Your restaurant serves the best food in the city. Customers love your innovation, prices and the atmosphere you’ve created at your place.

But when Friday night comes around, your restaurant seems to miss the mark for a packed house. The bar is almost full, the dining rooms not there yet and that Thai place down the street still has a wait list!

For a few extra bucks and a tweak in your marketing plan, you can fill seats too. By utilising these 4 easy methods, you can attract new customers to your restaurant and spread the love of food to the community.

Take Advantage of Free Email Marketing

Yes, free. It’s not a gimmick nor do we get paid for promoting MailChimp. While email marketing may invoke feelings of spam or uselessness, your restaurant can benefit from this style of marketing.

Whenever you can collect an email address, go for it. Customers can sign up through your website, comment cards, etc. Get creative, make it funny… have them wanting to sign up for your updates.

When you have an email address, you can regularly send customers information on local tasting events, new menu items, promotions and personal birthday emails. By using a service like MailChimp, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month without a credit card.

Paid Facebook Ads

How do your Facebook posts do on average? Do you reach 50, maybe 200… 700 people per post? What if you could amplify those numbers for a small price? Here’s one of the easiest, cost efficient ways to attract more customers to your restaurant.

First, create an attractive Facebook post. You could pay a graphic designer or simply use Canva. They have hundreds of free layouts you can customise and gear towards your desired targets.

When your masterpiece is finished (good job Bob Ross), boost the post on Facebook. Through their platform you can input your budget, runtime, target audience (age, location, interests) and how the ad is shown.

The process is user-friendly (trust us, you can do it), excellent for promos and an effective way to attract new customers to your restaurant.

Become Your Best Neighbourhood Self

Take time to connect with your local network of businesses. Host neighbourhood-specific events, offer discount catering options for locals and throw in a free pint for those loyal locals who keep your business going on the slower days.

Get out there, introduce yourself. While restaurants are about serving good food, customers are looking for more value. Build a community around you restaurant, show customers their dollars are going to the right places.

Spice Up The Menu, With Veggies

Open up your restaurant to the vegetarian and vegan community. Roy Morgan Research estimated 2.1 million vegetarians in Australia as of 2016 with the highest densities in Sydney, Hobart, Melbourne and NSW.

Even carnivores want a plant-based meal ever so often! While you don’t have to make the full conversion, incorporating veggie friendly options into your menu is a good way to attract new customers to your restaurant.

No longer does restaurant marketing need to be expensive and difficult. As an owner, you want to bring in new faces while staying within a tight budget. We get that. With a few cost-efficient promotions and free marketing techniques, you can attract new customers to your restaurant in no time. Take to these 4 user-friendly methods and spread the love of good eats today!