially on new posts and engaging my followers. But I do highly recommend to you because I have seen so many restaurant owners and chefs on Instagram.

Instagram is mainly for the younger generation or age 35 and below. If your customer demographics fall in this category, be sure to embrace Instagram as your primary social media. Setting up an account on Instagram is easy and fast, but for a start, be gentle on engagements without getting shadow banned by Instagram for being a spammer.

Post pictures of your food dishes, menu, videos of chef cooking those dishes, servers, restaurant layout, surroundings, happy customers, and chefs, regularly. The postings should give a fresh feel to your followers. Be ready to send likes to your followers and engage them via comments. Your followers, which can be your customers, will remember you.

Try to grow beyond 2, 000 followers, and use location-based hashtags on your posts to promote your restaurant to the local community.

If you don’t have time, you can consider the paid advertisements to reach specific customer demographics or locations. Paid ads are an excellent way to grow your follower base too. The easiest way to increase your follower base is to ask your customers to follow you. But nothing comes free, just provide a little complimentary gift and keep engaging your customers.

 

 

What about Twitter for your restaurant?

63% of Twitter users are aged between 35 to 65, with 66% of them being male. Twitter is more of a business platform to communicate with customers. Twitter blasts your tweet using hashtags (like Instagram) to reach potential audiences. Twitter allows a short description of your message, with photos or a short video. Simply, Twitter is an enhanced form of the traditional SMS (Short Messaging Service) but comes with pictures and videos.

Just like Instagram, you need to engage your followers with daily fresh posts. I always remind restaurant owners to use high-resolution photos and videos for their posts. Be sure to follow specific locations and trending hashtags to reach out to the community. Like, comment, and retweet if a post makes sense to your followers. Stay in touch with your customers by following and engage their posts.

Setting up a Twitter account takes only a few minutes. It’s the content that time-consuming because you need posts to excite your followers (or customers) and to convince them to your restaurant.

If you are using Instagram, there is a function on the mobile app that allows the same post to be shared on Twitter. So, that’s two birds with one stone on content posting. However, you need to engage with your followers regularly.

Should you use Pinterest for your restaurant?

Pinterest is another impressive social media platform that draws more than 200 million users worldwide, with 66% of users being female aged between 25-54 years old. Interestingly, Pinterest has a higher purchasing rate than any other social media platform. It’s too good a platform to be missed.

Create your business account takes just minutes to-be ready, and you should input all your business information. Start creating pins (which are equivalent posts to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) for your menu, food, drinks, etc., and you should include the link to your website as a pin.  

You should focus on your food and justify why customers should visit your restaurant. Remember to “sell hard” on those unique business and food values, location, promotions, restaurant ambiance, friendly staff, and chefs, etc. You should download the Pinterest mobile app to communicate with your followers. Pinterest allows pins or informational searches, so it’s best that you use appropriate keywords that enable the public to find your restaurant and food.

Engage with your followers and form a close community, and be sure to answer whatever questions they might have. I strongly recommend your profile and pins to be as as you can, because people eat with their eyes first.

Should you consider Snapchat for your restaurant?

Snapchat has more than 100 million daily active users, with the majority of its users among those aged from 12 to 24 years old. Unless if you are targeting this demographic of customers, otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend using Snapchat. Due to the young users within Snapchat and the posts disappears within a short time, you will need to be very creative on your content strategy to get the followers’ attention.

Snapchat can be ideal because it does not require any business profile. Snapchat targets the younger generation, forms inner circle among a smaller group of followers, effective location targeting, great chat tool, short term promotions, engaging paid advertisements, and getting quick QR codes to your website, etc. So, if any of these benefits and customer demographics suit your marketing strategies and customer base, Snapchat will be a great social media platform for your restaurant.

What about a YouTube video channel for your restaurant?

YouTube is the number 2 search engine, with users of all different age groups. In many countries, YouTube viewership has far exceeded the national TV, and only 33% of videos are in English. If you have superb video content that promotes your restaurant, food, chefs, ambiance, etc., then YouTube is excellent for your restaurant.

If you have great content on your food, it makes sense to embrace different social media platforms. On YouTube, you can create video content that showcases your food and drinks, how your friendly chef prepares it. From an educational perspective, it pays to teach YouTube users how your food is cooked, to increase the video views. Videos with high view count get display first through the search algorithm and get pushed to users who are searching for something similar.

You can create your business channel on YouTube to promote your restaurant and increase your subscribers. However, do note that YouTube is not ideal for location-based targeting, and many of your subscribers might be overseas. But I recommend that you create your food videos, and embed these videos on your website to feature your food and drinks. This helps to position your restaurant as technology savvy to draw more customers. 

How should you optimize the search engine for your restaurant?

To be optimized for the search engine, you must have a website for your restaurant. Depending on how your website is built, there are different ways to optimize your website. Search engines provide internet users to locate your restaurant when these users search for the food that you offer, or nearby your location, or based on other search terms that you have described on your website.

Search engines memorize your website and display your web pages to users whenever your information is relevant to the search. However, your page may not be displayed on top of the first search page. This is where search engine optimization comes in.

