What is needed to improve the cafe. offer more expensive

In this article, you will learn how to attract the attention of a new target audience and how to increase the number of visitors in the restaurant. Modern customers who visit catering establishments expect much more from your establishment than just a delicious meal. In this article, we have collected great ideas and tools to attract the attention of visitors.

Who are Millennials?

This is a solvent target audience, modern youth, accustomed to the fast pace of life and gadgets. In order to attract them to your restaurant, you need to understand what drives this generation and what its needs are.

Millennials make up 64% of the total population and 60% of them eat lunch/dinner out at least once a week. As you can see, this is a huge part of the population, and they can become your regular customers, bringing a stable income. Your task is to adapt the restaurant and attract the attention of a new target audience. How to do it?

Millennials or Generation Y(Generation Y; other names: millennium generation(millennials, generation "next", "network" generation, millenites, echo-boomers) - the generation born after 1981, who met the new millennium at a young age, characterized primarily by deep involvement in digital technologies. At the time the term was coined, Generation Y was contrasted with Generation X, which corresponds to the previous demographic generation.”

Which restaurant is preferred by modern visitors

The main factors influencing the choice of a restaurant for generation Y are:

• price policy
• popularity of the restaurant on the Internet
• availability of healthy and wholesome food on the menu

Of course, today's youth start working much earlier, but not everyone can afford premium restaurants, and if you are not among the middle-priced establishments, then you can hardly expect to attract the attention of young people.

It is very important to have your own pages on social networks and regularly post special offers and news. People have been on their phones for a long time, and if they can’t find out anything about your restaurant from the Internet, you won’t get a single visitor.

Try to ensure that in a minute the site visitor can get all the information he is interested in - what is the cost of the average bill in your restaurant, photos of the interior, dishes and promotional offers. This is the most important information that should always be available and up to date. It is also important to have reviews from real visitors, on the basis of which your future client will decide whether your restaurant suits him or not.

As a restaurant owner, you must understand that this is a new challenge for modern society, but in a highly competitive environment, you need to meet all the requirements and wishes of your future guests.

The fast pace of modern society allocates not so much time for business lunches and snacks, however, people began to pay much more attention to what they eat, and oddly enough, fast food has long faded into the background - it has been replaced by healthy and healthy food. food.

Statistical data according to which modern young people visit restaurants:

• prefer to order 4 small portions of different dishes than one thing
• they usually go to a restaurant for lunch.
• 55% prefer public tables in restaurants where different groups of guests sit.
• 68% will seek out information from their friends before choosing a restaurant.
• 87% will order good and expensive food even if they have a lack of money.
• 40% order something else from the menu every time they visit a restaurant.
• They prefer fresh, less processed foods.
• 80% want to learn more about how food is grown.
• They view food as entertainment and self-expression.

According to these statistics, in order to interest a new target audience, it is necessary to adapt the restaurant menu for everyone who adheres to a healthy lifestyle, but at the same time make prices for healthy dishes affordable. As a restaurant owner, you must understand that this is a new challenge for modern society, but in a highly competitive environment, you need to meet all the requirements and wishes of your future guests.

What do you order most often in a restaurant?

Millennials prefer to call themselves “foodies” – people who take a great interest in what they eat and drink and love to explore new foods and drinks. What might get their attention?

The combination of traditional dishes, as well as non-traditional side dishes and sauces:

• Leafy salads with an even greater variety of dressings and sauces.
• Dishes prepared exclusively from raw seasonal fruits and vegetables of local origin.
• Chicken dishes are still very popular.
• Homemade lemonades, tinctures and author's smoothies from fresh fruits and vegetables.

Size matters! Offer small, medium and large portions

Thus, guests can order more dishes in small portions and try everything. By giving your diners the choice of small portions, you give them what they want - pairing dishes with each other, experimenting with new flavors and enjoying the thrill of discovering new flavors.

