17 ideas for promoting a cafe and restaurant

1. Create a working atmosphere for freelancers

If you want your café or restaurant to become a favorite place for designers, photographers, freelancers and other people working remotely, then provide them with a working atmosphere – in addition to good WI-FI, place a large number of outlets so that you can turn on the laptop without any problems or gadget.

Freelancers will attract customers to a restaurant or cafe – when they call to meet their customers or partners! This is a very valuable resource.

2. Take away food

One of the best answers to the question “How to increase profits in a cafe?”, This – “Start selling food to take away!”.

A discount of 30-40% of the main menu will attract additional customers who for some reason are currently in need of buying food and drinks with them. Thus, the attendance of a restaurant or cafe will increase.

Today they bought coffee for take-away, and tomorrow they came to the company and stayed with you for several hours.

The main thing for you is to get one more group of loyal customers, and the introduction to the menu of food and drinks to take away with it will perfectly cope. A take-out sale is a great way to promote a cafe.

3. Projection design

 Watch the trends in your area,
visit the restaurant business exhibitions and introduce new technologies in your institution. One of such innovations is a projection design, a full-fledged tool for PR restaurants and cafes.What is a projection design? A moment, and with the help of video projection on the wall, a cafe or a restaurant turns into a large aquarium, and in 5 minutes before your astonished customers the green meadow spreads, on which flowers bloom and butterflies fly; After a while your visitors are already in space among millions of stars.If you host the equipment for video-mapping, then definitely stand out in the restaurant market. Customers to you will go only for the sake of looking at this curiosity, which will certainly increase the attendance and profit of the restaurant. Undoubtedly, the use of this unique technology will increase the level of your professionalism in the eyes of customers, emphasize your innovation.

This is an idea for cafes and restaurants, which 1) surprises the visitors of the restaurant, cafe, 2) creates an exclusive design of a cafe, restaurant or other institution, 3) enables you to advertise dishes, promotions and offers, 4) allows you to earn more at weddings and other celebrations.

 

4. Sale in pursuit

Together with the bill, bring a small booklet or leaflet with items that your client can buy with a significant discount. Suggest that people can eat on the road or at home for a cup of tea / coffee. It can be cheesecake, cakes, cookies or something like that. In professional terminology this sounds like cross-sales.
Your customers are already ready to pay their meals, and additional spending on the background of the general account will not seem great. For you, it will be a significant increase in revenue, even if every fifth customer will make a purchase after. This is the way to increase the profit of a cafe or restaurant.

5. Loyalty programs

In catering establishments it is not accepted to have loyalty programs (discounts, bonuses, etc.), so the introduction of discounts or some bonuses will qualitatively allocate you among competitors.
For example, you can issue a small sticker that gives you the right to receive a 5th cup of coffee for free for the previously purchased four mugs (5th business lunch free of charge, etc.). In this case, you do not need to limit the action of the action in time, as not all people are ready to visit the establishment several times a week or a month, and the effectiveness of this tool for PR restaurant will be reduced.Give an additional discount to the birthday (for example, a week before Birthday and a week after). As a rule, this increases the profit of the restaurant, cafe.A well thought out loyalty program will perfectly cope with the promotion of a restaurant or cafe.

6. Conducting weddings, anniversaries, holidays

If you do not have a permanent large audience, then you can hold weddings, anniversaries and all kinds of holidays, otherwise you will constantly lose some of your clients who will stumble upon the message that your institution is once again closed to some corporate .

Therefore, if there are additional rooms that can be closed for weddings, anniversaries, holidays – use them, and continue to serve ordinary visitors.

An average banquet for 20 or more guests usually pays for the closure of an institution on a holiday, unless your institution is very popular every day.

Do not forget to purchase a projector and a program for, for example, the newlyweds could surprise the guests by making a 3D projection on a wedding dress or cake.

7. Parents with children – your new customers

Many cafes and restaurants do not pay due attention or even ignore such a category as “parents with children”, losing because of this a lot of potential customers.
If you want your institution to become a favorite place for visiting parents with children, then, first of all, get rid of the stereotype, if there is one, that this category does not have money, so they are not worth attention.

Two parents and one child are at least 2.5 clients, and more often 2.75 and even full ones. To see this, just pay attention to what parents order for their children. It should be understood that if parents with the child were somewhere not comfortable, then they are not likely to go there even without a child. In other words, without creating the conditions for visitors to your cafe or restaurant with visitors with children, you are most likely to remove yourself from the list of potential places for such clients, and therefore, have an extremely negative impact on the promotion of the restaurant or cafe that you own.

