In the sea of restaurants appearing at every corner, you need to come up with techniques that will attract attention and customers into your restaurant.
Starting and running your own home-based business can be trickier than you imagine but opening a home-based restaurant may be an ideal solution. Apart from offering a lower level of risk and competition, home-based food entrepreneurs also enjoy greater flexibility from a work-from-home business model.
If you have the cooking skills and the budget, you can easily turn your home into an instant restaurant. Here’s how: Cook Up Your Home: Tips to Turn Your Home Into a Restaurant
Yes, it is important to have good food, helpful waiters, and a nice setting but to stand out – you need to up your game.
Here are some strategies you could try out to attract customers and see how much they work for your restaurant.
1. Give great promotions
Promotions are the perfect excise for your customers to go to your restaurant. They are also great to use on nights that are usually quiet. However, you have to play it smart:
- organize a promotion on a holiday or a special event, for example, special menus on Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day.
- give out loyalty cards to frequent customers. You can use the modern form of it through a digital punch card app to manage the loyalty program and give out stamps to customers via the app.
- offer promotions to those who share your posts on social media
- whenever you add a new item to the menu, offer a discount and make big news out of it.
2. Offer Free Wi-Fi
Offering free Wi-Fi in your restaurant will mean a lot to many customers and that could even make them stay longer. Wi-Fi is almost an expectation in the big cities where people often have to check their email and social media profiles. If your restaurant is in a smaller town or a rural area, offering free Wi-Fi could make your restaurant even more attractive. If people know they can be online in your restaurant, they will probably come more.
3. Take great photos
Great food and setting need to be shown on every social media there is. You need to make the customers, as well as the potential ones, craving for what you have to offer.
Hire a professional photographer or improve your photography skills to ensure your photos tell a great story about your restaurant, its delicious food, and a lovely atmosphere. Photos are frequently shared online, so Instagram-worthy pictures could easily attract new customers.
4. Awe with the exterior
As mentioned before, the setting and the atmosphere in the restaurant are important factors that contribute to the attractiveness of the restaurant itself. However, the exterior can also do a lot for your restaurant’s visibility and attractiveness.
People taking a stroll outside or going somewhere can be tempted to stop and check out the interior of a restaurant that looks great from the inside. But the exterior is what lures people inside – it tells a certain story of what atmosphere and what food they can expect. That’s why it’s also important to invest in the exterior. You can add elegant upgrades by installing retractable shade sails, for example, or adding a small fountain next to the entrance or a floor Lights that provide gentle and directable lighting. Whatever you feel will make your restaurant stand out from the outside – you should try.
5. Get an online ordering app
Some people love the option of simply staying in and ordering food online. If you have great food, why not offer the possibility of it being delivered? Your frequent customers will appreciate it and you could get new ones as well, who don’t often have the time to visit restaurants but surely enjoy good food.
There are inexpensive and user-friendly ordering apps out there. Yelp, for example, lets you upload your menu to the website so that people can see it when they find you. You can offer simple takeout orders or you can also include various delivery options, for example, utilizing an Uber.
6. Use email marketing
Email marketing can be very helpful for restaurant business – offer a form with a $5 or $10 coupon on your website to collect emails. Use the email you collect to send out newsletters whenever a new item is added to the menu or when a big holiday is approaching. Just make sure you don’t spam people – once a week or even once in a month will suffice for them to stay informed.
7. Get media coverage
Media coverage is great for spreading awareness and gaining popularity. For example, if you manage to get a celebrity into your restaurant, it could result in press coverage. If possible, don’t let it be just a celebrity appearance – maybe they could try out the new specials or do a tasting menu. An interesting visit makes more media coverage.
Another way to get media coverage is to get involved in community events. You could sponsor an event, serving food at a local event, or even donate money to a good local cause.
Final words
Of course, each of these strategies can be adapted according to your needs and the specificities of your restaurant, as well as the area where the restaurant is. But the truth is that these techniques work if you utilize them the right way.
