Is it enough to thrive in a restaurant business with just cooking some items, displaying these products with buyer-friendly price tags, and having a nice arrangement of goods and well-dressed waiters?
Not at all! Something important is missing from the list. And that is “Marketing!”
Yes, this is the ultimate truth that – A decent quality product does the marketing job by itself effectively! But when you are in the initial stage of your journey, no one can recognize you. In that case, you have to take the first step to reach customers and let them know your existence. And here comes the importance of marketing.
Now the question occurs, what types of marketing strategy can you apply in this case? Spreading leaflets? Showing advertisements on TV? Running ads on Google? Boosting your FB page? Or none of these!?
Are you getting the point? Yes, before selecting a marketing process, you have to brainstorm to develop the appropriate marketing plan that can bring maximum ROI. You should choose the best restaurant billing software to manage your cost & ROI. Let me explain the process simply in this discussion.
First Step – Take Your Pen and Paper!
Before getting your marketing plan done, first, you should ask yourself the following questions regarding your restaurant business-
- What’s the present situation of your business? Do you think it’s stable?
- The number of customers that you get regularly, do you think almost all are satisfied?
- Are you satisfied with your business growth?
If the answer to one of these three questions is NO, then it’s high time to re-think the marketing and overall progress of your business. And here comes the importance of the 7 impressive steps to develop a restaurant marketing plan.
Let’s directly jump right into the discussion from where you will get a clear understanding regarding the steps that you should take before running your marketing campaign to thrive your business.
1. Fixate What You Want – The Realistic Goals
What changes do your want to bring to your business? Your first step is to make that fixed. It will help you to be a visionary person who is worthy enough to make appropriate decisions that can bring your business to another level.
But before fixing your goal doesn’t always mean to increase revenue! Sometimes the situation comes, the rate of revenue generation is decent, but you want to brand your business.
In this case, you have to rearrange the whole blueprint of marketing differently.
So, Identifying the right step for attaining your right target should be the first concern. The following questions can help you to understand, where should you focus on right now.
- In the next 5 years, how much improvement do you want to make?
- Is your restaurant well-known to the people of your surroundings?
- How many sales can you make with your brand value in a month? (That means, without marketing campaign)
- What about your returning customer?
2. Do Brainstorming! – Analyze Your Business
Marketing doesn’t mean putting a decent budget to run a campaign on social media and grab customers’ attention. It’s all about proper planning that holds the potential to make high profits with the lowest possible investment.
End of the day, this is the game!
To make this happen, you will need to analyze the overall scenario of your business, find out what’s going on in your business, and try to identify other obstacles, for what you are stuck in the rabbit hole and can’t find the way out! To make this happen, you can do a SWOT analysis, where-
S = Strengths
W = Weaknesses
O = Opportunities
T = Threats
The generated report after SWOT analysis will provide you the appropriate guidance in making an effective marketing plan that holds the potential to get you rid of the rabbit hole.
3. Find Out Customers’ Need
Whatever your location is, whatever menu your restaurant can provide, it’s an open reality that there are many restaurants that exist nearby your restaurant that are offering almost the same things that you are offering. Now the Question occurs-
Why will they leave others and rush to grab your menu?
Not only you but also your competitors are in the competition. To stand out from the crowd, the ultimate key is to prioritize your customers’ needs. What will make them happy? What unique do they actually want from your restaurant?
To get the answers, you can try the following things –
- Ask for reviews from your existing customers’ mentioning their demand
- Consider the complaints seriously that you get from some customers
- Arrange a survey where your customer can talk about what extra they want to have from your business
4. Choose the Right Platform
Not necessarily all of your audience or customers are active on all the platforms. Every human being has different choices.
You will find some of your nearby restaurants earn customers mostly from Instagram. On the other hand, some restaurants gain customers from Google Search, some get from Google Maps as well.
So, considering your customer network, you should choose your strategy.
For instance:
- For gaining authority among the local customer network = Local SEO is effective
- To reach the young and middle-aged customers = Instagram Marketing is Effective
That clearly indicates, making an appropriate report regarding your customer data will assist you in choosing the right platform that holds the potential to bring higher outcomes.
I know, sometimes it’s difficult to choose the precise platform only by brainstorming. Cause you never know, the method that your competitor is applying and grabbing massive success. If you use that method in your case, will it work or not?
In that case, you can consider spending some bucks on restaurant management software, that can be your another helping hand in order to thrive your business and save your time. But before choosing such software, consider three things to have on your checklist
- No monthly subscription free
- 24/7/365 customer support
- Plenty of available addons for the software
5. Segment Your Customers!
All the marketing campaigns are not for all kinds of customers. You have to ensure the proper segmentation if you want to save money and gain maximum ROI with a limited budget.
For instance, if you run an advertising campaign for DONAT items targeting aged people, there is a high possibility to get fewer sales.
There may have some interesting reasons that exist behind the scene. Such as –
- A significant portion of the diabetic patients are aged people (So its normal to avoid dessert items for them)
- The consumption rate of dessert items is higher in young people compared to the aged citizens, especially those who are above 60
So the discussion proves, to make proper segmentation considering the customers’ taste and behavior is extremely necessary when you want to get maximum ROI with a limited budget.
In a single line, what should I say, don’t waste your money on the wrong people!
6. Analyze Your Competitor
This is one of the most interesting parts, and one of the most important parts as well since you can hate your competitors, but can’t avoid them!
To thrive in your business, you have to keep in considering the information regarding what differences they have created from you by providing what different things that are not present in your business. In that case, try to find out the answers to the following questions –
- How do they run their promotional campaigns?
- What about the results of those campaigns? Are they doing better than you?
- What is their targeted market? Are you dealing with the same network?
- How they decorated their restaurants?
- What things made a similarity between you and them?
- What things made the differences?
- What formula do they use for setting prices?
There are some other questions that you can ask yourself regarding the activity of your competitors.
7. Connect the Dots!
Here the word “Dots” means the 6 points that I have mentioned above. For running a successful and effective marketing campaign these points are effective.
But not necessarily you have to abide by all the procedures following the represented sequence in all cases! Considering your target and goals, bring some changes that can allow you to attain massive success.
Above all, rearrange the sequence considering your plan.
Before doing that, some major things that you should consider before spending bucks in marketing.
- Technological Stuff – The era of manual stuff is near the end. On the contrary, the technological wind is constantly changing its direction rapidly. Consider this point before running a campaign.
- Legal Stuff – The rules and regulations regarding business may differ depending on the places and countries. So keep in mind while preparing your marketing plan.
- Economic Stuff – Be updated about how the economy is going in your country. Where the wind is flowing. It will help you to decide when you should run a campaign or not.
- Social Stuff – Some social stuff such as food habits, earnings of your customers, even their religious views may influence your business growth curve.
Ending Note
Thanks for keeping your patience till the last line of this discussion. I know you may have been bored reading all the lines.
But trust me, by taking the help of these steps, when you will find a successful marketing campaign that can bring massive success, that will bring a smile to your face surely!
Grab your pen and paper, arrange a round table discussion with your team, follow the steps, brainstorm to find a hit campaign, and get incredible rewards! So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get started!