The food industry is a lot like the toilet paper industry. Or the water industry. Or the realty market.
There will always be a demand for it!
Mankind will always need to eat (unless a futuristic invention can enable us to absorb nutrients differently), just as we will also always need water, shelter, and hygiene. Statistics say that on average, 18.2 meals consumed by Americans are consumed outside of the home.
This is good news for restaurant owners; as Western life gets busier and busier, more and more working-class citizens come knocking on your door when they are too tired, too busy, and too broke to go out and buy a $200 load of groceries – but feel justified in ordering a $12.50 sandwich for a work meeting.
To keep up with the constant demand of consumers (especially in more populated metro areas), thousands of new restaurants all over the United States are opened each year. As restaurant options fluctuate, so does the need to compete with other establishments.
How will your restaurant stand out? Service? Food? Convenience?
Maybe you have amazing staff; everyone seems to have qualities that create a strong team dynamic.
Maybe you have what you would consider to be the best Reuben sandwich in town.
Maybe your atmosphere – the layout of your tables, the music, the interior decorating – you believe is an ambiance unlike anything most foodies have ever, or will ever experience while enjoying food.
Whatever you personally feel gives your restaurant character and causes you to stand out from the rest, it can easily go unrecognized. This oftentimes has more to do not with what you are doing wrong, but what you are leaving out.
Marketing is a catch-22. It can be pricey, it can seem frivolous. So what do you do? You take to social media – a free and popular platform that pitches your selling points in the form of well-lit and strategically posed photographs, promotions in the text boxes below, and accounts that are actively posting and sharing. You may start up a website, or at the very least register your location with Google.
Besides these basic tactics, most mom and pop restaurants to not venture beyond in the world of marketing. And because they do not, many do not out-perform their competitors, and their revenue suffers greatly.
But what if your restaurant did something differently? And if it did, what could that look like?
What if you had a marketing tactic that could:
- Enforce your brand name and logo and build recognition in your community and beyond
- Enhance ordering services
- Encourage more of your customers to share their experience via social media
- Create a hands-off loyalty program that makes your regulars feel appreciated
- Boost retention and overall sales
The solution at the other end of these possibilities and more is a mobile app. More and more small family owned businesses are taking it to the next level of going mobile.
If you feel as though your locally owned eatery needs more attention, word-of-mouth is not always the way to go. So many advertisement dollars are wasted on newspaper ads, billboard signs, or radio jingles. If you want to know where to market, pay attention to where everyone is looking. The answer is: their mobile devices.
In 2007 the first iPhone was introduced, and since then, smartphones have only continued to grow to dominate modern society. On average, American adults spend up to 3 hours a day (2 hours and 51 minutes) on their phone. This could very well mean that an individual on any given day spends more time on their phone than they do eating meals, commuting to work, or even watching television. Let that sink in.
Look around. In any given public setting, it’s guaranteed at least one person is looking at a mobile device of some kind. So go mobile. If the phone is in their face anyway, figure out how to get on that phone.
Call us today for a free estimate and let us be apart of your restaurant’s success! 509-688-0150
