9 Ways to Market Your Restaurant

Posted on July 24, 2012 by admin

Restaurant Marketing

Every business, including the restaurant industry, has lost sales and business from the current state of our country. Although restaurants are starting to see an increase in sales and traffic, they still need to be weary of what they are doing to gain interest and retain customers.

Here are some of our tips to get your business booming again:

1. Offer incentives – A lot of consumers are more value conscious now so offer an incentive to get them to come in. Maybe you offer a kids night, a loyalty program, a volume program (buy 3 of something, get one free), or a happy hour.

2. Invest time in social media – Social media can be a powerful tool for restaurants because they offer real-time information for their customers. Use Facebook and Twitter for updates, Yelp for reviews and information, Pinterest for pictures of dishes or customers, and YouTube for how-to segments. By presenting your culture online, you can entice customers.

3. Utilize e-mail marketing – Many restaurants already utilize e-mail marketing but every restaurant should. By e-mailing promotions it can give consumers a reason to come in to your space. You could also e-mail seasonal specials or upcoming events.

4. Use events to your advantage – Restaurants have a product advantage over other businesses because their product varies so frequently. Offer seasonal tastings, premiere new dishes to VIP loyalty members, host charity dinners, if you have a bar then host a special bartender or drink night, or let companies or groups host events at your location. The opportunities are endless with events so don’t pass them up.

5. Don’t overlook your take-out or catering clientele – Many people prefer to get take-out and eat at home and many people like to cater parties or company events. These can be big money makers for restaurants so market your options for customers. Create exclusive take-out menus or family take-out menus. Feature your catering menu on your website or offer customized catering options.

6. “Green” is in – Choosing local products for your business can attract a very large group of people. Not only does this speak for the culture of your company but it also gives back to your community. This can create an opportunity for your chef to use seasonal products to your advantage through cost and availability also. Many people like to eat at restaurants with fresh, local ingredients so display this proudly if your company is part of the movement.

7. Create loyalty programs – Customers love incentives. Our customer loyalty promotion blog focused on loyalty programs and marketing efforts to keep customers coming back. Remember; acquiring new customers is much more expensive than keeping your current customers coming back.

8. Embrace technology – Technology continues to evolve so make sure your restaurant is staying on top of the technology. Allow customers to order online, integrate your order, reservation, and POS system, or even have your servers carry a hand-held ordering device. All of this leads to customer and staff ease when wanting to order something quickly and efficiently.

9. Be health conscious – Many consumers are very conscious of their health and weight. Offer solutions like healthy alternatives, varying portion sizes, and gluten free menus to accommodate everyone’s health needs. This effort will show your clientele that you are aware of their needs and you care about them.

The overall goal with these tips is to be conscious of your customer base. Every person is different but give them reasons to come to your restaurant over others. Ask your customers for feedback or ideas on improving the restaurant and offer incentives for their feedback. Not only does this show that you value your customers opinion, but you are also willing to stay up to date with trends.

How Do You Engage with Your Customers?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by admin

Every business can share information with their client base but how many companies engage with their customers? Business owners put a lot of time and money into marketing their business but the real goal should be to engage your customers to actively build your community and client base.

The first thing you should do is decide how you want to engage with your customers. Social media can be a very powerful way to engage with a client base. Decide which social media platforms are best for your business by a) thinking about your clientele and what they would use and b) if your brand can represent itself well on social media. A great way to get started with your engagement campaign is to create an editorial calendar. Lay out what social media platforms you are using and what you want to tell your customers.

 

Facebook is a great way to start engaging your customers. Business pages are built for interaction with customers but the #1 way to lose these active customers is to become stagnant with your upkeep. Make sure to be responsive with your posts, talking to clients, responding to messages or comments, and interacting with other businesses. Facebook gives fans an opportunity to share their experience with your brand through photos, videos, comments, and tagging. Don’t lose out on your opportunity to create a relationship with the millions of people using Facebook.