Be sure to encourage them to take pictures in your restaurant! Any photos of satisfied visitors that they will post on Instagram and Facebook are your free advertising. Hold regular photo contests, and the winners with the most likes will receive a free dinner. This is a great marketing ploy that meets the needs of a new generation.

Another very useful feature of millennials for the restaurant business is the desire to always try something new, unusual and discover new places. This is a great opportunity for small establishments to show what they can do.

Waiters with tablets instead of a paper menu will not only speed up the work of the entire institution as a whole, but they will also be adequately appreciated by your guests - the speed and quality of service will be fully in line with modern trends. help you

It is very easy to attract the attention of a modern consumer - you need to offer him something that no one has offered. Secret cooking recipes, home cooking, homemade tinctures, freshly brewed caramel beer, etc. - all these are new sensations that people will definitely want to experience on their taste buds.

Restaurant promotion on Instagram

Instagram is an integral part of the ritual of visiting restaurants. Pay special attention to serving dishes, and then photos of your visitors will scatter on the Internet, collecting likes from their friends, who will definitely be interested in your exclusive offer. Do not forget that you should always have wifi working and your restaurant page on the Internet should contain up-to-date information. About 32% of visitors always check the menu of a restaurant on the site before they come, and believe me, they will be very unpleasantly surprised if you have not updated the price list on the site for two years.

Millennials prefer restaurants with lots of tables where there are customers. This behavior is caused by the need to compensate for a lifestyle where most of the time you are alone with a work computer, and going to a restaurant is a social event. The interior should be as simple as possible, and the chairs should be adapted for a long and comfortable stay in the restaurant.

The trust of visitors is the basis for the success of the restaurant

Treat your employees with respect. Demonstrating a respectful attitude towards subordinates is the key to a good reputation, and the trust of your customers. If your visitors see that you care about the comfort of your employees, then they will know that due attention will be paid to them.

Technology is at every turn, and we are increasingly dependent on it in our daily lives. 70% of restaurant visitors have free Wi-Fi, a very important aspect when choosing an institution. The more modern technologies you use in your restaurant, the better. Waiters with tablets instead of a paper menu will not only speed up the work of the entire institution as a whole, but they will also be adequately appreciated by your guests - the speed and quality of service will be fully in line with modern trends.

19.07.2009 23:54

For a long time I worked as a confectioner and a pastry chef, and then as a manager in a network of coffee shops of an all-Russian scale. Today I own a coffee shop located in a small (25 thousand square meters) shopping center. When the institution first opened, it was not yet operating at full capacity (about 15% of the area was occupied), so there were few visitors. In addition, there is a strong competitor in the neighborhood - a huge operating shopping and entertainment complex.

At first, no more than ten people a day came to our cafe, the monthly revenue was about 150 thousand rubles. We puzzled over how to attract customers, tried a variety of ways, many of which did not give any result. Departments in the shopping center, which were created simultaneously with ours, began to close after some time. In the end, we managed to increase attendance to 50-60 people a day, and the monthly turnover - up to 500 thousand rubles.

I’ll tell you which marketing measures turned out to be a waste of money, and which ones made sense (see also: What factors influence the attendance of the institution).

Ineffective measures

Advertising on city radio. We paid for the rotation of a commercial on the Hit FM radio station, which broadcasts to Nizhny Novgorod. Moreover, we sponsored various games on the radio, as a prize giving out a certificate (1500 rubles) to visit a cafe. About 40 thousand rubles were spent on the campaign, but the effect turned out to be zero.

Advertising in magazines. We started with a full-page ad in You and Your Child magazine. They also published my article about what desserts can be given to young children and how store cakes can harm a child. Although the magazine is actively distributed in antenatal clinics, kindergartens and children's goods stores, these publications did not affect attendance, and 20 thousand rubles. were wasted. Then I wrote two articles for the Nizhny Novgorod magazine Love, Family, Home. The first is about what a wedding cake should be like (not just how it looks, but how to cut it beautifully, etc.), the second is about what desserts are appropriate at a wedding. The return was very weak: the magazine has a lot of advertising for similar services, and it is very difficult to stand out even with expert material.

