Serving the best food in the world doesn’t always mean a full restaurant every night if no one knows just how good your food is. Sometimes you need to do a little extra promotion to attract more customers to your restaurant. Once they’re inside and trying your food, they’ll keep coming back time and time again.
Attract More Customers To Your Restaurant
The easy part is making them fall in love with your food. However, we need to get those people in the door first in order for that to happen.
Here are a few fun and efficient ways to get more customers in your restaurant in order for you to build a loyal following.
Leave Smart Flyers
Don’t waste your time and money on a generic flyer with every special, event and picture you can fit on it only to leave it out hoping people find it, actually read it and convert into a customer. Just distributing your menu doesn’t cut it anymore.
Instead, distribute what we call a “smart flyer” to attract more customers to your restaurant. A small, targeted flyer with one simple message and promotion. Make sure your offer lasts at least a month so that people can find the time to actually use it. What offer you use is up to you. If you’re including a coupon, give at least 20% off. You can also try giving away free appetizers or desserts.
You definitely don’t want to annoy people with your flyers. Distributing them weekly will annoy your customer base and make them less likely to visit your restaurant. Also, most flyers left under windshields will end up in the garbage. Present your restaurant in a professional way and you’ll see the benefits.
Create Partnerships With Local Businesses
Start conversations with local businesses in your area. Many of them get catering for special lunches or meetings on a regular basis. Offer them a discount so that they order from you and make sure that you hand them your full menu in person.
This can create an ongoing revenue stream for your restaurant to increase your bottom line every month.
Offer Discounts (20% Off, 2 For 1…)
Giving people an extra incentive to try your restaurant for the first time is a great way to turn them into loyal customers. Usually an offer of at least 20% off is good enough. You can also try 2 for 1 deals, free appetizers and anything else you can think of that would bring more people into your restaurant.
Happy Hour Means Happy Profits
The purpose of happy hour is to bring in more customers and boost your sales during the slowest time of the day. While restaurants normally hos their happy hour in the late afternoon, Monday to Thursday, it’s up to you when your happy hour (not necessarily just one hour) is going to be depending on when customers visit your restaurant in particular.
Drink and appetizer deals are best for happy hour. By getting people to buy a couple drinks and split an appetizer with their friends, they’re more likely to stay and order dinner. And if they weren’t regular customers before, putting on a great happy hour will get them coming back time and time again.
Embrace Big Events
New years eve, valentines day, sporting events and holiday parties. All of these are perfect opportunities for you to take advantage of. People are looking for places to go for new years, the super bowl and other events and if you’re not advertising the fact that you’re not only open but putting on some sort of promotion then you’re going to miss out on a lot of these sales opportunities.
Get people out of their house and into your restaurant for these special events and you’ll see a big increase is your customer base.
Host Your Own Events Or Classes
Cooking classes, wine tastings and themed dinner parties. These are some examples of events that your restaurant can put on to attract new people to your restaurant to check out your atmosphere and try your food.
Check out these 21 restaurant event ideas for some examples that you can use.
Send Birthday Emails
Almost everyone goes out to celebrate their birthday. When they do, they’re usually bringing quite a few people with them. This is a great opportunity to attract more customers to your restaurant.
Send out an email to your customers on their birthday with a free offer. Something along the lines of a free appetizer, dessert or even their entire meal. It’s a great way to remind them about your restaurant, and they may even bring along their friends who have never tried your food yet.
If you’re not sure how to set this up, check out our guide on how to collect customer emails to grow restaurant sales.
Remember, getting people through the front door is the first step. Giving them impeccable customer service and serving them your best food dishes is extremely important if you want these customers to come back again. All of your work attracting new customers will go to waste if you’re not converting them into long term loyal customers.
Try out some of these ideas to see which ones work for your restaurant. Once you know which one’s are attracting more customers to your restaurant, double down on those and start enjoying the extra business.
Need more ideas? Check out these 20 ideas to get new customers in your restaurant.
