Inventive social media campaigns play a big role in attracting customers to your restaurant and keeping it at the top of everyone’s mind. When we think of social media campaigns, Instagram and Facebook come to mind, but let’s dive to a macro level.
Let’s go Person to Person marketing, getting them hooked before they even come to your restaurant. What does an inventive social media campaign look like? Let’s dive and get into an easy example that could easily be customized to your business.
First, we need to IDENTIFY the OBJECTIVE of your next campaign. Let’s say you lack foot traffic during lunch hours and the restaurant is located in a small town that has a main street with first floor businesses. This means customers are at your fingertips, you just don’t know it yet. Next steps: getting your restaurant noticed?
The Loyalty Card Campaign:
Create a loyalty card for the main street business owners (used only during lunch) and design it exclusively for the town business owners. Try to get the towns permission to use their logo on the promo card.
The card represents a discount and a solution for those hungry business owners in your door. In their eyes you are helping them save money and returning time to their day. Remember we cannot control time but we can control what we do within that time, this is important to all business owners and they need to eat.
Design the card to work for your business:
The back end design of the card is important to help keep track of the customers who are using it and the frequency. Numbers don’t lie and they will tell you whether or not the campaign is helping. This also aids in adjusting the campaign on the fly.
Tip with your POS:
Most POS companies are able to create this type of card for you, so call that customer service number and put those client benefits to use.
At the end of the day the campaign creates a great relationship with the surrounding business owners and soon their families. Think about it, the weekend comes and it is time to go out and eat, they just ate at your spot earlier in the week and everyone is trying to decide where to go that night. There is a high probability that they will come eat at your restaurant since you are top of mind.
The strategy works but the most important thing through this buyers journey is the customer service offered at the time of service. This is where you convert that customer into your advocate and long time customer.
Your homework is to take ACTION and start creating amazing social media campaigns that are free or have low cost. Instead of complaining about customers not walking through your door, attack the issue at hand and figure out solutions.
In this business, we have to evolve to the times and understand that the CUSTOMER is changing. A younger customer that understand food is expecting top quality service and great deals.
