Integrating a gallery like this is an excellent way to increase e-commerce traffic from Instagram and simplifies the purchasing process for shoppers. So if Instagram is your bread and butter, this is a technique to experiment with. If you run your store on Shopify, Shop Instagram & UGC is the perfect plugin to use. Jul 25, 2020 Rank Videos on YouTube to Increase Traffic to your website It’s time to add video marketing to your content strategy. According to a report by Cisco, the video will account for 82% of traffic by 2022. Start implementing video marketing into your strategy as soon as possible because this is the content people are clicking on. Optimize Your Best Traffic Source. If you’ve come this far, you’ve read about 99 ways to increase your traffic. Chances are, not all of these ways are going to work. In fact, I’d say most of them won’t work for you. Instead of trying to get EVERYTHING to work, focus on the things that do work and do more of them.
- Ways to Increase Traffic. There are a lot of ways to increase traffic to a website, and they can be either paid or free. Here are some examples.
- 10 Tips To Increase Your Website Traffic In 2020. Every extra layer of detail, reviews and images added increase your chances of showing on map and google search.
Ask a marketer or business owner what they’d like most in the world, and they’ll probably tell you “more customers.” What often comes after customers on a business’ wish list? More traffic to their site. There are many ways you can increase traffic on your website, and in today’s post, we’re going to look at 25 of them, including several ways to boost site traffic for FREE.
1. Advertise
This one is so obvious, we’re going to look at it first. Paid search, social media advertising and display advertising (try our Smart Ads Creator!) are all excellent ways of attracting visitors, building your brand and getting your site in front of people. Adjust your paid strategies to suit your goals – do you just want more traffic, or are you looking to increase conversions, too? Each paid channel has its pros and cons, so think carefully about your objectives before you reach for your credit card.
If you’re hoping that more traffic to your site will also result in more sales, you’ll need to target high commercial intent keywords as part of your paid search strategies. Yes, competition for these search terms can be fierce (and expensive), but the payoffs can be worth it.
2. Get Social
It’s not enough to produce great content and hope that people find it – you have to be proactive. One of the best ways to increase traffic to your website is to use social media channels to promote your content. Twitter is ideal for short, snappy (and tempting) links, whereas Google+ promotion can help your site show up in personalized search results and seems especially effective in B2B niches. If you’re a B2C product company, you might find great traction with image-heavy social sites like Pinterest and Instagram. Here's more advice on making the most of social media marketing.
Image via Pascale Communications
3. Mix It Up
There is no magic formula for content marketing success, despite what some would have you believe. For this reason, vary the length and format of your content to make it as appealing as possible to different kinds of readers. Intersperse shorter, news-based blog posts with long-form content as well as video, infographics and>
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— WordStream (@WordStream) July 29, 201421. Submit Your Content to Aggregator Sites
Firstly, a disclaimer – don’t spam Reddit and other similar sites hoping to “hit the jackpot” of referral traffic, because it’s not going to happen. Members of communities like Reddit are extraordinarily savvy to spam disguised as legitimate links, but every now and again, it doesn’t hurt to submit links that these audiences will find genuinely useful. Choose a relevant subreddit, submit your content, then watch the traffic pour in.
22. Incorporate Video into Your Content Strategy
Text-based content is all well and good, but video can be a valuable asset in both attracting new visitors and making your site more engaging. Data shows that information retention is significantly higher for visual material than it is for text, meaning that video marketing is an excellent way to grab – and hold – your audience’s attention, and boost traffic to your website at the same time.
23. Research the Competition
If you haven’t used software like BuzzSumo to check out what your competitors are up to, you’re at a huge disadvantage. These services aggregate the social performance of specific sites and content to provide you with an at-a-glance view of what topics are resonating with readers and, most importantly, making the rounds on social media. Find out what people are reading (and talking about), and emulate that kind of content to bring traffic to your website.
24. Host Webinars
People love to learn, and webinars are an excellent way to impart your wisdom to your eagerly waiting audience. Combined with an effective social promotion campaign, webinars are a great way to increase traffic to your website. Send out an email a week or so ahead of time, as well as a “last chance to register” reminder the day before the webinar. Make sure to archive the presentation for later viewing, and promote your webinars widely through social media. If you're wondering how to do a webinar, click the link for some tips.
