How Do You Attract Out Of Town Diners To Your Restaurant?
Of course, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s also not quite as tricky as capturing the interest of diners who aren’t in your immediate area, especially if you’re an independent restaurant with only a single or small number of outlets. Out-of-town customers can be an enormous source of income for your restaurant – but first you must get on their radar, and then persuade them that they should spend their hard-earned-cash with you when they have an entire town’s worth of restaurants to take their pick from.
Whether they’re tourists or just passing through, there are many ways in which you can actively attract out-of-town diners through your online marketing. We share our top tried-and-tested tips below, along with examples of local restaurants and eateries that have made themselves go global.
Get your social media presence up to scratch
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a brand new restaurant, or you’ve been established for years – you simply can’t afford to ignore the power of social media. The major platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all free to join and use (with the option to pay to further increase your reach) and you’ll instantly have the potential to reach people the world over, who may just find themselves in your area one day.
Due to its visual nature, Instagram is the perfect social media platform for restaurants and many restaurants are enjoying enormous success by uploading good quality images and videos of their most unique and jaw-dropping dishes, desserts and drinks that food lovers just can’t ignore, and will want to travel to try out (and photograph) for themselves.
Be sure to always add a few carefully-chosen and relevant hashtags (including your city or town) to your image, as well as your Geotag so that potential customers know where to find you, and your mouth-watering food snaps could soon become the story of your success. Foodies love to share or tag their friends in images of sumptuous restaurant dishes with comments like “Let’s go here!” – and even if they aren’t local to you, they just might make a special visit one day, or tell someone else to when they’re nearby.
Pay attention to your presence on review sites
Love them or hate them, travel review sites such as TripAdvisor aren’t going anywhere and when it comes to attracting non-local customers to your restaurant, they’re absolutely invaluable. With an average of 390million unique visitors per month, TripAdvisor is where restaurant-seekers are most likely to look first to discover where to dine in a new city, and they will undoubtedly be influenced by what they read about your restaurant.
If you haven’t already, you should claim your restaurant’s listing on TripAdvisor to make sure that all of the information about your establishment is correct and also upload recent photographs and additional details that may capture their interest. When people leave reviews of your restaurant, thank them for positive feedback and politely and calmly address any negative points that they may have to share – remember your reviews can be seen by people the world over, and this is your chance to create a good impression on diners before they even step through your door! For more pointers, take a look at our article on how to deal with bad restaurant reviews – because they don’t always have to mean bad news.
Offer online ordering and delivery
Here on the Lockhart blog, we’ve previously discussed how services like Deliveroo are heralding a new era in food delivery. These premium food delivery services along with other major online food ordering companies could help you to tap into the out-of-town diner market, as hungry and tired business travellers and tourists reach for their phones to find tonight’s dinner, rather than heading out into an unfamiliar location.
Offering online food ordering or delivery will require additional pairs of hands in the kitchen to fulfil the extra orders, so you may wish to ‘dip your toes in’ at first and only offer the service on certain days or at set times to gauge whether or not it will be a success.
Do you have any more tips to share with us on how to attract out-of-town diners to spend their hard-earned cash with you? What has worked for your restaurant, and what will you try next? Leave us a comment below or tweet us @BunzlLockhart with your thoughts.
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