Using the internal broadcasting of the shopping complex. Placement of advertising did not cost us anything, it took about 3 thousand rubles to create videos. I explain the absolute inefficiency of this measure by the fact that it is very noisy in the shopping center and visitors do not listen to advertising.

Advertising on receipts for rent. Not far from our shopping center is a new microdistrict "Bear Valley"; there are many young families with children. It seemed to me that a coffee shop with desserts, where they do not smoke or sell alcohol, should have no end to such customers. I arranged with the local HOA to print ads on the back of rent receipts. The costs amounted to about 10 thousand rubles. (HOA considers them as advertising revenue). However, I did not take into account that in the microdistrict the apartments were received mainly by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. When a local visitor approached the window with a child and saw the price tag “150 rubles”, you could often hear something like “What are you doing! It's a bottle of vodka!

Effective measures

Fortunately, most of the methods we have tried have worked. Moreover, many of them turned out to be even less expensive than those that did not live up to our expectations. Here are some steps that helped attract customers and increase revenue.

Business lunches. At first glance, it is unprofitable for a coffee shop to feed guests with lunch for 180 rubles. - at best, we just compensated for the costs. Therefore, we tried to sell the client something other than a business lunch. Unfortunately, only one or two people out of ten made an additional order. With a full load of the institution for a month, the margin from this service was about 50 thousand rubles. However, despite the economic inefficiency of the idea, we were able to attract the target audience. Daytime visitors, accustomed to the institution, began to come in the evening - to drink coffee and eat dessert. Some time later, we abandoned the business lunch, but left inexpensive hot dishes on the menu. There was no churn of visitors.

Breakfasts. We offered three breakfast options - from light to very dense - costing from 99 to 399 rubles. Usually, the guest has more time for breakfast than for lunch, and almost always he takes more tea or coffee, not limited to the drink that is included in the price. Breakfasts attracted new customers and taught the staff to be in good shape from the very morning.

Tastings at the mall. This method works only if you can buy something that is offered to try somewhere nearby. We set the table in the shopping center and treated everyone to a cake and a drink, inviting them to look into the coffee shop. On average, five people out of 50 came in - some just looked, others ordered something. The cost of one tasting is about 3 thousand rubles. Later, we began to hand out flyers with special offers and short-term discounts on certain goods. In this case, the result was better: about half of those who received the coupon came to the cafe.

Inexpensive branded product. We are the only ones in Nizhny Novgorod who make handmade sweets. Although the labor costs are high (I cook caramel myself), they are justified. We place a showcase with sweets in the shape of a cockerel, a gun or a heart at the entrance to the cafe, and it works like a magnet for customers. At the cost of candy about 2 rubles. we sell them for 50 rubles. And we give candy to the holders of the permanent guest card, regardless of the amount of the order. By the way, visitors who have collected checks of our institution in the amount of 5000 rubles receive a permanent guest card, this card entitles you to a 10% discount.

Permission to bring your own alcohol. We do not sell alcohol, but we allow visitors to bring their own, paying 200 rubles per bottle. “for the cork” (in other establishments, this service is called the rental of glasses). This is beneficial for customers: for example, a bottle of popular rum in a store costs 900 rubles, and in another institution they will ask for at least 3 thousand rubles.

Servicing guests of a nearby hotel. The hotel does not have its own dining room, so we agreed to install our own advertising with a menu and flyers for a discount there in the lobby. The hotel guests really began to come to us.

Cooperation with neighboring cafes and restaurants. We have established a free partnership with a restaurant that is located in the same shopping complex and sends their customers who are going to have a banquet to us for cakes to order (their chef does not prepare desserts). We offered the partner establishment 10% of the amount of each such order, but they refused: it is enough for them that their customers can receive a service from us that the restaurant does not provide. In this way we receive up to ten cake orders per month.