25. Attend Conferences
Whatever industry you’re in, chances are there are at least one or two major conventions and conferences that are relevant to your business. Attending these events is a good idea – speaking at them is even better. Even a halfway decent speaking engagement is an excellent way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and gain significant exposure for your site.
Well, that just about does it for today’s post. If you’ve got your own tips for increasing traffic to your website, I’d love to hear them.
In this episode, we discuss some of the ways that successful Restaurants are increasing the number of customers that walk into your Restaurant.
If you have a restaurant with a lot of passing traffic, you won’t want to miss this podcast. What is the best way to construct a happy hour offer, what role does your menu play in increasing walk ins and what are some of the mistakes that Restaurants are making with their walk ins.
How can you minimise the risk that potential customers face when thinking about coming into your Restaurant? What is the role of smells in attracting customers and how can you use that to increase customers?
Nothing attracts a queue like a queue, so what can you do to attract a queue.
We also discuss some great ways for getting feedback on why people aren’t coming into your Restaurant.
We also look at location as a part of your business plan and how that can impact your marketing plan for walk ins.
James Eling: Hey, it’s James from Marketing4Restaurants and welcome to episode 17 of Secret Sauce, the restaurant marketing podcast. How to increase walk in traffic for your restaurant.
James: Restaurant walk-in. People who are walking down the street looking for somewhere to eat and come into your restaurant. We all love those kind of customers, so tonight we’re going to talk about ways that you can increase the number of people who are coming into your restaurant. And it’s one of those things that I find really interesting, because there’s a lot of restaurants who are actually doing a really bad job of it. And the interesting thing is, I don’t even think they know some of the mistakes that they’re making. So, before we get into the meat and potatoes of today’s topic, I want to talk a little bit about a restaurant autopsy.
Now, it’s not quite a dead restaurant but it’s a dead concept. I was talking to a restaurant owner and he’s been talking to us on and off for probably the last 12 months, doesn’t use any of our products yet but he’s been thinking about it. And he rings us up for advice every now and then. And he’s thinking about getting a website but the thing that he’s going to do first, so he has no website for his restaurant at all. So, he misses out all of the search traffic, he’s not appearing in Google Maps, he’s not appearing on mobile phones. And here’s an interesting little statistic which we might delve into a little bit deeper in a future episode, but over half the traffic for a restaurant website comes from Google. So, they are people who are out there looking and we know from the search terms that are used that a lot of the time they’re looking for things like Indian restaurant/suburb, or gluten free restaurant.
So, they don’t actually know where they’re going, they’re looking for somewhere to go. This is a restaurant that misses out on all of that. He’s relying on trying to tell his message through a Facebook page, which is quite inactive. He doesn’t post very often there so it doesn’t look like there’s a lot going on there. There’s no real way to find out what the menu is, he’s not controlling any of the message that’s going out. And I said, “So, you know, what are you thinking about a website?” And he said, “Well, actually, what we’re going to do is we’re going to redo the concept for the whole restaurant. We’re going to come up with something completely new. I’ve gone to the bank and we’ve got a loan of credit for $200,000 and so we’re going to do that. And then we’re going to think about a website.” And I just thought that would have to be putting the cart before the horse. He hasn’t really even tried this concept because he hasn’t actually been marketing it properly. He’s been hoping that people are going to come along and I’ve spoken a few times about restaurant fit outs, I’m not a really big fan of spending a huge amount on fit out. Because it’s one of those things that you just don’t know whether you’re really going to get your return on investment.
So, $200,000, is it really going to change the number of people who come in? Possibly. But on the balance of probabilities, we’d probably have to say not. When he could have got a website for $1,000 and could have been getting, and the average restaurant website get north of 1,000 visits per month. And a large percentage of those convert. So, if he’s missing out on all of those people that are going looking for his cuisine, looking for a restaurant in his area, they’re going somewhere else. He’s been fighting with one hand behind his back and now he’s throwing in the towel. And he’s going to be spending all of this money, I mean, $200,000 is a lot to spend on a new concept and it’s partially the money. I think that that’s a huge amount of money, he’s going to be further in debt with the bank but the other component of that is that he’s going to be taking his eye off the ball. And I think restaurant owners sometimes do this because that’s the fun part, you know, “Let’s come up with a new concept. Let’s come up with a new menu.” That’s fun and exciting, but realistically do you want to be spending $200,000 to go through that process? I would have thought probably not.