Globally, Google still dominates all search traffic at 92% market share, while Bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, Yandex, and Sougu taking the other 8%. If capturing search traffic is a part of your marketing strategy, you should register your website domain with Google by creating an account with the Google Search Console. Google will require you to submit a copy of your sitemap file, which contains all the addresses of your pages.   Search engine optimization is another long, tedious process, just like social media. It requires a lot of effort to rank well on search traffic. So, be patient to improve your website continuously, and over time, your website will start to appear on the first page of search results.

What about various chat apps for your restaurant?

By the end of 2019, WhatsApp has 1.6 billion, Facebook Messenger has 1.3 billion, and WeChat has 1.11 billion users. These are the top 3 chat apps that connect to more than half the world’s population. So, if you are looking for text, voice, and video chat with your potential customers, these are the 3 platforms that you should consider. Depending on your target customers, you should at least be on one of these popular apps.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are prevalent in most countries except China, whereas WeChat is the #1 chat app in China. Simply download these chat apps onto your mobile phone, and you are ready. Place the app contact information on your website, social media accounts, business cards, or other media for your restaurant. Turn on the notification alert on your phone, and you are good to go. Just be ready to answer that call or text.

What about paid advertisements for your restaurant?

Well, if you have the budget to do so, you should always consider paid advertisements. Again, depending on your target customers, you should evaluate if you should utilize search engines or social media or other media.

Your message must be clear in all these paid ads – why potential customers should visit your restaurant. Your proposition must be reliable, and the value must be appealing, food must be enticing, etc. Be sure to measure the return on investment on all your paid ads. You need to measure advertising investment versus the returns that customers spent at your restaurant. I recommend that you track the sales from your ads by using special promotional codes or offers.

It takes a few weeks to gather the data but track your returns closely and tweak the message and target audience. Once you find the right formula for positive returns, it’s time to place a higher stake to get more profits. 

 

 

Should you engage bloggers for your restaurants?

Bloggers are writers who write about specific topics, and in this case, food bloggers. Food bloggers have their subscriber base, which, if you are looking hard enough, you might be able to find these bloggers in your country or state. Specifically, if these food bloggers are writing about the same food that your restaurant offers, then you are in for an easy time to work with the bloggers.

Bloggers work either on passion or as an affiliate marketer. If it’s for passion, then you might be able to convince the blogger to recommend your food for FREE, but if it’s an affiliate marketer, then you will need to share a part of the customers’ spending with the blogger. Well, affiliate marketing is based on profit sharing, with no costs up front. That’s not too bad, but the blogger will require you to track the customer spending. In this scenario, discount codes or offers tied to the blogger will do the job.

What about working with some food reviewers for your restaurant?

Food reviewers provide reviews on the food. Depending on the popularity of these food reviewers, you might either offer a food tasting meal in exchange for free reviews or paying a fee. Yes, I know. You must pay and provide free food in exchange for food reviews, but think about this as an advertising expenditure.

But think about the mileage you will get from these independent food reviewers to review your food. The reviews are unbiased. If the food reviewer has a huge follower base, then any positive recommendation will bring you some new customers.

Take your time and choose the food reviewers wisely, because publicity might backfire from a bad review. Your chefs need to give their best when dealing with these reviewers. Some of them are food critics, but it may be a good learning lesson too.

A good example would be the use of the Graz.me for service rating. Graz.me provides detailed service segregation for all staff to derive a trustworth and comprehensive service rating for your restaurant

What about setting up review sites for your restaurants?

Oh, I love review sites, because customer reviews are trustworthy, and used by more than 90% of new customers before making a purchase. TripAdvisor and Yelp are good examples of such customer review sites for restaurants. Externally, customer reviews serve as a marketing tool, but internally, reviews can help to improve your service, food quality, etc.

If you have signed up for a reviewer account, remember to ask your customers for reviews before they leave your restaurant. Leaving feedback helps to understand your customers and their dining experience better. All customers’ feedbacks are precious because it helps you to improve.

If you are looking at more than customer reviews, then I would like to recommend Graz.me. It’s the customer review platform for food, service, and overall business, with a special emphasis on your servers and chefs. From the customer reviews, you will get a better understanding of your staff in the eyes of the customer. Food, service, and business reviews differentiate Graz.me as compared to TripAdvisor and Yelp.   

What about setting up Google My Business for your restaurant?

Google My Business helps to display your company information whenever an internet user searches for your restaurant on the internet. Think of it as an online business listing. I will highly recommend you to set up Google My Business for your restaurant. It’s simple and FREE. But, if you would like to appear on the Google map, then that’s not free.

Since Google dominates more than 92% of search traffic, I will highly recommend that you set up at least Google My Business for your restaurant. Google Map allows people on GPS navigation to discover your restaurant when they are around your location. That’s more of a location discovery and knowing what’s around the area.

Should you consider discount coupon sites for your restaurant?

Potential customers are always on the lookout for great deals for food. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to offer your promotions to bargain hunters. Take it as an opportunity to provide a discount for first-time customers to your restaurant.

Depending on the location of your restaurant, you will need to choose the discount coupon sites accordingly. Try to select the provider that’s focusing on food and around your area to get the best leverage. Most coupon sites list your discount coupon for a fee. Some sites have the option to sell gift cards at a discount to customers.

What about working with online food delivery companies for your restaurant?