Free advertising on Channel One. On the air of federal channels there are regional advertising inserts. Our shopping center bought time for a commercial and gave us the opportunity to tell about ourselves completely free of charge. Especially for this occasion, we began to prepare a megalatte and a mega dessert weighing about 1 kg - a treat for the whole company. Guests who saw our ads started asking about these special offers from the doorway.

Banner on the fence. We printed a colorful banner with the call "Try it!" and a bright photograph of the dessert (the cost of a banner is about 500 rubles per 1 sq. m) and hung it on a fence near the shopping center. And although it did not last long, the flow of customers in those days increased markedly.

Summer terrace. I calculated that placing a sign on the facade of the shopping center will cost us almost as much as building a summer veranda, on which we can also hang our sign for free. So we did. Moreover, we had to pay only for the veranda itself (180 thousand rubles plus the cost of equipment and a banner - only 300 thousand rubles), and the administration of the shopping center did not take money from us for permission to install it. The veranda with a beautiful sign has attracted many new visitors to us.

Practitioner tells

Anastasia Gutkevich Marketing Director of the coffee chain

Reference

Traveler’s Coffee LLC (Traveler’s Coffee)
Field of activity: restaurant business, coffee production
Territory: management company - in Novosibirsk, office - in Moscow, representative offices - in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg, dealers - in the Volga region, Siberia, Central Russia, Kazakhstan; coffee houses - in 37 cities of Russia, as well as in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine
Number of staff: 70 (in coffee shops - 400)
Number of coffee shops in the network: 70

If the coffee shop is in a good location, it will be visited by 200 people a day without much promotional effort. For establishments in sparsely populated areas, additional measures are needed to attract guests. Let me tell you what we do.

1. Map of the trading territory. We make a list of organizations (business centers, banks, beauty salons) that are within a ten-minute walk from the coffee shop, that is, places where customers can come to us from. Coffee house managers go around all these organizations, communicate with managers and employees, give them bonus cards and sometimes coupons with a deposit. In this way, not only individual customers are attracted, but also entire companies.

2. Flyers. Experience has shown that coupons for the second product for free are most effective (it doesn’t matter what exactly is offered - a cup of coffee or a dessert). The cost of these promotions (printing flyers, the work of promoters and sometimes a trainer) does not exceed 0.1% of the coffee house's revenue. The response when using such coupons is 2-7% (and in small towns, where such offers are still new, it reaches 70% - word of mouth is triggered).

3. Announcements in social networks. The offer must be exclusive - this acts like a magnet on our page subscribers. For example: “We have brought a rare coffee variety” or “Our Michelin-starred chef has created a new dessert.”

4. Tastings in shopping and business centers. We sample our soft drinks or coffee and distribute discount coupons or bonus cards. This results in an influx of new customers. You can arrange a free tasting. The maximum payment to the management of the center is a package of coffee as a gift or a bonus card with a small deposit for one or two cups of coffee. The cost of tasting is less than 2 thousand rubles. If at the same time coffee or syrups are sold, then the event fully pays off.

5. Master classes. Employees of our coffee houses conduct master classes in latte art, alternative ways of brewing coffee, making desserts or sandwiches. We post the schedule of master classes on social networks, we take invitation cards to companies located nearby. The response to such invitations is up to 15%. In small towns not spoiled by such attention, managers hold such events every weekend.

6. Cross promotion. In some cities (for example, in Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk) we agree on a partnership program with a local cinema: with a cinema ticket, a guest can get a 5-10% discount from us, and with our bonus card - a discount on a movie ticket.

7. Flash mob "Take it with you." We are only planning this event, but we are counting on a good effect. We will attract 30-50 students to the action. They will walk through the city, take the subway, ride the tram, holding glasses, sandwich bags, cake boxes - all with our logo.