Maybe get the restaurant going firing on all cylinders, and open a second restaurant with a different concept. You know, there’s an idea that might work out quite well. But, yeah, so, very sad. Not a dead restaurant at the moment, but a dead concept and it’s going to cost the restaurant owner $200,000. One of those things to really have a think about are you giving your marketing plan every chance of success? Now, restaurant walk ins. Okay, so, for that what we’re thinking about is the restaurant that is typically within a group of restaurants and people, that group of restaurants can be so popular that it becomes a destination. And so, in Melbourne I’m thinking somewhere like Lygon street. Whenever we go to Lygon street I will say, “Let’s go to Lygon street,” we don’t actually have a restaurant in mind. We decide to go to Lygon street, park the car, you get out, and you wander up and down and you’re going to look for somewhere to eat. This is when it’s a really fierce battle to get people into your restaurant to be able to sell them some food. So, you really want to be thinking about a lot of the things.
Now, obviously, you need to have traffic going by. So, if you don’t have a lot of traffic going by, you’re really going to struggle with walk ins. And I know restaurant owners who say, you know, “We really struggle with walk ins,” and that’s because you’re down a dark alley, that’s connected to another dark alley, that’s connected to a place that no one goes to. You’re never going to get walk in traffic there. You need to have a significant amount of traffic in the first place. You also need to acknowledge that walk in traffic is a part of your market plan. I see a lot of restaurants now trying to do this hidden thing, you know, the hidden door thing where there’s no sign. It’s just a door, you know, it might be almost a secret door which, you know, you kind of have to know. There might be a secret knock or something like that. You’re never going to attract passing traffic there, and I always find that this is one of those holy grails where you can be that secret restaurant that no one knows about, apart from the people who go there.
There’s one really fundamental part of that marketing plan – people need to know about it. You’re not going to attract walk in traffic. People aren’t going to go searching for a restaurant that they’ve never heard of. So, you really need to be working doubly hard with the marketing to create that chic kind of idea that, you know, people want to go to this place because it’s hidden and secret. It’s a tough marketing gig to get. And I always find it a little bit interesting when, you know, you go to one of these places and there’s only, you know, 6 or 10 people in there in a restaurant that’s going to seat, you know, 50 or 60 people. It’s like, yes, this is a really, really well-kept secret. No one knows about it. So, you’re on a strip of restaurants and what are the kind of things that you can do to increase your customer numbers.
The first and foremost thing that I think is that you need to understand that, in an environment like that, the first customer is always the hardest to get. You want to get that first customer in because they’re the ones who provide that social validation. I was with a friend once and we went out for brekky and she said, “You know, I’ve heard some things about this place. It’s meant to be pretty good.” We walked in and we almost walked all the way to the back of the restaurant and she said, “No, there’s no enough people here. We’re going to go next door.” And it was like wow, you know, I would never be that bold. But she was really looking for that, I think that once you’ve walked into a place, you know, you’re pretty much committed and they have to do something fairly terrible for you to say, “No, I’m not actually going to eat here.” But yeah, she wanted to see more people there to get that social validation that, it makes it feel that the locals know what’s going on here.
So, one of the most important things, and I think this is something that’s done really quite well in the United States and not very well in Australia is happy hour. In Australia, happy hour tends to be associated with alcohol, funny about that, but I think that there’s a lot to be said for non-alcohol related happy hours. So, some food that, you know, and it might be a special happy hour menu, might be a tasting menu. Something that is light and easy for the kitchen to cook, you know, as they’re, because they’re probably still doing prep for the main dinner sitting. But some things that they can get out pretty easily to get people in. And I always think that one of the important things is to start looking at the demographics that you have of people that are walking by. And I was talking to one restaurant owner and he started opening up early because he had people who were going home, people would start to leave, you know, sort of 4:30, 5:00. He was targeting those people to come in for a quick meal, something that was quick, cheap, very happy hour kind of meal. Easy for the kitchen to prepare.
And the important thing was that those people would be in and they’d be in for half an hour and then he had some people in the restaurant. And those people would get more people and by the time the full dinner city had started, he’s restaurant was half of three quarters full. And on some nights, he even had a bit of a queue forming up. That’s the perfect scenario that you really want to be in. And so, of course, you’re going to advertise that. And there’s two ways, I think, well, three. You’re A frame, I think A frames are really good because what they do is they stop people in their tracks. It gives them the opportunity too, as they’ve got their head down, as they’re walking along, “Wow, you know, 50 percent off a main meal,” or, you know, some sort of, you know, maybe a pie and pea and ham soup. You know, something, if it’s winter, something that’s obviously seasonal, something that’s going to appeal to people who are heading home.