The Online On-Demand food delivery market is exceeding $200 billion in revenue and is an opportunity not to be missed. These players include Just Eat, GrubHub, Delivery Hero, etc., and you should take note of local players as well.

I recommend that you check out those sites in your country and state, and register your restaurant on these platforms. Why? Because it helps you to extend your restaurant front to more areas of coverage. However, competition is very fierce on these platforms, and discounts are steep, but think of it as an additional revenue source for your restaurant.

These platforms require you to set up your business profile, list your food dishes, and download their app or place a system within your restaurant to facilitate all customer orders. It’s all good, except that you need to manage customer orders well during peak hours, where you get more of your in-restaurant customers. Your chefs might go crazy, and your customer waiting time gets longer. At this moment, you wouldn’t want any negative customer experience in your restaurant.

I recommend that you try out the online food delivery on a small scale, and gauge the response and impact on your business. If you can get more orders, you should consider investing more chefs and servers in catering to the demand.

What about tagging on local events to promote your restaurant?

Wedding, celebrations, banquet, buffer, events, are opportunities that you can tap to extend your business reach to potential customers. For example, if you can secure a buffer celebration event at a town hall event, that’s additional sales and exposure to your business. Potentially, more people get to try your food, which might turn out to be potential customers at your restaurant.

However, securing the order for local events is not an easy task. Unless if you have done some groundwork to connect with some local organizations such as churches, regional government offices, etc.,  else, this is another tedious task of its own. Not to mention that you need to handle the logistics from cooking to delivering the food for these events. But the profit can be decent if you manage it well, besides the potential awareness to potential customers.

Should you venture into local events, you will face competitions against food catering companies. That’s a challenging market space, and you need to be aggressive on pricing, quality of food, service, etc. So, unless if you have the ready resource and equipment, otherwise I wouldn’t recommend this as an option.

What about extending signboards around your area?

Ok, now we are back to offline location marketing. Signboards are useful if you have local traffic around your area, and it helps to direct some customers to your restaurant. So, we are looking at 2 types of signboards meant for walking and driving traffic.

Walking-view signboard makes sense if your restaurant is within a mall or a cluster of retailers with shoppers. These sign boards are usually smaller in size and are placed around the area to direct people traffic to your restaurant. It pays to highlight some main food dishes from your restaurant, to draw in the crowd, or current promotions, etc.

Driving-view signboards are usually much more prominent in size and placed a few miles away from your restaurant. Preferences for highways and expressways where traffic is much higher. However, the lease and maintenance of driving-view signboards are much more expensive than walking types.

Measuring returns on signboards is complicated, unless if you have special promotional codes on them. Signboards are more for awareness than being useful in generating sales. So, it’s your call, and I don’t recommend them here.

 

 

What about the placement of neon lights for your restaurant?

Arrhhh, I love neon lightings. If your restaurant operates in the night, I highly recommend installing a neon lighting signboard on your restaurant front. The costs of a neon signboard vary from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the design and complexity.

Neon light signboard gives a distinct feel at night, which is highly visible from far. Try to create a design that suits the culture or theme of your restaurant, food, or drink. Create the curiosity that passerby would like to check out our restaurant.

What about placing a cookbook on your website?

Cookbooks provide an educational impact that food lovers would like to associate with you. You can focus on the main dishes and drinks from your restaurant, and some good advice from your chefs. Highlight a few simple recipes with great photos, ingredients, and step-by-step cooking instructions.

It’s time-consuming, but never tedious to produce a cookbook. Once completed, you can have this as a giveaway on your social media accounts or website for followers or getting email contacts. Remember to highlight the location of your restaurant, operating hours, contact info, social media accounts, website, and email address in the cookbook.

Encourage users to send the cookbook to their friends and family members as awareness for your restaurant.

What about organizing cooking lessons in your restaurant?

Organizing cooking lessons are an excellent way to bond with customers or food lovers and your chefs. These students can be your potential customers and social media followers, which helps to promote your restaurant to their friends and family members.

It’s your call to charge these students for the cooking classes. Shorten the courses so as not to overwork your chefs. Some orientation to the kitchen is suitable for customers to know what’s happening in the back end.

How should you capitalize on birthdays or job promotion activities?

Family or corporate events are always a draw for a larger crowd to your restaurant. Birthdays and job promotions are the most celebrated events. Most restaurants love such events, but it’s hard to secure them, given the hunt, promotional activities, and sales engagements.

Nevertheless, if you are looking to fill your restaurant with customers, these events are good exposures and awareness. Prepare the promotional plan for these celebrations into flyers and digital content. Hand out the flyers to every customer at your restaurant and post the digital content on your website and social media accounts.

Be proactive to spread the word that your restaurant is an ideal place for such events and be aggressive by giving discounts. It takes time, but I am sure you will get there.

What other kinds of promotions should you embark on for your restaurant?

So far, I have covered several suggestions, both offline and online promotional activities. At this moment, you need to get creative and think out of the box for more crazy ideas. Areas that are not covered by traditional media can be a good start.

Customer referrals can be a good start by leveraging your existing customers. Share coupon codes with your customers to get their friends and family members to enjoy exclusive discounts or 1-for-1 deals. What about having customers as your sales agents, such as giving them commissions for every referral done? What about unique food dishes available only on a specific day of the week? What about targeting children with unique toys as giveaways, and let the toys work hard for you?

