It’s always been a dream to open your own restaurant since you were a teenager

It’s what you were born to do and your food is out of this world. You’ve literally spend the past 10 years travelling the world dining in the best restaurants perfecting your dishes along the way

And then you open doors to your restaurant and after friends and family have disappeared the customers are a trickle at best

You realise that unless you do something the business will fold in 12 months and you know from experience that signing up to 12 months of local newspaper advertising isn’t the best way to go

Here are 5 Easy Ways Your Restaurant Can Win New Customers

SOCIAL MEDIA FIRST POLICY
Every business should include Social Media in it’s induction training

You train on customer service

You train on health & safety

You train on every aspect of how to do a job

Why should social media be left to the untrained?

Restaurants should have a social media first policy where social media is at the heart of everything you do from the restaurant design to the menus to your customer service

Often though it’s something an untrained manager does when they have a spare moment

Social Media should underpin everything you do in the business

If you genuinely don’t have the time to do social media (and this can be the case in hospitality) – look to a reputable Social Media company to outsource to

WORK WITH LOCAL INFLUENCERS
Local influencer marketing is a simple effective way to get the word out about your restaurant

Now – you can spend a fortune on getting down a “celeb” from Real Housewives Of Cheshire or someone who once worked on Hollyoaks 15 years ago

Or – you can have a search on twitter for your local town and city and look at which local accounts actively promote what is going on in your town

The latter is the most effective

Build relationships with them – and by building relationships we mean spending the time talking to them

And then further down the line – let’s say a new menu launch or this months specials – you invite them down to try out some new dishes and to chat about why you do what you do

And then repeat on a regular basis as you know new customers come to try out your business each time after

COMPETITIONS
“We can do a Facebook competition and regularly reach 80,000 people”

That was what someone said in a recent training session with us

Now that is unusual to reach such a large audience, but competitions can regularly put you in front of 10-30,000, attract a huge amount of engagement, attract new fans and attract new customers

There’s a lot more info on this on our How To Use Facebook Competitions To Build Your Business blog

Each week Essence in Altrincham run a Facebook competition that reaches over 10,000 people, regularly gets 5-600 entries each week and wins over new customers

It’s the most popular weekly competition in a town with a population of 50,000 and ensures that everyone in the town knows their name.

And importantly it’s something that people will talk about in social circles in pubs and bars around the town – like the best elements of social media it’s a real conversation starter

DELIVEROO / JUSTEAT
You have a successful brand and people love you

And you’re turning people away from your restaurant on a Friday and Saturday night

It’s a big leap and you need the infrastructure in place before leaping in – but Deliveroo is a great way to win over new customers that want the best restaurant meals in the comfort of their own home

Sure they take a big cut, but to win over family audiences who can’t always get a babysitter every single week it’s a good way to generate brand awareness and win

Justeat is associated more with takeaways than restaurants, but had a much larger customer base than Deliveroo

Just being listed on these platforms gets you in front of customers who may not be aware of your existence

REVIEWS STRATEGY
84 Percent of People Trust Online Reviews As Much As Friends

Some restaurants hate TripAdvisor. Some restaurants love TripAdvisor

Whether you like it or not isn’t the issue

Your potential customers are reading them … and they’re reading your google reviews and your facebook reviews as well

Having a written down strategy to acquire new reviews should be at the heart of what you do

And then amplifying those said reviews on social media is key

We’ve had customers walk into clients restaurants off the back of reviews, customers who had walked past the restaurant for 5 years and never walked in until seeing huge amounts of positive reviews

NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?
Chat to about Social Media Marketing for YOUR restaurant , so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your organisation

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting with you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

Alex

Alex McCann is owner of Altrincham HQ – a social media management and training company based in Altrincham, Cheshire that has worked with 100s of local business developing their social media strategy. Alex has 500+ LinkedIn testimonials and is Ranked Number 1 for Social Media Marketing in the UK via independent customer reviews on Freeindex.