Because they’re the people, you just want to interrupt them for half an hour rather than go home, particularly if they live alone. Rather than go home, here’s something quick and cost effective for you to come in and have a bit of a warm meal. That’s sort of makes sense. Of course, if you’ve got a great email database that’s another thing that you can do, you know. “Don’t forget to stop by for our happy hour meals, you know. Choose from one of these four meals between 4:30 and 6:00.” That’s the kind of thing that will drag people in. Obviously, bring them towards your quitter days. These offers, they’ve got to be the times when you’re not going to be busy. Because if you’re going to be busy you don’t want to be giving away any discounts. So, you’ve got you’re A frame there. Now, one of the first things that I think is really important when you’re trying to analyse how you appear with walk in traffic is go across the street and have a look at people walking by. What do they do? Look at everyone who walks by. How many people stop and notice your restaurant in any way, shape, or form?
And this is the importance of A frames or, you know, greeters. We’ll talk about greeters, you know, a sign flipper, whatever it is that you want to do to actually stop people. Because this is where you’re trying to sell and if people have just got their head down and they’re heading to the train station, that’s a very, very tough sell. They’re not even going to notice your restaurant. So, you really need to be doing something to break their pattern, to get them to think, “You know what, I am hungry. Yeah, this would be good.” So, how many people are stopping to notice it? How many people are looking in and what is it that they see? And this leads to one of my, one of the biggest mistakes that I see restaurant owners committing when they’re trying to get walk in traffic to come in, and that is not have the menu there.
So, the menu, it’s one of your main selling tools. And that’s you negotiating with your potential customer, you know, “This is what we have on offer, this is how much it’s going to cost. You should really come in because, you know, the description sounds pretty exciting. Too many people don’t have that there and they’re expecting people to come in without knowing what is on the menu. Now, we’ve got a couple of significant problems there. One, what is on the menu? Because unsure about the kind of food, you know, if it’s a pizza restaurant, even if it’s fairly obvious, “We’re a pizza restaurant.” What kind of pizzas? You know, do you offer gluten free? And, of course, we’re not answering the fundamental question, how much is it going to cost? You know, is it too much? Is it too little? How much are you going to charge me for this food? And I think it’s important to realize that most people try to avoid an argument, they try to avoid a socially awkward scene. And it is socially awkward to sit at a table, you know, your server comes out, they poor some water for you, they bring out the menu and you’re having a look at it. And then you’re thinking, “No, this is too expensive,” or, “This food sounds awful,” or, “They don’t have gluten free,” or there’s some other thing, there’s some other show stopper here that means that I know have to leave.
And a lot of people are embarrassed or want to avoid the situation where they’re going to get up and leave and say, “No, I’m not going to eat here.” And we do it very rarely and usually it’s something hugely glaring that will cause us to do that. So, the point of putting the menu there is A, to sell the concept of coming into the restaurant, but two, to provide some sort of assurity, to provide some certainty. “Yes, this is the right amount of money that I want to spend tonight. Yes, there is something on the menu that I want to eat.” Or, “Yes, these guys cater for kids.” Or, “Yes, there’s a gluten free option here that sound really good.” So, make sure that you’ve got your menu there.
Now, the next thing is what does the menu look like? I see some places where the menu was placed there, you know, around 1956 and, of course, it’s been raining ever since then and so, it’s bedraggled and looks awful and tatty. And that’s your menu, that’s your main selling point. And if that’s what it looks like then, you know, what does it look like in the kitchen? Probably pretty ordinary, as well. So, you want to make sure that, you know, your menu is well presented, all of your general, you know, menu engineering type things, you know. You’re going to be highlighting the items that are your signature items that you want people to order, that are ideally high profit margin. Because this is, you know, people will have a look there, “I know exactly what I’m going to have. I’m going to have this and I’m going to have this. And then, for dessert, I’m going to have that.” So, this is when they’re making their decisions. You want to start already shaping them towards the kind of decisions that you want to make now. That’s really important. So, can you go that one step further? And I know some people do an amazing job of creating a picture in the mind of their customers through the descriptions that they have.
