Marketing for restaurants and pizzerias

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Restaurants and pizzerias: knowing the attitudes of today's customers to win the comparison with competitors and increase the covers with marketing. This is one of the strategies to follow the change that users are making. Let's see together some strategies to apply.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Restaurant and Pizzeria Marketing: Knowing Today's Customer Attitudes to Beat the Competition and Increase Coverage.
How restaurant marketing is changing today.
What to do?
How to attract and consolidate customers?
Mobile Websites and Apps are the Key to Restaurant Success
Takeaway/home delivery sales
Mobile loyalty programs will increase your customer visits
APP bookings increase customers and save you time
Statistics are a key element to improve
Conclusions
Restaurant and Pizzeria Marketing: Knowing Today's Customer Attitudes to Beat the Competition and Increase Coverage.


Today restaurants and pizzerias have suffered whatsapp number list several losses that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

But it is equally true that some have managed to obtain good results thanks to specific marketing for restaurants.

So, how to improve ?

restaurant marketing

The Latins used to say that "the truth lies in the middle" , and I too am inclined to say that even though there is suffering in the Italian entrepreneurial fabric, the problem is probably focused on the greater or lesser capacity of our companies to react and adapt to the changes taking place in our society.
The last 20 years have in fact profoundly changed the balance in our world, so that, from the opening of borders, to the industrialization of emerging countries, from the advent of the Internet to the birth of smartphones, we are within an epochal transformation that has modified the dynamics of trade, changing the rules of the game and pushing competition to previously non-existent levels.

The customer-restaurant relationship has also changed over the years, so that excellent culinary preparation is no longer the distinctive element that determines the success or failure of a restaurant or pizzeria.

Today the “food” product must be enhanced by the services that the restaurant is willing to offer to enhance its quality and to meet the increasingly complex needs of customers.

How restaurant marketing is changing today.
One of the most frustrating situations that every restaurateur has to face is certainly the high fluctuation of customers present and the difficulty of predicting their presence with a good approximation.

So it happens that one minute you are standing around doing nothing, while the next minute the restaurant is full of customers.

Or having the restaurant too full from Friday to Sunday (with a consequent loss in the quality of service to the detriment of customers or even without being able to serve them all) and with few seats between Monday and Thursday.

What to do?
The change lies in understanding how demand changes (low/high season, weekdays/pre-holidays/holidays, lunch/dinner, young people/couples/families, etc.) and adapting to always keep the number of seats high by determining the right promotions, prices and conditions and costs depending on the situation.

We need to find a system that can reduce the “randomness” effect and offer a more flexible, more predictable and above all more manageable approach according to the business strategies.

Let's take the example of a restaurant-pizzeria that works from Tuesday to Sunday for lunch and dinner, which has a high number of customers for dinner between Friday and Sunday and for lunch from Monday to Friday being in a central area with many offices while, in the remaining shifts the total number of seats is much lower.

One idea could be to accommodate customer needs by determining new and dynamic pricing strategies suitable for achieving customer satisfaction with the aim of maximizing the number of covers.

For example, the week of low-traffic days could be:

Monday closed for shift
Tuesday evening fixed price buffet service for university students and young people (typical university evening)
Wednesday evening fast service with light dishes for those going to the cinema or returning from soccer
Thursday evening couples evening with an à la cart service , with wines by the glass and a complete tasting.
Saturday and Sunday lunch menus and offers specifically for families to encourage them to have lunch away from home thanks to a children's menu at a highly discounted price.
It is not necessary to completely overturn your menu, but it would be enough to simply modulate the daily presentations so as to satisfy and entice that target audience that is more inclined to leave the house on those particular days.

Restaurant Marketing Example Chart

This is just a simplified example of restaurant marketing but it is useful to understand that with specific management techniques it is possible to increase the number of seats. The area in blue is the profit hypothesized with the differentiated strategy.

