4 Tips to Attract New Customers to Your Bar or Restaurant
By: Guest Contributor Matt O’Rourke, TapHunter
If you manage, own, or work at a bar or restaurant, chances are you’ve been faced with the classic question of how to bring in more customers. With ever-increasing competition and the constantly evolving world of marketing, it can be difficult to know if you’re doing everything you could be to bring in more business. That’s why we wanted to share these four tips to attract new customers to your bar or restaurant, we hope they are helpful to your promotional efforts!
Watch the full webinar with Main Street Hub and TapHunter here:
How to Connect with Your Audience on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
You want to make sure that your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages are engaging for your new customers, but how can you ensure that you’re connecting with your audience? There are a few key best practices to follow to make sure that your social media accounts are creating as much value for your business and customers as possible.
Define Your Voice and Brand
One of the very first things you want to do is define your voice and brand. You need to think who your audience is and what they’re looking for. Are you targeting millennials, men/women, or a certain age demographic? Knowing who your audience will help to guide your efforts on social media and allow you to create content that will really connect with them.
Pay Attention to Time of Day
It’s important to think about not only what your followers would want to see, but also when they would want to see it. For example, if you want to get customers into your bar or restaurant for happy hour, you can try posting on Instagram 30 minutes to an hour before happy hour featuring your drink or food specials. This will catch your followers’ attention as they scroll through their feed on their way out of work.
The more you can think about what potential customers might be in need of at what time, the better you can time your posts. It’s a great idea to test out different posts at different times and measure what performs best.
Vary Your Content
No one wants to see the same posts over and over again, so make sure you’re not only mixing up the kinds of content you’re posting, but also that you’re not posting the same content on every platform. Your audiences wants to know the story of your business — rather than being sold to, so tell it! Give your audience interesting and varied content so they keep coming back for more.
This includes engaging photos of foods and/or beverages, holidays and events, and your staff or customers, too. When you have a good mix of different kinds of content, your feed will be more interesting to anyone who comes across it and you have a better chance of connecting with different people in and around your surrounding area.
How to Use Events to Create Urgency and Drive Sales on Weeknights
Events are a great way to create a new reason for customers to come in. The limited-time nature of events creates an urgency for people to act. If they don’t come in for your fun and exciting event, they might fear that they’re missing something great. That’s where the fear of missing out (FOMO) comes in and gets people off the couch and through your doors. With that in mind, let’s look at some different ways to make events work well for your business.
Recurring Events
Recurring events (events that repeat weekly or monthly) are a great way to attract new customers. One of the most common recurring events is hosting a trivia night, but there’s plenty of other events your bar or restaurant can host — like karaoke, open mic nights, speed networking, themed nights (like old school hip hop night). The main goal is figuring out what kind of weekly or monthly events your demographic would be most interested in and experimenting to see the kind of attendance you get for those events.
Tasting Experiences
If your bar or restaurant is the kind of place that’s highlighting high-quality ingredients and premium or craft beverages, tasting experiences are the perfect event to highlight those products and educate your customers about pairings. A National Restaurant Association survey from 2017 found that 61% of adults would rather spend money on a unique experience than on items, which gives you all the more reason to try hosting a unique tasting event they can attend with their friends or family members.
Holiday Events
Holiday events are great opportunities that are relevant to a wide audience. National holidays like the 4th of July and New Year’s Day are a no-brainer for a lot of businesses, but unofficial holidays can be great to capitalize on, too. Depending on the brand of your business, you can plan an event to take advantage of any number of these — from National Taco Day, to International Gin and Tonic Day, and everything in between.
Event Promotion
If you’re not active about getting the word out for your events then you’re not going to see the level of success that you want out of them. Make use of every resource you have for promotion; Use social media, email, and on-premise promotions like posters and signage (whether that’s a chalkboard or digital signage like a TV). It’s important to ensure that everyone who comes in contact with your business is educated about what you have planned so they don’t miss out.
How to Take Professional-Looking Photos That Showcase Your Bar or Restaurant
It can be difficult to know how to take a great photo for social media, especially if you’ve never had any professional photography experience. We have some tips that anyone can follow to take more professional-looking photos to showcase your business.
Framing
The first step to creating a crave-worthy food or drink photo is framing. You want to frame your picture so that it guides the viewer to the best part of the shot. Find a simple surface or background that will complement, rather than overpower, the delicious food or drink that you’re trying to capture. You can try shooting from above or straight on, or adding some extra elements like hands, faces, multiple beverages or food items, or zooming in for a more detailed shot.
Lighting
The key element of a food or beverage photo is lighting. Try to stage your photo with one lighting source, as opposed to several conflicting ones. Also, resist the urge to use your flash, this usually results in a washed out picture. If you are relying on a lamp or other bulb, make sure the light source is not directly overhead. Simply move your dish or glass over to allow for side lighting or backlighting. If you’re using a smartphone and are seeing too much shadow in your shot, try tapping on the brightest part of your screen before taking the picture and your phone should meter the light for you. You can similarly tap the darkest part of the screen to get a bit more light in the shot when you need it.
How to Encourage Word-of-Mouth and Repeat Customers Using Direct Messages on Social Media
One big trend that we see in communication between businesses and their customers is that more and more people seem to prefer messaging to talking on the phone or other forms of communication. Smart bars and restaurants are taking notice of this and using direct messages as a way to form a deeper connection with customers.
You can do this by reaching out to someone who has recently visited your business and had a positive experience. You can find people who have checked in publicly to your business using your Facebook Business account, and on Instagram, you can simply search for your location and see who has tagged a post there. Once you find someone, reach out to them with a personal message and consider offering them a promotion for the next time they come in. This adds an extra personal touch, and increases the likelihood of them coming back sooner or telling their friends.
Turning a Negative Into a Positive
The other side of this is finding those who have had a less positive experience at your business. These can often be frustrating to many business owners and managers because you work so hard to create a positive experience for your customers.
For someone who has had a negative experience at your business, you can reach out to them and extend an offer for a discount on their next visit while also promising them a better experience the next time they come in. While there’s no guarantee that they’re going to take you up on this or change their mind, there’s a chance that they will and it shows them how much you care about your customers. Remember to always stay professional in these communications, the goal is building trust and a positive relationship.
Being Responsive
People today expect a business to have great customer service online just as much as they expect it in the real world. You should be paying attention to every social network account that you have for your business so that if someone sends you a message with a question you can respond quickly. This applies to both direct messages as well as questions posted as a comment on a post.
While these aren’t the only tips for attracting new customers to your business, you should definitely be able to reach some new customers if you do try out these methods. Always test out different ways of communicating with potential customers to see what works best for your unique business.
Want more tips to attract new customers to your bar or restaurant? Don’t miss our full webinar with TapHunter here:
