Restaurant Events: Tips

Events. When people go out to eat during the week, they have to come to you, period! All your competitors continue to do the same things they have always done to win customers, i.e. nothing, so all you need to do is implement a few simple but targeted initiatives to deserve the entire mail in palio through special events and initiatives.

It will be enough for you to develop good marketing, online and offline, to be light years ahead of them and you can no longer afford to remain average and limit yourself to (not) doing what everyone else (doesn't) do.

The best way for a restaurant owner or chef who has been in business long enough to have loyal customers with disposable income, but who still wants new customers at the top of their list (and wallet), might be through exploring different avenues such as social media networks where there are many more potential customers than traditional advertising such as TV or radio commercials.

With technology so widely accessible these days most people can find what they are looking for without going too far outside their comfort zone - this includes seeing how other businesses operate by checking Facebook pages regularly; follow food bloggers' Instagram feeds through regular consumption habits; watch cooking-specific YouTube tutorials.

With well-developed online communication and a large audience, of a few thousand people, to address, and in target with your type of clientele you would not have the problem we are talking about.

1 Join other External Events

Events

People go out and spend much less during the week and therefore need to be motivated and stimulated to do so, because the simple and end in itself of "going out to eat", however good or very well, is no longer a sufficient reason to go out and give you their money..

Make arrangements with all the gyms, associations, companies, hotels, cinemas or theaters closest to you and the different entities targeted with your type of clientele.Establish agreements, make profitable deals for both of you and make sure that their customers also become yours and, possibly, vice versa.

Events: tips

For example, instead of simply leaving your business cards and promotional flyers at the aforementioned attractions, you could invest a few hundred euros and offer to create or redo and develop their website or Facebook page at your expense, in exchange for the insertion of a banner with the advertising of your venue or your ad hoc ads and communications, which will have an impact and intercept their customers.

In addition to this, you would have the advantage that the more your partners grow and proliferate, the greater the flow of people they induce and from which you can benefit too.

Think about the difference between having a few meters from you a gym or cinema which, instead of having a average of 30-50 people on weekdays, had 100?

And if, thanks to your precedents commercial deals, at least 10-20% of those 100 people would come to eating at your place every night, how much more money would that make you a year?

If you neglect this possibility and do you think that the stimulus of coming to your restaurant might be enough to leaving the house, you risk spending many evenings disconsolately "admiring" the your empty tables and chairs, as well as your restaurant and your kitchen may they be exceptional.

The same applies to points 2 and 3 below.

2 Being the Event or its Venue yourself

Vmeans first of all creating special events in your establishment, such as themed dinners, tastings, musical evenings or some other form of entertainment, so that your customers have both the opportunity to eat and spend a special evening.

If you can, it is good to study a fixed schedule, so that people know and get used to your events and remember that every week or month, on certain days, they will be able to find that type of proposal.

If you have one or more rooms distinct from the rest of the venue, equip them to host meetings, presentations, association meetings, awards ceremonies, board games, speed-dating and the like, as long as they are in line and compatible with your type of venue and without penalizing the normal catering activity in the remaining space.

From direct experience, we know good that the hotel rooms dedicated to this purpose are very expensive and often oversized compared to the needs and possibilities of the most companies or associations.

For less than €200 per hour you can't find anything decent and the minimum available capacity of conference rooms is 50-70 seats, but often much fewer would be needed.

Also, when you want to match the meetings, a buffet service or a sit-down dinner, almost always arise problems, because the hotel lacks a restaurant or its availability is incompatible with the times and needs of the meeting.

In your case, investing little more than a thousand euros in a good video projection and audio system, in addition to WI-FI network, if you don't already have one, you could offer to host this type of meetings.

You can ask for a fair amount or even zero to rent your space and arrange a buffet or dinner for all guests, with a fixed price menu or à la carte.The more general meaning is that you can see your place, not just as a place to eat and enough, but as a place of entertainment, where you can (also) eat.

A container in which, in certain days and situations, other activities may also occur interesting. As mentioned you must increase the employment rate e to the maximum of exploitation of your structure, otherwise, consider the expenses fixed that you have anyway, it won't be able to stand up and give you the due profit.

3 Exclusive conditions during the week
In everything we have said until now, we have taken it for granted that your cuisine and service are flawless.Nonetheless, as mentioned above, today they are no longer enough, on their own, to “get” the people out of the house, get them away from the TV and induce them to spend their hard-earned and saved money in your restaurant.

It is equally true, however, that for lovers of good food and the specialties of your restaurant, it could be stimulating to know that they can only find that dish from Monday lunchtime until Thursday evening.

The reason may be that during the weekend there are too many people to prepare, serve and prepare it appreciate it as it deserves or present it as a reward for customers, who they will come to you during the work week.

You could also think about economic incentives, evaluating them carefully first.

To promote the slowest day of the week, you could offer a 20% discount to fill the theaters.

How much cheaper could you be from Monday to Thursday evening?

Or, more simply and if your place is suitable, you could adopt the formula of some franchises, whereby children, on certain pre-established days, do not pay or you offer everyone a free dessert or aperitif or similar promotions, as long as they are communicated effectively, as we will see below little..

To launch and operate suggested initiatives or similar events, you need to have an Audience to communicate them to.

The larger your audience and the more targeted you are with your proposal, the greater the return you will be able to have.

Immediately start developing the above event strategies and at the same time develop an automatic lead acquisition system to communicate them to and you will no longer have to complain about the low turnout in your restaurant.