There is no limit to creativity. Don’t be restricted to only advertising, pricing, media, food, etc. Think of what customers want, and you will find some crazy ideas to fill your restaurant with customers. Never be afraid to test out new ideas.  

People Marketing

How to leverage your restaurant customers?

Happy customers are walking signboards for your restaurant. If the customer experience is so great, you can be assured that your restaurant is full of referrals and packed with new customers. Unfortunately, life isn’t a bed of roses, and such occurrences are rare these days. Customer expectations are getting way too high because the competition is too stiff. I know.

So, at the point of billing, talk to the customer. Ask for their dining experience, and get a review if possible. Take photos with them if they are agreeable and post it on your social media accounts and website. What about asking your customers to post that (happy experience) photo on their social media accounts and tag you? Ask your customers to work a little for your restaurant and give a little reward in return for that favor. The effort will pay off over time.

Should you form communities with your customers?

Forming communities with your customers is a great way to secure your loyal customer base. The cooking classes and social media account followers are good examples. Go beyond your restaurant into other areas that involve the neighborhood or mall to enlarge your community.

The intention of the community should go beyond food and drink, such as environmental care, climate change, save the earth, etc. Be part of a social cause that puts your restaurant as a sponsor, to cement branding and bonding with community members. Be creative to participate in something that you genuinely believe.

Your participation will increase awareness and bring you the customers indirectly.

 

 

Customers in Restaurant

So far, we have discussed ways of getting new customers to your restaurant. Now, once the customers are in your restaurant, the food, drinks, service, and ambiance should play a big part in that positive customer experience.

Let’s dive into these areas to improve that customer experience further

Should you offer free wifi in your restaurant?

53% of customers will sit in a restaurant or café if there is free wifi. For this reason, MacDonald and Starbucks offer free wifi to their customers. Free wifi is becoming a must-have than a good-to-have.

Wifi speed is another concern because customers wouldn’t want a slow internet speed when they browse the internet. So, be sure to have a decent internet speed to offer to your customers.

You can ask the wifi provider to provide a page where your customers must fill in their email ID before giving them internet access. Have the opt-in option to request your customers to agree to receive promotions or newsletters. That’s the easiest way to get that customer contact info and stay in touch with your customers.

How to turn customers’ waiting time into productive time for your restaurant?

Well, let’s turn the customers’ waiting time into something productive to your advantage. How? You can display simple QR codes that allow customers to scan and browse your website, postings on your social media accounts, etc.

Encourage customers to check out your website and social media accounts while waiting will keep them occupied, and understand what you offer. If you have done up your website and social media accounts with quality food and customer content, it will entertain your customers. Make it entertaining for your customers and focus on the fun aspect. For example, include happy customer smiling selfies with your servers and chefs, customers’ expressions while enjoying some dishes and drinks, etc.

What about a kids’ corner at your restaurant?

Ok, this is yet another challenging issue due to costly space at your restaurant. You want more tables to serve your customers, more space for kitchen, etc., but you would like to have a kids’ corner for the energetic kids. So, this is where you need to prioritize and be creative.

Unless if you have special kids’ meals, otherwise, it’s challenging to keep the kids occupied on their seats. This means parents are distracted while enjoying their food. So, you need to have ways to appease the kids, and if you are right in doing so, you can be assured that the parents will consider your restaurant harder when they decide a venue for food.

Well, if you can capture the hearts of the kids, you will get an unexpected audience to support a meal at your restaurant. After all, most parents listen to their kids when deciding a place to dine.

Should you expose your chefs and cooking at your restaurant?

When I say expose, I mean the kitchen being transparent, where customers can view the cooking in progress. This is a brand-new concept, and I have seen some restaurants moving their kitchen near the restaurant entrance to attract the walking crowd. Yes, the kitchen at the front and transparent.

Alternatively, you can set up a small kitchen at the front of your restaurant. Focus on the main dishes on how it’s cooked. Entertain your customers and passerby. Cooking chefs can draw customers into your restaurant, and entertain those customers in your restaurant. Kids are curious to watch how food is prepared and cooked.

What about music at your restaurant?

Another good alternative to provide entertainment at your restaurant. A live band is always a good option in many pubs and lounges, but may not be such a good idea in a restaurant. Hosting a live band can be expensive, but it’s a business decision and if that’s a customer drawing factor.

What about pure music? Yep, music helps to create a better mood for your customers’ experience. Slow music allows customers to eat slowly and reduce stress. Be sensitive about the speed and volume of the music because some customers might want a place for food and discussion.

 

 

Should you consider wine-tasting at your restaurant?

Depending on the demographics of your customers, offering wine can be a lucrative way to increase customer spending at your restaurant. The wine selection is a broad topic of its own, and you need to understand what types of wine go best with your food. Yes, you can offer wines as an up-sell.

The choices and prices of wine go a long way. You can offer some varieties of wine at your restaurant and determine the popular types over time. Keep selections down to 10-20 varieties to keep inventory low and free up cash flow. Try to display all your wine and minimize storage space.

What about sports TV at your restaurant?

Restaurants and bars remain the best option for sports fans when watching their favorite sports team. 67% of adults prefer restaurants that offer the sports channel. So, this is a marketing investment cost for sport channel subscriptions to drawing the crowd.

