Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

How To Get Customers Into A New Restaurant

Posted by Anonymous on 4/22/2005 at 1:52 PM ET 250 Points
It is a Spanish restaurant and I am trying to get the company's name out. What are some ways in which I may be able to boost sales and our customer base as well?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by darcy.moen on 4/23/2005 at 10:04 AM Accepted
    Our local school just held a fund raiser at a local restaurant. We brought in 400 customers for one night to a local pub.

    We designed a nice kit that we will use again and again. We created brochure about the fundraiser in MS Word, to tell more about the special night and the food offered. We also created tickets (also in MS Word), so we could print our own tickets to sell for the event. We made signas in MS Word to advertize the even on bulliten boards around the town. All in all, this is a nice little package that we will be able to use gain and again, simply by changing the templates we've created. I think I should sell this package to other fund raisering groups and restaurants so they can use it too .

    Now, the restaurant where we held this event was full. Our group made a 1500 for one night's fun. At was a great night.

    The restaurant made a big mistake. Of those 400 customers, how many did he collect contact information from? NONE! Duh! How is he going to get these folks back again? He should have been collecting names and email addresses for his own database, so he could build a contact list for email marketing. When the restaurant owner wants to get busy, he sends his client list and e-mail message, and packs the house again.

    Oh well, thats another tool for you to use, down the road. The charity idea works well, just get a process in place so you can capture and build a client list.

    Darcy Moen
    Customer Loyalty Network
  • Posted by koen.h.pauwels on 4/23/2005 at 5:15 PM Member
    Given you are the only Spanish restaurant in a commercial area, you may want to first target business people for an alternative lunch place (while Americans typically do not like European-style heavy lunches, Spanish food is known for its tapas, believed to be light and scalable, so you have perception on your side). Next, make sure those customers come back with spouses and friends at night. This is how Benihana did it: a friend told me that their original clientele was exactly 25% female in a male-dominated business area: they got businessmen for lunch and to impress their business partners, and those satisfied customers would return sometime for dinner with spouses and friends.
  • Posted by Corpcommer on 4/24/2005 at 2:55 AM Accepted
    Here's more food for thought.

    I agree that charity events are good, and darcy made a valid point that getting names for future contact is a goal.

    Besides charities, you can also host a special lunch or dinner event -- perhaps have
    a Spanish Tapas Luncheon
    or a
    Spanish Wine Tasting Dinner.

    The lunch idea would be that you'd offer special tapas or food delicacies that your restaurant doesn't usually have on the menu.

    For the wine dinner you would offer, of course, special wines from Spain -- maybe have 3 or 4 varieties that patrons can choose from. If you have a grand-scale restaurant, you'll probably want to offer a bigger "special" wine list. The menu for this evening can include your regular dinner entrees plus some special or unusual ones prepared just for the event. The foods can be all from the same region of Spain -- perhaps Basque or Andalusian.

    For either event play Flamenco music (CDs are fine or have a couple of live musicians if your budget allows) or a regional Spanish folk music that's lively.

    Have the wait staff wear the same color. In some way they should dress differently than they ordinarily do during the restaurant's regular business day -- maybe they can add a pin, bow or tie? You get the picture.

    You could announce the events by press release and take out local ads.

    Additionally, I strongly suggest you send invitations to specific businesses in your area - perhaps offer "dessert on the house" to the invitees and any guests they bring with them to the event.

    Send invitations to people who might bring in customers from their work life (besides the possibility of returning with family and friends) -- invite people who are likely to handle office parties or take out clients or business associates -- such as office managers, administators, sales professionals/account reps and press relations professionals.

    Make sure your invitations have a phone number for invitees to make reservations. Alert callers to bring their business cards for an event raffle.

    At the event, collect business cards as soon as people are seated then have a raffle every hour throughout the day. Keep adding cards until raffle time, when one prize is handed out. Have a customer pick the winner.

    Remember to ask customers without bus. cards to write their contact info on paper that you will hand them. Prizes must be something Spanish -- wine, olives, oranges, oil, paperback of Don Quixote, etc.

    Another nice touch would be having a flyer on each table
    that discusses some interesting or little known information about Spain, its people or products. (I'm available if you need help researching/writing the flyer or want assistance with other marketing aspects of the event.)

    Good luck to you. Feel free to contact me offboard.

  • Posted by mgoodman on 4/24/2005 at 8:29 AM Member
    Don't underestimate the power of buzz ... that word-of-mouth referral phenomenon that happens when people discover something worth passing on.

    Pick up a copy of Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and read it. (It won't take very long; it's a short book.) Then find a publicity person with a good track record and pay him/her a reasonable fee to help you do this right. For a relatively small up-front investment, you will have people lining up to try the place.

    Now the caution: If the initial experience isn't truly noteworthy, all your effort will go down the drain. That's because the "buzz machine" works both ways. If someone had poor service or if they found the food just mediocre, they'll buzz that too, and once that word gets out it can be just as powerful in the opposite direction.

    You need to attend to every aspect of the customer experience -- from the person who answers the phone to take reservations, to the person who processes the credit card payments, to the kitchen staff, to training the wait staff, etc., etc. It takes just one bad experience to offset weeks or months of good work. It's not fair, but it's the way the restaurant business works.

    Good luck. We'll find you when we're in Boca next.
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