 

Twitter can be tricky when you’re first starting out and it takes some time to master but it is a great tool to interact in real time with customers.  There are 3 easy steps to start using Twitter as an interactive brand: find your voice, offer information, and interact. Step one would be to decide what voice you want your business to have. You need to sound genuine and like you are speaking for your business. Think about what your branding says to your client base. Step two would be offering information to your client base. What do your customers want to know? Step three would be interacting. Start conversations with your customers and see what they want to know about. Offer them incentives and attractive reasons to follow you.

 

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media platforms. If your business is right for Pinterest then it can be a powerful tool to add to your business. Create a lifestyle on Pinterest with your products and interact with users. Take attractive photos that people will want to repin and also offer contests to create a buzz around your brand. Pinterest takes time to learn but once you use it effectively, your users will really catch on.

 

Use your customer base to your advantage and create a community around your business. Find out what your customers want to know and how they will interact. It takes time, but if done correctly, you can create a buzz around your company.

 

In need of Customer Loyalty Promotion Ideas?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by admin

Customer loyalty should be one of the biggest marketing tools in your business. In our last blog we talked about exactly how important customer loyalty programs are and why they work. This time we want to you to know how to really get your current customer’s attention with ideas for promotions. Overall, customer loyalty promotions offer customers a reason to come back to your business repeatedly.

Refer a friend program- This program gives your customers an opportunity to share their love for your business. You can give an incentive for referring a friend or neighbor. This essentially makes your current customers brand ambassadors that can speak for your business. Word of mouth has always proven to be the best marketing strategy so create these partnerships to empower your customers. To add another level of incentive to this campaign you could offer discounts for existing or new customers to show they are appreciated.

Frequent buyer program- This is another great way to get customers coming back again and again. Offer these customers a free item after so many purchases with your business. This will make people want to strive for that free gift and continue to buy goods from you. This sort of promotion works best for retail or service industries where someone could make small, frequent purchases. Always have your employees offer this program during transactions with customers and make sure they are on board to promote the frequent buyer program.

Discounts for Contact Information- The goal with new, possible customers is to collect their contact information. You can offer an incentive if someone gives you their contact information. Give special discounts to this person for signing up, send them “VIP” emails during the week, send special promotions or a sneak peek of a sale, send them monthly discounts because they are in the “member’s only club”. It is all about making customers feel like they are your #1 customer and creating a stronger relationship so when they think of a product they need, they’ll always come back to you.

Creating Brand Awareness- Most companies create some sort of freebie or merchandise with their logo on it to hand out to customers. Reward your customers for using your merchandise with your logo on it and promoting your brands. You could create a campaign that encourages customers to showcase your brand and send it to you. If a customer does this you could give them a discount on their next purchase.  By offering your customers an incentive to wear your logo, it will encourage them to always showcase your business.

Think about how your customers would respond best. Think about if you are in customer loyalty programs and what you respond to most. What are other companies doing in your industry that is working well? Every person likes an incentive to shop, it’s just figuring out the best route to entice your customers to come back.

Using Customer Loyalty to Your Advantage

Posted on June 28, 2012 by admin

All business owners strive for customer loyalty. The hard part is retaining these customers because the cost of acquiring new customers is much higher. Keeping your faithful customers will help keep your costs lower and customers coming back. There are 5 main factors to consider when wanting to market to your current customers.

 

Keep in contact with your customers:

Let your customers know what your business is up to. It’s the simplest things that keep your customers interested. Build a relationship with your customers so they know they are valued. A couple ideas would be:

-          Birthday or holiday cards

-          Updates on acquisitions or new services

-          Newsletter

-          Invitations to presentations, seminars, or tradeshows

-          Updates on accomplishments or awards

 

Market to your customer base:

Your opportunities are not lost when a customer walks out of your door or is done with your services. Continue to stay in contact with them. An example would be a chimney sweeping company. Your customers will probably need this service again in the future. Send them a card or call them before the next cold season to see if they need your services and include a coupon.

