Report Highlights Restaurant Traffic-Driving Strategies
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Understanding How To Implement Approaches To Increase Sales
A recent special report from the Nation’s Restaurant News offered an examination of the challenges restaurants face in daily operations, what brands must do to target customers, and some successful strategies for gains in this particular market.
As the article underscores, restaurant operators are already leveraging a variety of high-tech and traditional tools to increase volume and customer satisfaction in their outlets, including mobile ordering, streamlined operations, loyalty programs, special promotions, and more.
But this article asserts that it is also crucial to go beyond knowing what the latest tools are to having a fundamental understanding of how to use them to target potential customers effectively.
As a slideshare presentation from Top Line/Bottom Line Solutions regarding “Achieving Financial Goals for Your Restaurant,” demonstrates, achieving customer satisfaction across all categories is crucial to success. It asserts that review sites such as Yelp and Trip Advisor have become important examples of the new word of mouth strategies, and a recent Harvard study found that just a single star increase in a rating can increase sales by as much as 5 percent.
Restaurants should also play close attention to menu item selection, signature menu items, server training, food quality, instant customer reviews, and four walls marketing techniques.
“It’s not so much who the people are, but their need states. It’s the occasion drivers,” Dennis Lombardi, foodservice strategist for Dublin, Ohio-based WD Partners, a consulting company told the Nation’s Restaurant News.
Those fall into three general categories: destination-driven consumers, who make a deliberate trip to a restaurant for a special occasion or event; routine users, who frequent restaurants that fit into their daily habits; and impulse buyers, who decide on the fly to grab a bite or give in to an urgent craving.
“Each of us is all three of those [at one point],” Lombardi added.
According to the NRN, each category provides opportunities for operators to satisfy their customers’ unique needs, if they are prepared to do so.
When it comes to winning over destination diners, who often are marking a major moment with a celebration, restaurants should aim to improve service, monitor their online reputation, and create special events unique to the restaurant to provide rewards for destination diners.
Strategies for winning over routine customers are also significant. These are the patrons who choose their regular spots with an eye towards location, a mental shortlist of brands or products, and value. The NPD Group recently found that a convenient location is the top driver for repeat visits. Bonnie Riggs, NPD’s restaurant industry analyst, said a September report found that “on average about a third of buyers make up about 60 percent of traffic volume.” Strategies that can increase those repeat visits include strong loyalty programs and fresh, healthy menu items, social media platforms, and acting locally.
“To be able to grow your business, it really will have to come from building loyalty, building repeat business,” Riggs said.
And finally when it comes to winning over impulse customers, restaurants can rely on visibility and price point as effective lures to spontaneous business. NRN suggests offering samples, using aromas to play to the senses, and tapping into “scarcity marketing.” Other ways to attract the impulse crowd is by using digital menu boards that provide visual stimulus as well as adopting technology that makes ordering and paying effortless and quick.