Making Your Restaurant Business Grow and Survive beyond The Stagnation Plateau

If you own a restaurant and you wish to expand it, there are two ways to go about it. Either you can do it the conventional way, with much money or you can do it smart and sleek way, that does not involve many expenses.

The smart and sleek way always works better, as far as we have seen. After all, it involves one of the strongest marketing channels – social media marketing. That is where you harness the power of social networking and social media and convert it into real cash, real fast.

We need a new channel for marketing

Social media marketing is highly effective for any restaurant. You may want to open a high-end gourmet place or a simple food joint for college goers, reaching out to the right audience is something that social media gives you, for free! When you are on the right track, it is not difficult to turn your local audience into fans and fans into customers. Customer loyalty is again something that you can work on using social media channels. You can even seek advice from reputed restaurant consultants via social networking platforms.

Social networking sites give you and your new brand fantastic exposure to new markets. You can reach out to your target audience by using the right keywords, hashtags, and images. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the new business hubs, which are taking over mainstream marketing. According to a recent poll, over 40% of modern marketers rely on social networking sites like LinkedIn to conduct marketing rather than invest in mainstream media. Don’t believe us? Think, when was the last time you actually picked up the phone after seeing an ad on the TV or listening to a jingle on the radio?

Why is social media not infallible?

Social media marketing comes with many challenges. Your competitors are already on almost all of the networking sites with their secure market and audience. You need to carve your niche amidst all the competition that is already there. That is why you need to be incredibly innovative. Sadly, about 60% of all restaurants fail within a year of opening in NYC. Only about 5% of the initial ones run successfully even after four years of the inauguration. Opening a new place is not tough. Keeping it open is. Therefore, you need to improvise on the old school marketing methods and innovate your own techniques to find out what your audience really wants.

Marketing gimmicks may seem like a good idea right now. Especially when you will see people flocking in to buy something you are offering a 70% rebate on or a secret sauce you are using for your barbeque chicken. However, that craze is temporary, and you need to understand that. You may need to take an out-of-the box approach, far away from what a Burger King is doing right now. You need loyal customers who will stick around for years to come and who will come to dine with you, at least once a month.

We require further innovation

Innovation is different from gimmicks. It is a blend of convenience and customer satisfaction, which brings in more business in a steady flow. Innovation may need a bit of investment and hard work. However, these methods will be there to stay.

Technology

Technology can include e-menus, online ordering facilities, online payment services, inventory updates, cloud storage and connectivity to update the menu in real time. Restaurant technology like EPOS has been around for a couple of years, and its demand is steadily increasing. It shows what people really want. People want convenience. If they want to see what the food will look like, they can directly view saved images in the e-menu board. If they want to see a calculation of their taxes, they should be able to see that via the EPOS system. It not only helps restaurants run much smoother, but it also cuts down labour costs tremendously.

Analytics

It is something most owners do not think about while starting the business. Restaurant analytics is an essential ingredient of the measure of success. If you want to know how much you are making right now, can you simply ask for the numbers from your accountant? Won’t it take quite a bit of paperwork, paper hunting, and calculations to find out how much your restaurant is exactly profiting right now? Well, not with an electronic storage and analytics system. You can simply send a query, and you will receive the exact amount to the cents. Cloud storage integration with the EPOS provides this huge advantage for most restaurant operators and managers. You do not need to hire costly analysts and accountants once you have the EPOS in place.

Staff training

Staff training used to be a huge fuss back in the day. Most of the waiters we see today are either interning students or laid off IT guys, who had no other job offers in hand. Waiting actually takes wit, talent, and training. Moreover, training people without a background in the restaurant business is almost impossible, especially if you are trying to run a high-end place. The maître d needs specialised training too since he is the one to coordinate between the customers, usher, bus boys, chefs and the owner. Well, with the new technology at hand, you can easily pull off successful dinners and lunches even on the weekends with rookie staff. The digital menu boards can display the tasting notes available to help the employees, and you can use wine boards that can easily tell them which one is best suited with steak and which one goes with pasta.

The high turnover rates in restaurants have become quite notorious in NYC and other central cities. If you are facing such a problem, do not run for the hills. Simply go for a smart EPOS system that can fill in for the talent and can actively guide your staff towards completing a service successfully. It is a real innovation. It not only helps your business to draw more customers, but it also helps in retaining those who have been with you for months.