 

If you sell a certain product that may have an upgrade or additional parts try and follow up with your customer and offer them a hassle-free way of upgrading. Maybe you’re having a sale that you know would benefit a certain customer base. You could call them and let them know that there is a sale going on that would benefit them because you know they bought a certain product a few months back. There are endless ways to reach out to your current customer base and make them feel like part of your business’ family.

 

Don’t hide from complaints!

Most customers will not complain directly to your business. They will tell their friends, colleagues, or anyone that will listen. A great way to help diffuse this problem is to follow up. Call them, send them follow up questionnaires by mail or e-mail and ask for feedback during the sales process. Offering an incentive for filling out questionnaires could be helpful also.

 

There are also a lot of different people from a company that may come in contact with a customer so make sure everyone is on board with the feedback program. A customer may want to talk to an office manager more than their sales person. Complaints don’t have to be a bad thing. Take them into consideration, diffuse the situation, and move on.

 

Offer customer-only deals:

Loyalty programs have become very popular and it’s for a reason! There are all different ways to give your current customers perks to come back.

-          Loyalty program with coupons, deals, etc.

-          Customer appreciate days

-          Social media promotions

-          Contests and prizes

 

Current clients can be your strongest market if your strategy is effective. Think about what you have to offer your customers and how people will respond. The main goal is to always make the customer feel like they are valued and they should only come back to your business for their needs.

How Important is Customer Loyalty?

Posted on June 21, 2012 by admin

customer reward card software

 

An interesting article from business2community.com shows just how important customer loyalty is and the impact it can have on your business. It goes on to say that the best way to gain customer loyalty is through consistent customer service.

 

So how do you maintain good customer service during those times your customers are not physically in your store?

 

Stay in touch. Contact your customers through email and text marketing. This will also help spread the word about your company. A top loyalty research firm, Colloquy, released a study that showed people are 70% more likely to talk about your business if they are part of a rewards program.

 

Reward your customers. This helps keep your customers and encourages them to return to your store.

 

Are you trying to improve or maintain your level of customer service? The BlueStar Customer Loyalty System is the easy, affordable way to keep your customers coming back!  Having the right customer loyalty software helps you maintain the competitive edge and will keep you easily in contact with all your customers.

How to Make Your Customer Loyalty Program a Huge Success? Attitude

Posted on May 22, 2012 by admin

Restaurant loyalty programs

 

We recently discovered a great article from The Wise Marketer that touches on the twenty attitudes of the best loyalty marketers.

 

Why is this important? The attitude of the loyalty marketing expert and/or the manager of the business makes all the difference in the world. Attitude is everything. If you’re going to spend time attempting to retain customers, build relationships, and market a loyalty program to them it’s important to be involved and have the right attitude.

 

Loyalty marketing is not an easy process. And having the right mindset is key to your success if you’re considering adopting customer loyalty software to start your program.

 

Check out the article, but here are a few of our favorite highlights on the top attitudes:

 

1. The business case: the customer comes second…
There are two basic points of view to be considered when discussing the business case for introducing – or keeping – a customer loyalty programme: some industry observers have argued that a loyalty programme is often unnecessary because it’s just a way of spending money rewarding customers who would probably have been loyal anyway. Others, however, have recognised that the real benefit of a loyalty programme is not necessarily felt first by the customer, but by the merchant that gains the necessary insight (from detailed analysis of its loyalty programme and transactional data, for example) to be able to improve the way it communicates with and deals with its customers. The customer is actually the secondary (but still the most important) recipient of the benefits of a true loyalty programme.

 

3. You can cut marketing costs by going for the best…
The idea of Best Customer Marketing (BCM) is not simply to restrict your marketing efforts to customers who are somehow defined as being better than others in the customer base. In fact, best customer marketing is all about directing the majority of the marketing budget toward customers who can bring greater profit.