For people who aren’t able to create that picture in their own head. You know, are the photos? Do you have, you know, a couple of items there that you can put a photo in the window? I think that that’s a really important component that you can have in there, as well. You know, some photos, if you’ve got signature items that are really exciting, you know, put them in the window. Tell people about it so that they can start getting a little bit excited about, “Yes, this is where I want to eat.” Now, as you’re watching people as they go by one of the things that I always think is really interesting, and this is a little bit confrontational. So, you need to be pretty confident about what you’re doing. One of the things that I like to do though, is to recommend that, you’re going to see people who look and you can see they’re thinking. They’re having a look at the menu, if they’re with someone they might be a little bit of a discussion. Then they keep on walking. And I think that there’s a really good opportunity to do some in depth market research. If someone comes into your restaurant it’s because your marketing works. In a lot of respects, it’s really important to find out what happens when your marketing doesn’t work. It’s very hard in an online sense, because people go to your website and then they leave.
This is a really good opportunity to say to someone, “Excuse me. I’m the owner of that restaurant. Do you might if I just ask you one really quick question? What was it that you, you know, made you continue walking? Why was it that you didn’t go in and have a meal with us? I’d just really, it’d really help us build our business.” And a lot of people, you know, they tend to be a little bit shocked when that comes out, but you’re asking for their help. And a lot of people are really happy to give that. “You know what, I looked at it and there was nothing on the menu that really, you know, took my eye.” Or, “I had a look at it and, to tell you the truth, you know, the place looks a bit grubby. I’m wondering why there’s no one in there.” So, the feedback that you’ll get, it’s like having a mystery shopper except for free. But it’s just for that very specific component of the actual walk in into the restaurant. So, really good opportunity. And it takes a bit of gumption to be able to do that, but I think that you could learn so much. And you only have to do it for half an hour. You’ll speak to 10 people who’ve had a good look and a lot of the time it might be, “You know what. I’m actually going home for dinner tonight. But this place looks really exciting. I think this is something that I would like to come back to.
So, yeah, I’m probably going to come back.” And they’re the kind of things and, you know, you may want to offer them some sort of coupon and say, “Thank you very much for your feedback. I really, really appreciate it. Here’s a coupon, you know, here’s a discount coupon. Next time you come back.” So, you can end up with a little bit of an attempt to close a future sale. But yeah, have a chat to the people who decide not to come in. Another thing that I think is really important is, you know, any testimonials that you’ve got. You know, from your regulars. Have you been written up in the local paper? Awards that you’ve won. And I reckon the best example of this was Jestine’s Kitchen in Charleston, South Carolina. I was walking by and this was, I had no preconceived idea about where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. It was just one of those things that I was just wondering around and I was looking for somewhere to eat. And so, I did want a Po’ Boy, and Po’ Boy was on the menu and I thought, “Yup, that’s exciting.” But, you know, a lot of places in South Carolina have got Po’ Boys.
So, that wasn’t the really important thing. The thing that swayed me was they were written up in a book ‘1001 Things to do Before You Die’. Now, I thought, “At the end of this meal there’ll be one less thing that I need to do before I die.” It was just, “You know what, wow. If it’s that good in here, if it’s this typical, you know, South Carolina kind of food,” which is what I was trying to get, “then this’ll be the place.” And yeah, so I went in and yeah, the meal was fantastic. Really good. And I was super excited about it. But it was that one thing, that was the thing that swayed me. There was a few places that had Po’ Boys. So, that wasn’t what was special about it. I think it was the Fried Oyster Po’ Boy, I’m just having a look at the menu now. And you know what, the sad thing about this is it’s bringing back all those memories and I could really go a Fried Oyster Po’ Boy right now. But we’re probably not going to, I’m going to struggle to get a Po’ Boy in Melbourne. So, just that one thing, that was the thing that tipped me across the line.
So, what are the testimonials? What are the awards that you’ve won? What are the things that you can do to put in the window to make it more appealing to people, to try and win people over? Greeters. I think greeters are a really important part of it, particularly if, I think one of the things is that you’ve got your staff there and it’s really quiet, and they’re all sitting there waiting for someone to come in. And so, people walking by and they’re seeing there’s three people, front of house, and they’re all standing around talking. That is not a good look. And I’m thinking, “What do they know about why this restaurant is bad, why there’s no one in here? There’s obviously some sort of secret. I don’t want to find out what the secret is of why this restaurant’s bad.” I’m just going to keep on talking and I’m going to go somewhere else. If you’ve got front of house staff who aren’t doing anything, get them out on the street, is there some sort of offer, you know, “Hello, can I answer any questions about the menu? I can give you both a glass of house red if you’d like. You know, would that help get things going for the evening?” What is it that, some sort of offer, get them out there to try and fill the place up.