8. Provide a platform for master classes

 In the last few years, various kinds of master classes-photographers, stylists, businessmen and financiers, personal development, etc., have become very popular. For such master classes there is a huge number of people, some have more than a dozen attended events. At the same time, the average attendance of the master class is 10-20 people, which can be ideally placed in almost any cafe and the more so the restaurant.
The organizers of the master classes always experience great problems with finding a place to hold their event. To keep a separate room is too expensive, since master classes do not pass every day, and renting a place somewhere is very expensive. A unique situation is created – there is a product that is of interest to many, but there is no place where it could be “sold”, that is – to conduct.By providing your site for free, you will receive a powerful PR tool of a restaurant or cafe, as the organizers will advertise the venue for the event. Of the group of people gathered for the master class, about half will order you drinks or a light breakfast, dinner.Creation of a site for master classes is a great way to promote a cafe in the environment of a progressive part of society.
9. More music

Of course, the lack of music or its bad choice in a cafe / restaurant is a huge minus that will make your institution boring or even repulsive.

Speaking about music, you need to separate out:

1. A musical background, which must be present every day – from opening to closing;

2. Live music, which should sometimes sound from you.

Music flowing from the speakers should not interfere with communication and eating, it should not be an independent subject in the event, but be an easy and pleasant addition to everything. For these reasons, a win-win option for cafes and many restaurants is the lounge direction and modern songs in slow processing.

Live music itself is a tool for promoting restaurants and cafes. Live music enhances the prestige of the restaurant and attracts a new audience, better off. The best days for live music are Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening.

 10. Appreciate the time of customers

And in no case do not drive out your customers who are too long, do not make them feel that they are not happy, since they are sitting at the table for the third hour, and ordered only one coffee.

11. Free Wi-Fi

You must have a good WI-FI, because there are a century of gadgets and mobile devices.

The password from WI-FI should be written on a special booklet, which will be on each table. Do not force your customers to ask about WI-FI from your waiters, do not make a password consisting of 20 characters.

12. Particular attention to restrooms

This item is more suitable for retention than promotion and PR of a restaurant, cafe. Pay special attention to the state of your latrines. Only tasteless and expensive food, as well as very slow service can compete with dirty toilets in terms of the degree of negative impact on customers.

At the same time, it is important not only the cleanliness of latrines, but also their functional state – the presence of toilet paper, disposable towels and soap, the working condition of sanitary ware and hairdryers, as well as the proper functioning of the mechanisms that block the cab door.

Also take care of the presence of a large mirror, which will not distort the reflection (if the mirror “will be full”, then, believe me, this is not the best way to affect the emotional state of your visitors, and hence their perception of your institution).

Do not stint on buying quality toilet paper and special paper overlays on the toilet seat.

Most of the visitors to latrines are women, and they are extremely scrupulous to cleanliness. If your toilets are dirty, then you are unlikely to get regular customers. Therefore, establish a good salary for your cleaners and monitor the cleanliness of latrines.

13. Purity

Of course, clean toilets – this is good, but if this purity in your cafe, the restaurant ends, then you can not count on a large number of regular customers.

In addition, instruct your waiters and cleaners that the tables should be cleaned immediately after the clients leave. It is not very pleasant that your incoming customers see the remains of food on the neighboring tables.

Pay special attention to the cleanliness of dishes and cutlery.

14. Keep old customers

Whichever action you launch, whatever activity you hold, never neglect your regular customers. In the world, there is a practice when 95% of the advertising budget is spent on attracting customers to a cafe, the remaining 5% is spent on retaining permanent ones. Respect those who allow you to work and exist – your regular customers.

Your actions, bonus programs and the policy as a whole should first of all be guided by current customers, and not by new ones.

15. Charity

Make a note to each dish on the menu that a certain percentage of your profits go to charity. Every month, choose a new organization or foundation where you donate money. Place on the tables booklets with information about how much you donated to this or that organization your customers.

Make your clients involved in good deeds.

16. Take food with you

Separately, mark in the menu or in a prominent place on each table that you can take your half-eaten food with you. Do not force customers to eat or regret the food left, but invite them to take the leftovers with them. On request, bring the containers that you use to sell the food for take-out.

17. Business lunch

Now people began to save on business lunches, so you’ll have to sweat fairly to make a high-quality and inexpensive menu. Here you can only advise to reconcile with a small share of profits from business lunches in order to obtain regular customers. You must have an offer of a business lunch; they make up a rather large share of the proceeds of the restaurant and cafe.
Include a business lunch in the menu, if you have not done this before – it will attract new customers to a cafe or restaurant.

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