Again, know your customers, and be sure to tune in to the major matches of the day. Some restaurants allow their customers to switch sports channels without interfering. If too many of your customers are sports fans, be sure to offer a widescreen TV to boost entertainment.

What about the food tasting at your restaurant?

Food tasting is an excellent way to up-sell and introduce new food dishes to customers. Starbucks is famous for offering special, favored drinks and snacks to their customers for tasting. Prepare more and proportion the food or drinks into smaller portions for food tasting. Let your servers do the work and ask customers for feedback.

If the dish is ready for orders, then get the customers’ orders. Give customers a promotional introductory price to encourage immediate orders. If the customers are too full, what about takeaways or extending the promotional offer for 2 weeks? Be creative and flexible to get your customers back.

Should you consider live events at your restaurant?

Examples of live events can be speed dating, board game nights, know the strangers, group meet up, charity events, comedy shows, bartending, dancing contests, etc. The live events entertain your customers well and position your restaurant within the community.

So, should you consider live events? Well, if your restaurant has ample space, staff, and budget, then why not. Alternatively, you can look for an event organizer to host such events, but beware of the costs. Well, if those live events are such a draw, you can sell tickets or a minimum dining amount to offset the costs. Try a few different events, and be sure to offer the right ones for your customers.

What giveaways can you offer at your restaurant?

Giveaways can be expensive little things, but these souvenirs will help your customers to remember your restaurants. So, be smart when choosing giveaways, and be practical to catch the attention of your customers. For example, a mug or calendar can be useful on the table to remind your customers about your restaurant.

You can tie spending amounts at your restaurant to decide the type of giveaways. For example, $50 spent gets a mug, $100 spent gets a soft toy, $200 paid for a bottle of wine, etc. Be sure to print the details of your restaurant on these souvenirs, such as your restaurant logo. Add in a catchy phrase to entice them back to the restaurant.

What about little surprises for your customers?

Surprises are pleasant, but you need to use them wisely and correctly. For example, you can provide birthday treats and give a little surprise cake and music for the birthday person. What about employee promotions, or a charity or neighborhood event, etc.

Little surprises can be a free dish, wine, or drink from your restaurant, which helps to promote your restaurant and minimize costs. Surprises create good memory to get your customers back for the same experience again. Be sure to capture some of these moments on photo and social media. Make that little investment go a long way for your restaurant.

What about gift cards for your customers?

Yep, I love gift cards. It’s a simple way to sell future sales by collecting the money upfront at a discount. Gift cards ensure customers are back to before it expires. What about gift cards for your customers’ friends and family members?

There is no limit to creativity on gift cards and try not to hard sell too much. Some restaurants peg gift cards to their loyalty program. For example, a sign up fee of $50 for a loyalty program to be a member, enjoy 20% discounts for all spending at the restaurant, and utilize $80 coupon. Loyalty programs track customer spendings, record contact information, and generate reminders to get the customer back to the restaurant. Win-win for all. 

Should you capture the happy moments with your customers?

I have given many explanations earlier on why you should capture happy customer moments in photos and videos. Be proactive and ready to snap pictures and videos of your customers, but always ask for permission before doing so. These media are your advertising content.

Remember to capture other moments of special events, or just a family or colleague gatherings, etc. Always update your website and social media accounts with memorable customers’ moments at your restaurant. Show the public that your restaurant is the place to celebrate these happy and special events.

What about receipt marketing for your restaurant?

Receipt marketing is an effective way to give promotions for a return purchase. However, the pain is the point-of-sale (POS) machine that requires configuration to get details of the promotions printed. To my understanding, the re-configuration on POS receipts is not cheap, which usually costs a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

But if you can get this option done cheaply, do consider receipt marketing. I have seen receipt marketing in the US, but not so many in Europe and Asia. What about different colors to highlight a message? For example, black ink for restaurant spending and red ink for promotions. Be creative to work out a cost-effective receipt marketing for your restaurant.

What about loyalty programs for your customers?

So, I have jumped the gun a little earlier when I mention loyalty programs and gift cards. Using a loyalty program to accumulate points and encourage returned purchase is quite a norm for many businesses. Customers are spoiled with loyalty programs that it’s NO longer as effective as it did 40 years ago when American Airlines started it. So, what should you do?

Let me be clear. The real intention of a loyalty program is to track customer purchases and understanding customer buying patterns. Most customers prefer upfront discounts than getting points for redemption on return purchases. You can use my example on the loyalty program and gift cards, and track your customers’ purchases, such as a reminder alert if customers are not back within 60-90 days of last purchase.

Additionally, you can better understand your customers through their purchases, especially on day-of-the-week, the amount spent, preferred food, or drink, etc. You can be closer to your customers by understanding their purchase patterns. It’s easy for you when you know who eats what.

Should you collect business cards from your customers?

Collecting business cards is a cost-effective way of getting customer contacts. Many restaurants offer special lunch set meals for the working class and soliciting their business cards to send reminders. Collecting business cards is an excellent way to grow your customer base, but the frequency of sending reminders can be annoying if it gets too frequent.

