Best Marketing Tactics for New Restaurants

Market research for your restaurant doesn’t end after your grand opening. You should be conducting market research every year to make sure your restaurant is still giving your customers what they want. You need to know their hopes, dreams, and … what they want to eat.

So that you really do know, you’ll need to conduct some market research. “Market research” is a broad term that covers many areas of analysis, and some involve more investment of time and resources than others. Let’s understand how to use market research for strengthen your restaurant.

How to Use Market Research for Restaurants

You should follow these three goals to keep in mind when you are conducting market research for your restaurant.

1. Improve your customer experience

Market research will give you the framework to tackle any “blind spots” in your customer experience. You can assume there will always room for improvement in this area: but do you know exactly how you can make your customers’ experience better? You can gather information as:

· Send a survey to your customer

· Include comment cards on your table

· Ask for feedback after their meal

· Read reviews on review sites

2. Remain on Trend

As a business owner, you need a complete understanding of how consumer preferences are changing. So whether your customer’s penchant for delivery is waning or they’re craving all things turmeric, you need to be aware early and take the necessary steps to get on-trend before you’re left behind. You can gather the information as:

· Read the consumer survey results, such as The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI)

· The Federation of Hotel & Restaurants Association of India

1. Gain a Competitive Advantage

When you know what your competitors are doing, you can supersede their strategy by adding a better promotion to attract customers back to your venue. To gather the information you can do it as follows:

· Subscribe to your competitor’s e-newsletters

· Follow your competitor’s social media feedbacks

· Bookmark and check your competitor’s website

· Bookmark and check your competitor’s review on your popular website

How to Conduct Market Research for Restaurants

There are two types of market research: qualitative and quantitative research.

Qualitative research isn’t about numbers — it’s about thoughts and opinions. If you want to know more about your customers’ experiences and preferences, qualitative research is the way to go.

Methodologies for qualitative research:

· Interview

· Focus groups

· Archival Research

Let’s focus on … focus groups. Focus groups enable you to conduct an intimate Q&A session to determine the appetite for your concept and learn more about your target market. Here how you can do a focus group:

1. Select a location for the focus group

2. Prepare your questions

3. Collect Demographic Information

4. Analyze your recording and findings.

Quantitative research is all about the numbers. It involves larger sample sizes (more people) and statistical and numerical data. If you want data from a lot of people, you’ll need to use a quantitative research method to gather what you need.