 

7. CRM and one-to-one are where data becomes insight…
The loyalty of customers stems from building relationships with them, and those relationships have to be managed. This is where CRM (customer relationship management) comes in. Whether the relationships are so finely tuned as to be one-to-one relationships, or whether they are in bigger segments or groups, the principles of management are similar. When it was first introduced, CRM was hailed as the answer to many of the marketer’s problems. However, in many instances its success in application didn’t live up to its promise, resulting in a fall from favour. But now there is a stronger understanding among marketers and board-level executives of what is required for a worthwhile and effective CRM implementation – genuine support from the very top of the enterprise, from the Chairman and CEO down to the customer-facing staff on the front lines.

 

If you’re looking to start a customer rewards program, contact Bluestar Loyalty and we’ll help you decide the best way to get everything underway!

The Customer is Still King – Why You Should Retain the Ones You Have

Posted on May 17, 2012 by admin

Inc.com has a great article – the Return of Customer Loyalty – on why you should work to keep the customers you already have.

 

Why does it make sense? You’ve worked hard to lure them in and demonstrate your quality product or service. And you’ve probably also spent a great deal of money in advertising and marketing to get that customer. But why spend more trying to find new customers when you already have a built-in following?

 

Here’s the money quote from the article:

 

Listen, there’s no better or cheaper way to build a business than with loyal customers. Acquiring new customers is expensive. Each one represents a huge investment of time, money, and talent. You’ll grow faster and operate more profitably if you’re adding your new customers to a solid base of existing customers.

 

So you always want to make the base as strong as possible. That’s tough when you’re losing 20% of your customers every year, no matter what you do. Then you really have no choice but to focus on finding new customers to replace the ones who’ve left.

 

The article goes on to provide suggestions on how to keep those loyal customers to help improve your bottom line. Check out the rest of it when you get a chance.

 

If you’re looking for a way to affordable maintain your customer loyalty and get the most out of your base of fans, take a free demo of our customer incentive software solution from Bluestar Loyalty. It’s a great way to attract your loyal clients, keep them in contact, and market to them with emails and text messages.

Is Groupon Better than a Customer Loyalty Program?

Posted on May 16, 2012 by admin

customer rewards programs create loyaltyCan Groupon provide better return than a traditional loyalty program for a small business?

 

Many restaurants and specialty retailers have jumped on the Groupon bandwagon onto to be severely disappointed. The promotion ended up creating a lot of initial business but cost them a lot of money. And very few customers returned after seeking their deal.

 

The group discount is great for the value-seeking coupon shopper. But they’ll continually be looking for a deal and not for a long-term establishment to give their loyalty to.

 

As a small business owner, you’re better off cultivating your “Best” customers. Giving them rewards for remaining loyal to your shop, your restaurant, your hotel, and any other retail store that has great customers.

 

When your top customer are happy, they’ll not only take advantage of the program and return time and again, but they’ll also be more inclined to tell others. And those who infrequently purchase your goods or services will be more apt to return or to buy more often because of the rewards program.

 

Is your small business in need of a loyalty program? Save your money over the daily deal sites and find out how to increase your revenues and keep your customers coming back with Customer Loyalty Software solutions from Bluestar Loyalty.

Do Customer Reward Programs Really Work?

Posted on April 23, 2012 by admin

restaurant rewards card softwareMany retail establishments have customer loyalty programs. They have cards that promise discounts and rewards for future purchases. And a lot of people have the loyalty cards stashed in their purses and wallets.

 

But do they work?

 

Do people return more often to restaurants, retail stores, spas or even dry cleaners because of a loyalty program?

 

Research has shown that customers that are interested in and sign up for your loyalty system are already fans. Their buying habits really don’t change because of the rewards program.

 

But, the same research has found that these customer loyalty systems really do encourage the less loyal or less “heavy user” of your products and services. There’s more of an incentive for them to return to your store or restaurant.

 

The key is having the right loyalty program for your business.

 

It has to be easy. It needs to provide a clear benefit for your best customers. And make sure those customers understand it and use it. By adding any reward program, you’ll make them passionate advocates for your business. They’ll be happier and more willing to share their experience.

 

If you need more information on how to set up a customer loyalty program, contact Bluestar Loyalty and we’ll help you set up the best rewards program with our state-of-the-art software solution.