I don’t quite fancy collecting business cards because email is almost a thing of the past. Too much work and emails end up in the customers’ spam box. But if you collect business cards from your customers, be creative in your approach and try not to annoy your customers.  

Should your chefs mix around with customers?

It’s always good to have a friendly environment that your servers and chefs mixed around with your customers. Be friendly, and your restaurant is not just a place for food and drinks.

Chefs belong in the kitchen, but having them out in the dining area does help to cement some relationships with the customers. Your chefs can mingle with customers, get some feedback for improvement, and recommend some unique dishes to keep the customers satisfied.

Taking a short break away from the hot kitchen helps the chefs to cool down too. So, it’s a win-win situation.

 

 

What about a TV to display the most popular food dishes?

Earlier, we discussed the sports channel. So, if you have invested a TV on the sports channel, it would be great to use the same TV to display popular items. But if the sports channel is not suitable for you, then you might want to consider a TV to showcase some popular items at your restaurant and how it’s cooked, etc.

By far, TV is not a popular choice for many restaurants, but that’s the cheapest way to display your specialties to your customers. It can be food, drinks, promotions, social media accounts (to get followers), etc. Just place the TV centrally to get the customers’ attention. Loop the photos or videos between 30-60 mins of airtime to avoid content sickness.

Should you give away your restaurant food recipes?

Food recipes are a cheap form of advertisement. Think about food recipes as a little giveaway to your customers after their meal. It’s a kind gesture of sharing your food dishes to customers if they are interested to learn, and that’s an advertisement for your restaurant. You can share a few of your primary food dishes and how it’s cooked.

If your customers prefer an electronic copy, then offer a digital version. Collect their emails or have them to message you via your social media account. Wow, you will start collecting contacts and followers, and before you know, the numbers will grow up into the hundreds. You will be amazed by how much people love food.

Should you capture some customer videos at your restaurant?

Capture videos of customers enjoying their food at your restaurant, or having fun, celebration, etc. Just a short video clip of less than 3 minutes. Request their permission to share the videos on your restaurant tv, website, YouTube, or social media accounts. Give some incentives to your customers in exchange for their agreement.

Ask your customers for their social media account IDs and tag them when you post the video. Get them to forward the posts to their friends to generate more awareness. You might be in for a surprise if the post gets viral. That’s FREE marketing leverage for you. Be creative, and customer video is a great start.

Should you have photos or videos taken on servers and customers?

OK, this is a good suggestion, but there might be a chance that it could backfire. Positively, allowing photos and videos between customers and servers or chefs have the kind intention of bonding. That’s all good. However, I have come across situations where stalking happened to female servers.

So,  I am asking you to exercise caution and be sensitive. Allow your servers or chefs to reject the request. After all, their safety comes first. But if your staff agree, then that’s your marketing content for posting.

How about asking customers to be your social media followers?

I have touched on this point a few times earlier in separate sections, and so I will discuss it in-detail here. It’s a good idea to have your customers as your social media followers, but that’s only the first step. Social media post engagements are much more critical, and this means your customers would expect you to like, comment, and share their posts before you receive similar treatments from them.

Social media engagement is hugely time-consuming. If you do expect your customers to like, share, and re-post your content, you need to like and comment on their posts too. Things are easy if you have tens or maybe a few hundred followers, but it goes crazy when you have thousands. If you want your posts to get viral, your time will be the price to pay for ongoing engagements.

Investing your time on social media with your customers is an excellent price to pay. Your constant appearance reminds them about your restaurant. A friendly nudge is always good to get your customers back to your restaurant.

 

 

Retain Restaurant Customers

Well, congratulations, you managed to grow your customer base. It’s time to revisit the marketing principles to improve your customer base further. Know your customers, get their contact, and follow you on social media are a great start to further your marketing strategies to get more customers.

Restaurant Food

How to capitalize on customers’ reviews of your food for your restaurant?

You must believe and love the power of customer reviews. More than 90% of customers check on reviews before making a purchase, and this including fresh new dining experience. The customer review is double-edge sword, but if you manage your customers well, that’s more positive than negative reviews you can get.

TripAdvisor and Yelp provide the platform to solicit customer reviews, but you must register an account with them. Customer reviews are displayed through locations and searches, but it’s very competitive on these platforms to stand out.

Alternatively, Graz.me is the other platform that provides product (food), service, and business reviews. It’s much more comprehensive than just a 1-liner review as compared to TripAdvisor and Yelp. Graz.me offers a 30-day trial program and has different plans, according to the number of staff at your restaurant. I strongly recommend Graz.me due to its focus on service and product, review analytics, staff performance, exclusive review ratings on different outlets and groups of staff, sending promotions to customers, and cross-promotion with other businesses on the platform, etc. You can check out Graz.me here.

What about holding a customer cooking contest at your restaurant?

Cooking contest is exciting, especially if you have a decent number of contestants and publicity. It allows a reasonable exchange of knowledge and skills among food lovers. As for prizes, you can collaborate with other retailers, business organizations, or even get local TV stations to participate.

Your chefs can be a part of the panel of judges. Wow, that’s a lot of recognition and publicity given to your restaurant when this happens. Forge a strong relationship with the contestants and the audience, because they can be your long-term loyal customers. The publicity will drive more new customers to try out the dishes from your chefs.

What about your restaurant branding opportunities?

