If you want to Increase Restaurant Sales, then Develop a Strong Marketing Plan for It
People often say that change is the only constant in this world, and it’s true with the food industry. Prior to the year 2000 restaurants competed only against restaurants, but now with the internet thrown into the mix the food industry has gotten so dynamic that there are about at least 20 different kinds of food businesses that every restaurant on the planet has to wrestle with just to get a decent market share. So it begs the question; how do restaurants boost their sales amidst all the competition raging around?
We did some digging and found that there are at least 9 things you can do in order to increase restaurant sales. Continue reading and find out.
Emphasize Upselling
It’s normal to assume that most customers are probably shy at spending more than what they can afford, but food is food and it isn’t called, “one of the basic necessities of man” for nothing. In other words people need food, in fact, if food was considered on equal grounds as illegal drugs, food cartels (if there is such a term) would make hundreds of billions overnight! It is more than just nourishment, it is addictive, and therefore upselling food would be technically easy. An extra dessert here, and appetizer there, it all makes a difference. Train your staff to do upselling and include a side dish option in your menu too! This will appeal to customers and before you know it, they’ll be coerced to order more.
Employ Online Ordering
If you look at Pizza Hut, Eat24, Delivery.com and others, then you’ll see how online ordering can help increase restaurant sales in a similar way that catering services adds revenue flow to your restaurant business. It’s actually the most logical thing to do with the vast amount of technology available today – the internet literally puts your business everywhere! Also more and more people are becoming at ease being at home, because of their jobs or businesses that seem to overwhelm their schedule, so they have very little time to spare to hangout. However, they also spend much of their time using computers, tablets and smartphones and you can be sure that they’ll order online sooner or later.
Positioning yourself to give them an excuse to make online orders will significantly boost sales by as much as 30% and about 95% of online customers always come back for more of your delicacy, especially if they’re really good! In this way you can increase restaurant sales without even bringing all these people into your restaurant, plus you’ll reduce the workload of your staff and make restaurant operation efficient.
Building a Strong Mobile Presence will help Increase Restaurant Sales
The millennials or the average American middle class is the best demographics for any business – including your restaurant. Besides having enough money in reserves, these people are heavily connected to technology (i.e. smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers etc.) and they often order stuff online. We found out that more than 50% of millennials their buying decision in the six-hour window before they eat, and roughly 29% of that group admits that making such decisions is much shorter than what polls says. About 17% of them don’t even plan that far ahead in time and just click through their gadgets and order food on the go. Getting in touch with 50% of the 83.1 million millennials in the United States is a very big deal when you talk about increasing sales for your restaurant, which is why you need to build your online presence strong.
Be where they are all the time – in social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other sites can help you get established online and increase restaurant sales accordingly.
More about Millennials
We also found out that millennials tend to be loyal when it comes to products that they like. So much so that they care more about what they’re buying online than the loyalty programs that parallels their desire for loyalty. They value more business experiences that have little to no friction at all – smooth transactions and fast delivery is what will keep them coming back. Keep in mind that these people have no idea what the world was like before there was an Amazon online store. They think that the whole world works as efficiently as Amazon does, or at least it should. So if you want to target these demographics in order to increase restaurant sales, then use this information to drive your restaurant marketing strategy.
Communicate with Employees
As much as possible, don’t treat your employees as just paid servants or robots. Being a waiter or a waitress was probably not their first choice of landing a job (I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with it, because there isn’t) and if they’ll be given better opportunities, they’ll make a run for it to get their dream jobs out your door. Don’t underestimate them, instead treat them like employees that have great potential and make leaders out of them. So in your spare time or during meetings try to find out what their skills are and think on how best to use those skills to your advantage. Let them play an important part of your business or at least make them think that they are. They’ll become more enthusiastic on the job and even offer insider information about your customers as well as proactively do the upselling without you asking.
Make Each Customer a Repeat Customer
Recently several postgraduate students conducted a research on restaurant marketing and how to increase restaurant sales and found that if a restaurant can increase the number of repeat customers by 5%, then they can increase their profits by 25% to 125%. This is a very exciting news considering the potential that it has to change how your restaurant operates and how it can boost your revenue! So train your staff to identify first time customers and attempt to do your very best to impress them, because you know what they say – first impressions last. People who have the best experience in any commercial or business place as a paying customer tends to trust that business and become regular customers.
Connect with your Customers on Social Media to Increase Restaurant Sales
We’ve also conducted a little survey on our own to find out what would likely make people buy from a restaurant. We interviewed roughly 1,500 – 2,000 respondents and according to the results it showed that 83% of them said that they feel good ordering food from restaurants who treat their employees well. They deduced that good employees will not do horrible things like put all sorts of disgusting things on the food served to the customers just to get back at management for their mistreatment to certain employees. So even though you’re not showing it off too much on how well you treat your employees, just post their images on Facebook or Instagram with some positive message thanking them for their service. This should put your customers’ minds at ease.
Seventy three percent of the respondents also said that they prefer buying from businesses who cares about the community and gets involved in community service and events. I think I wrote an article about this back then – Open Your Restaurant to Charities, Community Groups and Non-Profits – and this should remind business owners to be generous at least once in a while, because the rewards are sometimes really worth it. Regarding the menu, almost all of them said that they prefer it if the ingredients that are being used on the food were fresh, all-natural and locally sourced.
Hardwire your Restaurant to Technology
A new research from the National Restaurant Association has yielded surprising results. According to their data about 36% of customers say they are more likely to use technology options in restaurants compared to their food ordering preference 2 years prior. Eight out of ten customers said that online ordering makes it easier to buy food than other means of ordering it. Roughly one third of the respondents also said that because of the technology options that one restaurant offers over the other, it somehow compels them to choose the restaurant with the better service. Another 34% of the respondents also said that online ordering changed their preference from dining in restaurants to taking out food and enjoy it at home. But the jaw-dropper is this: 45% of the respondents think that interacting with restaurants that have technology-based ordering options is so much fun than the old school way of doing it.
The message is clear! Integrate technology into your restaurant if you want to stay competitive.
Increase Prices (Slightly)
It’s no mystery that with supplies getting scarcer and scarcer the price demand for them gets higher and higher. It is only natural for you to adjust your product pricing in order to increase restaurant sales. However, the price increase – if you should ever implement it – has to be gradual and with a little sleight of hand, not let your customers even realize it. The result will be very acceptable and you’ll be able to keep up with rising prices of the supplies you needed while keeping your customers happy. You can increase prices once every 8 months or annually just to not shock your customers about it and make sure that it’s only within the cents range below 50 cents to the dollar.