How to attract and consolidate customers?
Customers come back when they want to, unless there is something that incentivizes them to come back when you want them to. The example above helps, but it is even more important to have the ability to actively communicate with your customers.

Waiting for customers is counterproductive so you need to create a system that incentivizes them to come back when you want.

And unfortunately, it is no longer enough to insert a photo on Facebook, write a Tweet or update the homepage of the website to have effective restaurant marketing because these systems require that the customer is intercepted by your communication at that moment and above all they are increasingly saturated and no longer work as before (unless there are advertising campaigns or lead generation ).

It's like going fishing in a lake hoping to find a school of fish passing by at that moment: you can guess where the fish are based on experience, but in the end, given the many variables, it's almost always just a matter of luck.

It is necessary to have a strategy that constantly identifies the target customers to consolidate and increase the sale of covers throughout the week.

The marketing strategy for restaurants certainly depends on the venue, the location, the menu and many other factors, but certainly one of the common goals is to find a system to actively communicate with existing customers to make them come back more often and when you want.

To do this, it is essential to offer services that can facilitate customer loyalty and the consolidation of the relationship. The use of some techniques that can determine the success of today's restaurants are certainly linked to mobile devices (who doesn't have a smartphone in their hand today?). For example...

Mobile Websites and Apps are the Key to Restaurant Success
There is an increasing number of restaurants and pizzerias that offer their customers the possibility to book 24/7, order take-out, pay with PayPal or view menus, news or use interactive navigation systems through mobile applications or websites.

This is because communication, the market has moved to mobile devices and people use them to do most of their daily operations.

Not being present on mobile today (with a website, apps, maps, local pages, etc.) is like having a MasterChef dish known to only a few close friends.

Takeaway/home delivery sales
Can your product also be sold for takeaway? How annoying is it to sell through websites or specialized mobile applications and have to pay a percentage for each product sold, while still competing with restaurants in your area?

The adage “ better alone than in bad company” is perhaps perfectly suited to this situation: being able to have your own personal tool to sell to your customers, therefore already targeted, without the competition of other premises in the same area, can significantly lead to higher profits and lower expenses.

Your customers will be able to easily buy from their smartphone and come and pick up the product or have it delivered directly to their home. This is what we call a win-win situation where both consumers and the restaurant benefit.

Mobile loyalty programs will increase your customer visits
There are many market researches that indicate loyalty programs as one of the main ways to increase the turnover of your business and mobile applications represent a great opportunity to manage them. Integrated directly into the APPs, it will be very easy to update them, modify them without having to print any card or card.

For example, imagine offering the opportunity to have a free meal for every 10 consumed, or to discount dinner by 50% if the attendance target is reached in a given period, or even to offer a 20% discount for your customers on a low-traffic day, almost certainly - as happens in many sectors - you will have many customers who will do anything to get the reward.

And this will be to the advantage of the seats and your turnover.

APP bookings increase customers and save you time
For restaurants, reservations are often a big problem. We never know when the customer decides to book and so sometimes it happens to call at closing hours and decides to turn to a competitor. In this way, many customers and covers are lost without even realizing it.

Offering them the possibility to book 24/7 brilliantly overcomes the problem and gives you the possibility to manage and measure the service. You save time and you will find many more customers who will want to come to you even just because you will always be in front of their eyes thanks to the icon of your restaurant clearly visible on their smartphone.

Statistics are a key element to improve
One of the biggest problems with many marketing campaigns is not being able to track their success or failure. And by success I mean conversions (increased revenue and customer growth) and not just interactions (likes, retweets, flyer receipts, etc.).

Unfortunately, many small businesses often give up using analysis systems because they are complex or because they do not have dedicated resources, so it becomes necessary to simplify them and make them simple and intuitive for everyone, even those who do not have the technical skills.

Being able to easily evaluate the results of your marketing campaign should not be a limitation but an essential element for growth, which is why it is important to use complete products that already include tracking statistics.