Well, branding is a costly long-term journey for any business, but it cements a secure customers’ perception. Before you start your branding campaigns, you need to associate your brand with the desired value, such as cuisine expertise, cultural values, fun, entertainment, etc.

Before you start your branding campaigns, you need to get ready your restaurant logo, brand message, restaurant tagline, standard marketing materials, and be consistent with the efforts. Once prepared, you can start the activities associating with your brand to that value. There is no one straight formula to arrive at the destination, but a consistent long-term effort to drive the same brand value to the target audience.  

Restaurant Pricing

What about return customer discounts for your restaurant?

Arrhhh…, this is one good point to offer your customers to get them back to the restaurant again. Here, I highlight simple discounts without getting into a loyalty program. Why? Unless if you have the resources of managing a loyalty program, otherwise, you should just make it simple to offer discounts for return customers.

Giving away your business card with a discount code on it is the simplest way for your customers to keep your contact detail and be reminded of the benefits. I have received and kept a few business cards from a few small restaurants. It’s useful, and always telling me to go back to these restaurants whenever I run out of idea where to eat.

What about customer referral discounts for your restaurant?

Customer referrals are the cheapest, but the most effective way of getting new customers. However, getting customer referrals is never easy. You need to provide a strong proposition of why your customers need to refer. Either your food is so tasty, or service is so memorable, discounts are so good, etc., there is no end to the value that you can provide.

Customer reviews are a trusted form of customer testimonials, and that’s a referral. Other ways include customers’ likes on your social media postings, customer videos, etc. What about sharing more business cards with your customers with the discount codes on it? Encourage your customers to share with their friends and family members. There is no limit to ways of getting customer referrals. You need to be creative to try out different ways to get as many customer referrals as you can.

Restaurant Location

What about rewarding customers from far away to get to your restaurant?

I like this idea of indirectly compensating customers who come from far. For example, you can set a distance radius of 5 miles from your restaurant. If a customer stays 20 miles away from your restaurant, then you might want to reward this customer for traveling that distance.

The distant incentive is another marketing idea of incentivizing customers to get to your restaurant. Upon verification, you can capture that customers’ contact info, and that’s another email or social media contact for you.

What about a food truck or satellite outlet to spread awareness for your restaurant?

If you have the spare servers, chefs, and budget, you might want to consider a food truck or satellite outlet for your restaurant. Do note that this is not an easy task, and it’s very time and resource consuming, but it brings more customer awareness of your restaurant from far.

You can rotate your chefs and servers on different remote locations to test out the effect. Note the customer response, and try to get customer contacts for marketing promotions. Keep track of the sales in every area, because it might serve as your next restaurant location when you are ready to expand your business.

 

 

Restaurant Promotions

Why should you be in constant touch with your customers?

You know the benefits of consistently being in touch with your customers. Why? Because your restaurant should always be in their mind whenever they decide where to eat. That’s simple logic, but how?

This is where all your marketing comes into play. From email, social media, loyalty programs, chat apps, etc., you must appear in your customers’ life and way as much as you can, but please be moderate. Social media is a great start, and I have seen many restaurants being active on social media. Pick the right social media to reach your customers and maintain the presence and effort.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, are good examples. Always create new content for posting, and spend a considerable amount of time to read, like, comment, and share your customers’ posts. Being a follower gets your customers’ mind share of your restaurant. It’s a very personal touch too.

Emails and newsletters are great, but the viewing rate is less than 10%, and the response rate is less than 1%. Emails are not a credible source of communication nowadays, but who knows. Maybe you still have quite many elderly customers who still believe in email.

Now, what about chat apps? Earlier, I have mentioned WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Wechat, etc. These chat apps are useful to blast occasional messages and promotions whenever you have them. It acts like a little reminder to get your customers back to the restaurant.

What about press release for your restaurant?

The press release is a different monster of its own, so I wouldn’t go in-depth on this topic, but just to highlight some of the critical points. What’s so unique about your restaurant, food, service, promotions, marketing, community, etc., that make it newsworthy?

Explore a press release only if you have something unique. Reporters love fresh perspectives to wow their readers to your restaurant.

Pursue along the line of caring for the community, corporate social responsibility, going green, care for the earth, etc. These are initiatives that will get those reporters’ attention and get you the press release you need.

What about celebrity endorsements for your restaurant?

Oh, celebrity endorsement is another expensive marketing exercise ever to consider, but if you have the budget to do so, why not. You must know your customers’ demographics before deciding on that celebrity.

Once you finalize on the celebrity, then negotiate with the celebrity’s agency regarding the celebrity fee, advertising media, and budget.

A word of advice, you don’t have to go for those tier-1 celebrities, because that’s very expensive. Go for the tier-2 or -3 stars that need some advertising exposure for popularity. That’s a win-win to you because these celebrities would leverage on your advertising media and budget to gain that exposure to a broader audience they need, while you save some celebrity fee.

Work with an ads agency for a photo-shoot or produce a video with the celebrity endorsing your restaurant. Air the media across all your channels, such as website, YouTube, social media, and place some paid advertisements on radio and tv. Maximize the advertising channels according to your budget, and remember to spread out the ads over a period of time.

What about corporate social responsibility for your restaurant?

