5 F&B Sales Growth Tactics

It’s no secret that the restaurant industry is highly competitive. So competitive, that most restaurants balance on a razor thin edge between profits and losses. As a restaurant owner or operator, you are constantly keeping an eye on expenses while looking for ways to increase traffic. This blog will explore some overlooked, underestimated and underutilized restaurant marketing tactics for driving more traffic and increasing revenues for your restaurant. We’ve all heard the adage “you have to spend money to make money”, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend substantially to earn substantially. These tactics are low cost and if you can execute successfully, can create significant growth in your revenues.

But first let’s quickly cover the basics – the 4Ps of marketing.

Before considering any food and beverage strategy you need to consider the 4Ps of marketing. Each of the tactics addressed within this blog relate back to the 4Ps; Price, Product, Place and Promotion. We must always consider the price and what our product offering is, where and how we are selling the product (place) and how are we communicating this to our customers (promotion). What this comes down to is ensuring you are offering the right product and price in the right market, while also delivering it in the right market with the right communication method to your demographic. In the future, as you develop your own unique tactics, remember and think through the 4Ps of marketing to help improve your chances of success.
 

Tactic #1 - Stop Discounting

Discounting your food and beverage products essentially says “we don’t deserve full price”. Consider this, one of the most common places to find food discounts is the supermarket, items close to expiration often come with a 25% – 50% discount. As a result, discounts often result in the perception of reduced quality in the mind of your customers. Furthermore, a discount may help to drive sales for a limited time, but it does not build customer loyalty. It will become more difficult to achieve similar revenues when the item returns to full price. Your customers may shift to another discounted item, or worse, another restaurant altogether.

What should you do? Eliminate percentage-off discounts. Instead offer certificates or a dollar amount off. A minimum spend as an example; “$5 off when you spend $20 or more”, is a great way to help increase the overall spend of each customer. Consider your menu price points when putting this tactic into place. The idea here is for customers to increase their average spend up to the next level of menu price points. Although this will reduce margins temporarily, it creates better perceived value for their visit without a reduction in quality coming to mind. This gives the customer a more positive feeling to their experience and hopefully begins to create the habit of looking at items at this price point first when they come in for future visits.

An added benefit of offering vouchers or certificates is your ability to better estimate the total cost of promotion. For example, 100 vouchers worth $20 each has a value of promotional value of $2000 – the cost of your promotion is concrete. A “percentage-off” discount does not offer the same concrete cost estimation and can lead to a serious amount of lost revenue if a table or two racks up a substantial food bill.
 

Tactic #2 – Bounce Backs

A “bounce back” is a message displayed at the bottom of your receipts and because every customer receives a receipt, you can use them receipts to help drive further business. You’ve likely noticed that many of your favorite franchises utilize bounce backs, this is obviously for a very good reason – it works! Large franchises continue to spend time and money on market research and focus groups to test various strategies to achieve future business and customer feedback. Leverage their research and use this tactic to your advantage. Your pro shop receipts should be used to encourage golfers to come inside after their round. Restaurant receipts should display an incentive to come back, or advertise for an upcoming event.

In my experience the following bounce backs have shown great results:

1.    “Show your golf receipt in the restaurant today and receive a free appetizer with entrée purchase.” – Better to get them inside for some food and beverages then nothing at all.
2.    “Bring this receipt back on Tuesday and receive $20 off your order. Minimum spend applies.” – Find the values and day(s) here that work best for you, better to reduce you margins and have traffic then keep them the same and have an empty restaurant.
3.    “REGISTER NOW: Mother’s Day is fast approaching, register before the early bird deadline and your mom eats free.” – Earlier reservations offer more flexibility, if you have enough demand add an extra seating. More accurate understanding of staffing and food requirements on this day to minimize excessive use of either and ensure maximization of your margins.
4.    “COME JOIN US. The second Friday of every month is our Nine & Dine special featuring live music on the patio. Register before the first Friday of the month and your name will be entered into a draw to win your meal free!” – Early registration allows for better planning on COGs and labor, raffling a meal off can create additional excitement especially if it is a fairly consistent group each time.
 

Tactic #3 – Sampling

If you have good food you should show it off! Your golf customers may not know how good your food is, eliminate the “I didn’t know they did that” by offering free samples of your fantastic food. Pick a few of your top selling items and offer samples at the turn to encourage golfers to come inside after their round.
 
Presentation is key when offering samples – don’t just cut your burger into pieces, create a slider version of the burger. Pizza a top seller at your location? Try focaccia pizza sticks with garlic dip. Whatever you signature items are find a way to scale them down to individual serving sizes that showcase your quality and flavors.

Tactic #4 – Host “Open House” Events

Hosting an event at your restaurant is a great way to garner local attention to your club and can help encourage members to think of you as an option every day.  One such event I utilized was to put together an “Open House” for Members, allowing them to come and sample new menu items or get introduced to items on the menu that can be a point of introduction and trial.   Get the environment fun and lively by adding music, putting contests, drink specials, etc. This tactic has some big advantages. Events of this nature act as a vehicle for your members to come and create new relationships at the club.  Relationships, or the lack of social relationships at the club, is one of the primary drivers of member attrition.   If you happen to need new members, these “Open House” events can also be a great referral event, allowing members the chance to bring their friends and family to the club to try out the food and fun atmosphere.

Tactic #5 – Birthday Programs

Who loves a free meal on their birthday? EVERYONE. Who eats alone on their birthday? HOPEFULLY NO ONE. A birthday program can help bring in additional customers you likely wouldn’t have had otherwise. Birthday programs have the added benefit of being an excellent opportunity for data capture. In today’s market, companies charge big money for marketing lists that have been over saturated by various industries. This is the beginning of your own, personalized, opt in, marketing database. Don’t allow birthday guests to just show-up and receive a free meal, require that they sign-up for the program. Once guests have signed up, you can send more direct email marketing campaigns, surveys and of course that free birthday meal voucher each year.

These restaurant marketing tactics, or a combination of a few of them, can help you grow your club’s restaurant business. Don’t just jump into all at once  though, implement one at a time, monitor the success, and work your way forward from there. The Total e Integrated team is available if you’d like to investigate any of these tactics further or to discuss how to setup these strategies within your Total e Integrated environment.

In addition to the tactics outlined above, we can help with topics like: promotions and pricing, F&B event planning, F&B CRM and direct email marketing, menu planning and layout structure, and so much more.
 

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About Total e Integrated

Total e Integrated is a leading provider of end-to-end business management solutions for recreation, retail, hospitality and community organizations. For over 20 years Total e Integrated has helped organizations to integrate departments, automate marketing, streamline operations and boost revenues with our innovative solutions and expert consulting services team.

Lance Merrihew
707-779-2592

Lance@totaleintegrated.com

www.totaleintegrated.com