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As I said, the first customers, they’re the hardest ones to get in. So, you want to work really hard to try and get those customers in. and then the big thing with the first customer is, you know, try and put them in the front of the restaurant so that people can see, “Look, there’s already someone in here.” Yes, it’s only 5:30 but, you know, at least there’s someone in there. And then it slowly starts to build and I find that restaurant owners say this time and time and time again, the first customer’s so hard to get but once you got someone in there, once they’re having a good time, once people can see them, “Wow, look at that schnitzel that they’ve got.” Or, “Look at that pie that they’ve got. Look at that steak, that steak looks amazing.” Then the rest of the people come in and then it can build to be quite a busy night.
How To Increase Traffic On Website (5 Proven Tips)
But you want to get that first customer in as early as possible. And I remember I went into one of our customers once and, you know, I introduced myself and they got really excited, you know. They took us all the way up to the back, and so there was only two people in the restaurant apart from us. We were in there pretty early. We had the kids with us, so we wanted to have an early feed. And she put us all the way up the back and I thought, “Wow, I would have put us, you know, at that table for four in the front so that, you know, there’s another table that’s full creating that dominant narrative that, hey, this restaurant is a really good place to eat.”
Another thing that I think you can work on it, really this one really depends on the layout of your kitchen in relationship with the restaurant. But the smell. Smell is a really, really important marketing tool. And I know, I was doing some reading a while ago and there was a baker tray and I know that, you know, bakeries, you know, smell is made for smelling bread. That’s why people bake bread in their house, you know, when they’re trying to sell their house because, “Yes, yes, I just feel so good now I can smell that bread. I’m really hungry.” It sort of gets people excited. And there was a bakery and they spent all of this money getting these large extraction fans so that all of the fumes would be vented out of the bakery.
And the problem was that they suffered a 10 percent decline in sales because they now no longer had that warm associated of that smell of freshly baked bread, that’s one of their greatest selling points and they were sending that right up the chimney. So, they actually stopped turning on their extraction system so that the place would once again fill up with that beautiful smell of fresh bread, and that would waft out the front. And you could see people, “What’s that? Yup, yeah, I do need some of that.” So, that’s something you want to be starting to think about. Now, one thing that follows on from smell but is in some respects a little bit even more powerful is tasters. So, someone standing out there, you know, identify one of the things that sort of sets you apart from all of your competition that ideally has that great smell.
But something that you can cook up, cut it up into a bite sized piece, and have someone with a plate out the front and just hand out little samples on a toothpick or something along those lines. I like this for a couple of reasons. The first thing is that you get the smell, you know, so we’ve already talked about smell, but the plates going to be there and people can see it. Secondly, people you get that taste and that taste is obviously your food is great, it’s fantastic and people are going to go, “Wow, that’s amazing. I do want to try your steak or your whatever it is, your hot dog, your po boy, whatever it is. It sounds exciting and I know that it tastes beautiful. I’d like to eat a whole one of those.” But the thing that I think makes tasters work so well is the fact that you’ve got the law of reciprocity.
So, I am now going to give you a taste. And even though you didn’t ask for that taste, I have just given you something for free. “Would you like to taste our rib eye steak?” I’ve taken that, I’ve eaten it. Wow, I now feel a little bit obligated to come in and try it, you’ve given me something, I should really do something in return. And I think that that’s one of those things that you should really be thinking about is that you’ve got that law of reciprocity which can make tasters being such a powerful tool to bring people in.
And I think one of the things that works really well, and I’ve seen this work in multiple places on the Gold Coast and a couple of places in San Francisco, is that you have someone, if you’re a little bit tucked away and so you’ve got the A frame with the big arrow there, you really need to be nailing a really exciting offer or a signature dish or something super exciting to get people to come down the alley way. You can have someone with the tasters there saying, “Would you like to taste our rib-eye steak?” “Wow, that’s beautiful.” “So, are you looking for somewhere for tonight to eat? Would you like to come in? It’s only $10.95, $14.95. I’ll throw in a couple of beers for you, as well.” And you can then direct them to where the restaurant is. If it’s 50 metres down they go, “Yup, no worries,” give them the coupon and they head on down their merry way. And you have just got someone who wouldn’t have walked by.
