Okay, so maybe you’ve been in business for a few years and you feel like you got things figured out. You got all your equipment, you’ve got all your employees, and people are starting to talk about your restaurant. You may even be profitable at this point. This is all great! However, when a crisis hits, we need to be prepared.
We preach this every day and we’ll say it again. Your restaurant is making one BIG MISTAKE and it will cause your restaurant to fail if you don’t do something about it.
The mistake you’re probably making is this: You don’t have (or regularly reach out to) a customer list… more specifically, you don’t have a restaurant marketing strategy.
If you don’t have a plan and have a customer list you regularly engage, you may find yourself closing your doors for good and having to lay off your entire staff completely. The coronavirus / COVID-19 has proven this to be true for the restaurant industry.
You need to know who your customers are, what they like, and how to reach out to them individually. You need to get personal. You need a button you can press to bring customers in instantly. Posting on social media is hardly that… and you cannot track it very well. Having a customer list, like an email list or phone number list, will help you have closer relationships with your customers so you can provide what they want and continue to stay top-of-mind, which will bring them into your restaurant more frequently.
When you don’t have any customers, you will end up paying more money each time to run an advertisement to get the same customers, or you will spend more time creating a post on social media with the goal of getting them to come into your restaurant. The problem is Facebook and other social media don’t want your post to reach anybody unless you pay for them. This is why we must hold on to them with all these guys while we have them so that will stick around outside of social media platforms. You are renting social media platforms along with renting their users. It’s time for your restaurant to own its own customers so you can grow and flourish.
We hope this article has taught you something, and we hope you’re ready to do something about it. Things like the stock market crashing, the coronavirus, etc. will be the demise of small local businesses unless you build your list now.
Need help building your list? Schedule an appointment with us today by clicking here!