CEO speaking

Alexey Chukhlantsev Executive director of the management company

Reference

OOO Management Company RestProfi
Field of activity: confectionery production, restaurant business (chain of coffee houses "Pitkofe", author's establishments - cafe "Refined", confectionery house "Bushe H.O.", network of Italian cafes "Mama Pizza")
Number of staff: 700

In 2000-2003 I worked in a European level restaurant Fashioncafe. It was located in a sparsely populated area, and the main task was not just to increase the flow of visitors, but to attract those who are ready to order a full dinner or business lunch, not limited to a cup of coffee on the go.

One of the methods of attracting such customers were events: tastings, fashion shows, presentations. For example, they agreed with an expensive lingerie store to hold a show in a restaurant, and the restaurant notified its regular guests about the upcoming event (as a rule, they were invited by phone). Another example is the cognac tasting of a famous cognac house. On the one hand, such events helped to promote the relevant products, on the other hand, they gave the restaurant an additional reason to remind guests of themselves, invite them to try cognac or watch a show. On the days when the events were held, the institution was 100% full, in addition, the number of regular customers grew due to those who were invited to the events by our visitors.

2. Marketing

2.2. “Life is hard without a friend” or how to increase the influx of regular guests.

What is Platius?

Platius is a loyalty bonus system. What is the difference between a bonus system and a discount system? The main difference is that in the discount system we immediately give a direct discount, and in the bonus system, if our client pays 1000 rubles, then, for example, 100 rubles of them are credited to his personal bonus account. He can later use these bonuses in your restaurant.

Let's analyze the differences between these two systems:

1. The effect of encouragement, when we need to encourage a guest's return visit.

The first option: we have a 10% discount in one restaurant, and the second option - we have 600 rubles on our account in another restaurant, which we can spend on our favorite drinks. And here the "psychology of the creditor" begins to work, when the restaurant can be called our "debtor" and we want to get our money back, so we return to this restaurant to spend bonuses.

2. Financial efficiency.

In terms of financial efficiency, a 10% discount is the same as a 30% bonus, i.e. to accrue a bonus three times more profitable. Why is this happening? Because if a client dined for 1000 rubles and he has a 10% discount, this means that we literally gave the client 100 rubles. But if the bonus is 10%, then we gave him our own food for 100 rubles more. And since our food cost is on average 30%, we get such a difference from here. And in this respect, the bonus system for restaurateurs is much more profitable than the discount one.

What other tasks does the bonus system solve?

1) The Platius system allows you to work without plastic cards. All that a client needs to register in this system and start accumulating and spending bonuses is to enter a special promotional code on the check. To use the bonus system, no cards are needed, it is enough for a person to have a smartphone and the Internet at hand, and without these two things it is now difficult to imagine any restaurant visitor.

2) The Platius bonus system allows you to store up-to-date information about guests in a restaurant. Indeed, in order to register in the system and start accumulating their bonuses, the client will need to enter the correct phone number and receive an SMS confirmation of registration. We no longer need paper questionnaires and lists in excel, the database of our clients is stored in the system, which is constantly growing and the data is updated. Moreover, we see not only the name and phone number of the client, but also all the orders made by him, his preferences, any statistical data about the specific visits of each guest.

Such a system allows us to build our contact with the guest depending on the data that we have. We can wish our guests a happy birthday via SMS. We can make a targeted gift to the client in the form of services or dishes of our restaurant, in other words, to surprise a person and thereby increase the frequency of visiting guests.

3) A unique feature of Platius is the ability to play games between customers, assign different statuses to our guests, thereby involving them in constant contact with our restaurant.

4) We can selectively reward desired behavior. For example, we have large stocks of meat, we did not calculate the purchase. Then we announce a promotion that all guests who order steaks this week will receive an increased bonus. And we can send this information about the action to everyone who has ever ordered steaks from us.

To summarize: what should we do to motivate our regular guests to come more often?

We must know them. And the Platius loyalty system will make our friendship with customers permanent and strong due to three main features:

1)Storage of up-to-date information (phone numbers, preferences, previous orders)

The restaurant business is a lucrative business. However, it is difficult to stand out from competitors and achieve high income. There are about 3,000 restaurants in Moscow. How to increase restaurant attendance in a highly competitive environment?