And I think that that’s a really important thing, because the thing that I like about that is, and people say, “But you think about, I’ve got someone out there, we’re giving away all of those samples.” Realistically, we all know that those don’t cost a whole lot. “But I’ve got someone there who I’m paying by the hour to hand those out.” Yes, but you know the fundamental part about this, and this comes back to your business plan is that you are driving walk by traffic to a restaurant that you pay a lease on that has not factored in walk in traffic. So, a lease for a restaurant that has a lot of walk-in traffic is going go to be a lot more expensive than one that has no walk-in traffic, because the landlord doesn’t think he can charge you for that.
So, if you can capture some of that walk-in traffic from a place that’s got no walk in, that’s the start of a really, really profitable business and I’ve seen that work in Queenstown. A hamburger joint that is very close to Fergburger and you can see the queues out the door at Fergburger. And they’ve sometimes got a 45-minute wait. There’s no problem, and this is one of the things that’s a great thing in getting walk ins is queues, nothing creates a queue like a queue. So, Fergburger, there’s this massive crowd of people, so people just, “I have to have one of these Fergburgers.” And this guy’s got a place that’s overlooking it and quite a lot bigger. He’s paying nowhere near the lease, because his place is upstairs looking down on Fergburger. But he’s not paying so much on the lease, that’s one of his biggest fixed costs. He doesn’t have to drive in anywhere near as many people into his restaurant to be profitable. So, the landlord can’t charge as much because he doesn’t have the walk-in traffic. So, he does a few things, signs. I’m not too sure how he does from a walk-in point of view, I know that we discovered him from his website.
And that’s the thing, if you’re not good on walk-in traffic then maybe it’s really important to be making sure that you’re doing a good job on Facebook, or your email marketing, or your website. So, but yes, tasters. Tasters are a great way, either of grabbing people who when you do have a lot of walk-in traffic, or directing them just a little bit further down the road to be able to get people in. The last thing would be just have a look at the overall look and feel of the place. Do you need to put a coat of paint on the restaurant? Do the curtains in the windows look really dingy? What is that, how do you present your restaurant? Because people will be projecting what they see at the front, they’re going to be projecting that into the kitchen. If it’s dirty, if it’s grubby, if no one looks like they’re paying any attention to it, that’s probably not a kitchen that I want to be eating out of. So, you want to make sure that the overall appearance of the restaurant looks quite nice. And, once again, ask people as they’re walking by, “What did you think of the appearance of the restaurant? How would you rate it?”
And you’d be surprised how honest people will be and how thoughtful they’ll be in their feedback, which I think is a great thing. And that’s why I’m a really big fan of getting that open, honest feedback. Once again, it’s something that I know very, very few restaurant owners do because it does take quite a bit of courage to stop people who are going to tell you why they don’t want to eat in your restaurant. It’s very easy to go up to the table where everyone’s laughing and saying, “Is the meal okay?” You know the meal’s okay. You know they’re having a cracking time. You know that they’re loving it. They’re not the people that you want to be getting the feedback from. You want to be getting the feedback from the people who said, “No, I’m not going to eat here.” So, hopefully you found a couple of nuggets in there that are going to be able to help you to increase your walk-in traffic. It really is a big part of your marketing plan for some restaurants. And, of course, once they’re in then get the feedback thing, the birthday club, all of those sort of things so that they’ve walked in once, make sure that they have a really, get them to like you on Facebook so that you can continue to market to them. All of those little tiny things that you can do to build your database.
Grab an email for them and I think that that’s the really, really important thing that you want to be doing. Trying to get an email off them whether it is the old fish bowl or you’ve got some sort of automated process. Whatever it is, that’s one thing that you want to think about because walk-ins can be hard to attract. Particularly if it’s winter and it’s pouring with rain, no one’s going to be coming in. You need other channels to be bringing the customers in. So, that’s it. Hopefully you found something useful in that. If you’ve got any other ways that I’ve missed out, please let me know. I’m always learning and this is the thing that I love about my job is I’m always talking to some amazingly smart restaurant marketers, and I just get so much inspiration and so much knowledge from them because they’ve got all of that experience. Yeah, what is it that I’ve missed? What’s your number one tip for increasing the number of walk-ins in your restaurant? Apart from that, I hope you have a busy night. Bye.
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