I love corporate social responsibilities (CSR). CSR includes caring for people, nature, earth, etc., and doing your part to help. Every business should do their part for CSR, and it should not just be about publicity. For the most straightforward way, your restaurant can highlight food wastage and donating the remaining ingredients to people-in-need, etc.

Donating unused food ingredients before its expiry date is a cheap way for CSR. A strong message to share with your customers that your raw ingredients are always fresh and that you care for the not-so-fortunate people. Another possible CSR can be the use of clean energy for cooking instead of using the liquified petroleum gas (LPG) to minimize carbon dioxide emissions, etc.

So, it’s your creativity here. Do your part for your community, nature, and earth is a good start to show that you care.

 

 

People Marketing

What about involving your servers and chefs for your social media?

Well, it’s always good to involve your staff as part of your social media strategy. When I say involved, I mean your staff as account followers to like, comment, and share your posts, etc. Imagine if you have 50 staff, and that’s 50 followers to spread your posts, right? Not quite, because I have seen the arrangement getting backfired when a staff leaves on a bitter note. Badmouthing starts to happen.

So, it’s a balance here. If you have treated your staff well, then you can be assured that this strategy would work out well. Else if not, you know the consequences. I would recommend the involvement of your staff on your social media strategy as optional. Some people prefer to stay private in their social life and circle. So, don’t force your staff to do so, but if they do, perhaps you can consider some cash incentives for them. It’s your call.

Conclusion

Getting new and retaining customers is an ongoing tedious, time and resource-consuming, and expensive process, but it ensures the survival of your restaurant. So far, we have looked at 70 unique ways of getting new customers, improving your restaurants, and retaining customers.

Maintain strong relationships with your customers is essential. You can multiply the returns when your customers are involved in your marketing campaigns. Always stay ahead of your competition and maintain the lead for customers’ mind share. It’s never easy, and you need to be creative and flexible.

I hope I have provided you with an excellent reference to get and maintain customers. So, good luck with your journey, and I wish you all the best.

Let’s recap what we have discussed so far:-

1. Should you have a website for your restaurant?
2. What should you include on your restaurant website?
3. What about your restaurant food menu?
4. What about your restaurant’s food photos, descriptions, and videos?
5. What else does your restaurant offer?
6. What’s your restaurant story?
7. What’s your restaurant’s food pricing?
8. Should you offer promotional food pricing?
9. Where should you advertise for your restaurants?
10. What about business collaborations for your restaurant?
11. What about placing signboards for your restaurant?
12. Should your restaurant be active in social media?
13. Should your restaurant have a Facebook page?
14. What about an Instagram account for your restaurant?
15. What about Twitter for your restaurant?
16. Should you use Pinterest for your restaurant?
17. Should you consider Snapchat for your restaurant?
18. What about a YouTube video channel for your restaurant?
19. How should you optimize the search engine for your restaurant?
20. What about various chat apps for your restaurant?
21. What about paid advertisements for your restaurant?
22. Should you engage bloggers for your restaurants?
23. What about working with some food reviewers for your restaurant?
24. What about setting up review sites for your restaurants?
25. What about setting up Google My Business for your restaurant?
26. Should you consider discount coupon sites for your restaurant?
27. What about working with online food delivery companies for your restaurant?
28. What about tagging on local events to promote your restaurant?
29. What about extending signboards around your area?
30. What about the placement of neon lights for your restaurant?
31. What about placing a cookbook on your website?
32. What about organizing cooking lessons in your restaurant?
33. How should you capitalize on birthdays or job promotion activities?
34. What other kinds of promotions should you embark on for your restaurant?
35. How to leverage your restaurant customers?
36. Should you form communities with your customers?
37. Should you offer free wifi in your restaurant?
38. How to turn customers’ waiting time into productive time for your restaurant?
39. What about the kids’ corner at your restaurant?
40. Should you expose your chefs and cooking at your restaurant?
41. What about music at your restaurant?
42. Should you consider wine-tasting at your restaurant?
43. What about sports TV at your restaurant?
44. What about the food tasting at your restaurant?
45. Should you consider live events at your restaurant?
46. What giveaways can you offer at your restaurant?
47. What about little surprises for your customers?
48. What about gift cards for your customers?
49. Should you capture the happy moments with your customers?
50. What about receipt marketing for your restaurant?
51. What about loyalty programs for your customers?
52. Should you collect business cards from your customers?
53. Should your chefs mix around with customers?
54. What about a TV to display the most popular food dishes?
55. Should you give away your restaurant food recipes?
56. Should you capture some customer videos at your restaurant?
57. Should you have photos or videos taken between servers and customers?
58. How about capturing customers to be your social media followers?
59. How to capitalize on customers’ reviews of your food for your restaurant?
60. What about holding a customer cooking contest at your restaurant?
61. What about your restaurant branding opportunities?
62. What about return customer discounts for your restaurant?
63. What about customer referral discounts for your restaurant?
64. What about rewarding customers from far away to get to your restaurant?
65. What about a food truck or satellite outlet to spread awareness for your restaurant?
66. Why should you be in constant touch with your customers?
67. What about press releases for your restaurant?
68. What about celebrity endorsements for your restaurant?
69. What about corporate social responsibility for your restaurant?
70. What about involving your servers and chefs for your social media?