In this article, you will learn how to increase income and increase restaurant traffic. Let’s take a look at how you can help beat the competition, attract new visitors, and keep the interest of regular guests.

Increasing the competitiveness of the restaurant: what determines attendance

A half-empty hall, an unfulfilled sales plan for the month and a low level of income are an unpleasant situation for a restaurant owner. At such moments, many begin to doubt the profitability of the restaurant business.

The increase in profits in a restaurant directly depends on its attendance. Even if the average check of your establishment is small, you can make a considerable profit due to the turnover. The main thing is that guests come to you, and not to competitors.

Making a restaurant profitable in a small town is quite simple, because the number of establishments is small. It is enough to rent a room with a favorable location and offer visitors a wide range of services. But in Moscow, this principle does not work. Everything matters, from the interior to the reputation of the restaurant. This list is very large, so we list the main factors of competitiveness:

• Wide range and high quality of dishes
• Effective advertising campaign
• Favorable location
• Fast service, friendly staff
• Pleasant interior
• A single original concept from the menu to the uniform of the waiters
• positive image

All these factors are interconnected and work only in combination. A typical mid-range restaurant will not line up, no matter how much advertising is spent. An interesting establishment located on the outskirts of the city will not attract guests from the center.

How to increase the number of visitors in a restaurant: practical tips

To develop a plan to improve the competitiveness of the restaurant, involve marketers who specialize in food service businesses. Professional help is available but expensive.

You can achieve an increase in profits in a restaurant on your own. Less funds will be invested, but you will have to personally analyze the results, evaluate the effectiveness of the measures taken, and adjust the institution's development program.

How to increase restaurant attendance: menu and service

Each of your guests can eat at home. Go to a restaurant not only for a hearty dinner. Its visit is an opportunity to have a good time and enjoy something original.

Engage visitors with your menu to stand out from your competitors. Be creative! Come up with something unusual, a signature dish from the chef, use original combinations of ingredients, experiment with sauces, spices, cooking methods and serving.

For example, make weeks of the cuisine of the peoples of the world. Many will find it tempting to try dishes from Mexico, Portugal, Brazil, Thailand or Morocco.

Expand your audience. Make an additional menu for vegetarians, add desserts for diabetics.

At the same time, do not forget about the speed of service. A long wait is negatively perceived by guests, next time they will choose another institution. There are two ways to reduce service time. The first is an increase in the number of staff. The second is the optimization of the restaurant operation system (trainings for employees, preliminary preparation of dish ingredients).

Remember that service depends on the human factor. Your employees should be friendly, know the menu well and have a neat appearance. The staff is the face of your establishment.

Conceptual solution of the restaurant

In Moscow, guests go where it is interesting. What is interesting in your restaurant? Consider what is the conceptual idea of ​​your establishment?

You can bet on fashionable healthy food, decorate the restaurant hall with a large number of living plants, use natural materials and light shades in decoration. The menu should contain only dishes prepared according to the rules of dietetics.

If the restaurant specializes in national cuisine, use traditional motifs of the country in decoration, order a uniform in the style of national costumes for waiters. The concept is only limited by your imagination.

Restaurant image: how to influence public opinion

The image has a strong influence on the increase in restaurant traffic .. The whole difficulty is that reputation cannot be bought, developed, it is made up of the opinions of visitors. Your status in the catering market will also depend on how they assessed the institution, what they told their friends.

At its core, the image is a collection of impressions of guests. Someone's opinion may differ for the worse or better, but as practice shows, in the minds of the target audience familiar with the brand, the image of this or that institution is approximately the same.

The only way to improve the image and increase attendance is to competently build the work of the restaurant: prepare high-quality dishes, improve service, decorate the establishment beautifully and keep it clean. In other words, do everything to make every guest happy.