When’s the last time you went to a restaurant, or even simply ordered take out? Do you ever think about what led you to that decision? The truth is, behind every sale there is a process. The process might vary between different businesses, locations, and area demographics, but the “x” factor or constant is always the same.
What is the constant? Well, there are three:
Customer: The customer is always right. Yes, not the owner, not the employee, not the HR manager. The most important aspect of ANY business is ALWAYS the customer. Without the customer, you don’t have a business to own, and your employees don’t have jobs.
Profit/Loss: Customers = Sales. Sales keep your business afloat and open up various new potential streams of revenue. Resulting in even more ways for your business to make money. If your business is not profiting at the moment, take our your notebook and prepare for the last and final step.
Marketing:
You’ve probably heard “save the best for last” your entire life, while it is the last thing we will be covering in this blog, that saying is certainly not true when it comes to marketing. Marketing should be the first step of ANY business, whether its a restaurant, dental clinic or auto repair shop. Now you may be asking, why is marketing more important than the customer? It’s not necessarily more important than the customer, but without marketing there is no customer.
Okay, now that we have your attention. Let’s go over some wicked ways to market your business at absolutely no cost to you:
Social Media:
Truth is, if you don’t have various social media platforms for your restaurant. You are a ghost, a ghost that is potentially taking 50-60% less profit home every month. Social media not only promotes your brand, but it also gives a platform for your customer (the reason behind your success) to voice their concerns as well as praise your business. Which means one thing…REVIEWS!
Yes! Long gone are the days of WORD OF MOUTH marketing, which essentially meant one person who was a direct or indirect customer of yours, referred another potential customer to you. Now, your customers can log on to platforms we use every day, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. and actively communicate with you and your staff to ask questions, book reservations and even direct message you. Below, we have attached some helpful links to get you started on creating social media pages for your restaurant.
Sprout Social | Complete Guide to Social Media and Bars: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/bars-restaurants-social-media-guide
Facebook | Business Page Sign-Up: https://www.facebook.com/pages/creation/
Instagram | Business Page Set-Up Process (Done on App): https://help.instagram.com/502981923235522
Twitter | Business Page Sign-Up: https://business.twitter.com/en/basics/create-a-twitter-business-profile.html
LinkedIn | Business Page Sign-Up: https://www.linkedin.com/company/setup/new/
This will be repeated various times along this post but if you are unsure how to do this, or simply would like to hand it off to someone else, look no further than Kurve Marketing. We offer dependable social media marketing services to 100+ clients worldwide and have a team dedicated to new projects.
Third Party Marketing and Integration: Uber set an unprecedented standard in the restaurant industry when they rolled out UberEats, since then, various companies have tried and succeeded doing the same thing, some even doing better than Uber itself. The reason these companies (UberEats, Door Dash, Grubhub, Postmates etc.) do so well is because of the following they have. Uber is active in over 600 cities worldwide, in about 65 countries (2019). When it comes to dollars spent, DoorDash owns 27.6 percent of the market followed by GrubHub, which has steadily lost ground and accounts for 26.7 percent, reports Edison Trends. Uber Eats, which has flat lined over the last 11 months, takes the third spot claiming 25.2 percent of the market.
Here’s where you come in.
Owning a restaurant can become a very stressful occupation, one reason in particular is slow days. The benefit of becoming a Merchant for these third parties is that you control when and where they can take a commission. You can at any time, pause or resume your ordering service. This is beneficial when you are having a slow day, someone is always hungry and if your business has what they are craving and its as simple as just clicking a few buttons on their smartphone and presto, they have the food delivered to their doorstep. Your business makes more money than they would on a typical slow day, the customer has their food and everyone is happy.
If this is something you would be interested in doing, but are unaware of how to or would like to outsource it. Visit our website at kurvemarketing.com/restaurants and schedule a consultation at no-cost to you.
Web Development and SEO:
Having a website is important, but not as important as having a functioning and responsive website, with the proper SEO strategy executed. You may be wondering, “Isn’t any website a functioning and responsive site?”. The answer is no, if you have a “DIY” website such as Wix or SquareSpace, your website is not working for you, it is simply another expense.
According to Smashing Magazine, a Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation.
The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. One may also have to consider the settings on their devices; if they have a VPN for iOS on their iPad, for example, the website should not block the user’s access to the page. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market.
Ever since more and more advanced smartphones have taken way of powerful computers, web design and development has followed. Another thing that hasn’t been too far behind has always been SEO or Search Engine Optimization. SEO has evolved from how well your website ranks on search engines using your website, to now expanding to Video as well. Using certain algorithms, search engines like Google have figured out how make relevancy and content count.
For more information regarding SEO and our many other services, head over to www.kurvemarketing.com to schedule a FREE consultation and bring your business closer to your personal and financial goals.