In the current age, serving quality food is not sufficient in order to have a successful restaurant experience. What your restaurant looks and feels like, how good is the service and how vastly its presence online matters a lot in addition to good food!
There are millions of restaurants out there, having a distinctive restaurant brand is what makes your space stand out. A solid restaurant brand is not just about developing a logo and placing it on everything there is. There’s a lot more to it which one needs to consider before developing a strong restaurant brand.
These are easy steps to build your restaurant brand in an easy and convenient way:
1. Define your Brand
First things first, find out the answers to three basic questions on which the foundation of your restaurant will be based: 1) Who are you? 2) What do you do? 3) Why do you do it?
After having answers to these questions and having a clear take on your mission, vision, and values, identify your unique selling point and what makes you different from your competitors. Have these basic pointers present with you at all times because they would be needed in each and every phase of developing a brand.
2. Brand Positioning
Next important step is positioning yourself in the market. Map out a clear picture of who your potential customers are. What should the price of the items be? Do you want to serve families, couples, businesspeople or teenagers? How would you reach them? What do you need to reach them? Research your demographics well and seek answers to these essential questions that need to be answered in order to proceed further.
3. Your Brand’s Voice & Identity
Your brand’s voice is what makes it unique from others. It’s the most powerful tool to communicate with your customers. Describe your brand in three words (such as cheerful, trendy, western) , then build on each characteristic until a personality is developed. After figuring out what your brand looks like, it would be easy to develop how it should communicate and what it should feel like.
4. Developing Brand’s Look
What your brand looks like is the most crucial aspect of gaining customers. It is what essentially attracts them and get them to visit you. Your brand’s look goes way beyond your logo and letterhead. The way your brand looks and feels should reflect each and every core value and personality that you have penned down earlier. From logo to menu to your interior - everything contributes to give your brand the perfect look and feel that would gain attention of customers.
Develop your brand’s logo, tagline, mood board, colour themes, merchandise, website and other design elements that are relevant to your brand. Create a distinct and pleasant ambiance for your brand that reflects your brand’s mission and personality and everything in between. Lighting, interior, theme and even servers’ uniform! Plan your menu in an enticing way such that your customers are tempted to try all that you’ve got to serve. Give elaborate descriptions of every item on the menu so that the customers don’t feel the need to ask questions every time they have a look at the menu. Designing of each and every element should be done in a captivating way keeping in mind all the research that has been carried out previously. Most importantly, designs should be crafted in a manner that your messages get through easily and in a way that best reaches your target demographics.
Online presence has become the most significant part of building restaurant’s reputation. It provides you with an opportunity to reach and connect with your existing and potential customers. Customers largely rely on reading online reviews about a certain restaurant before trying it out. Increasing your online presence is an effective manner results to be one of the most impactful tactic in order to increase your customer base.
Building mobile friendly website helps people to have a look at what you have to offer before even trying you out. Keep it up-to-date and make sure all the relevant information is available there. Make it as captivating as possible so that your potential customers are bound to visit you. Next is the power of Social Media networks. Social media presence should be prime focus of your digital marketing plan in order to maximize your reach and engagement. By systematically planning out your content and laying emphasis on quality instead of frequency of posts, you can create a dominant online presence you could easily benefit from. If you truly want your restaurant to grow and succeed, you must be ready to invest in building a distinct online presence that helps you connect with your diners and get them to visit you again.
6. Be Consistent
Being inconsistent in the way your brand looks online and offline, whether on social media, menus, interior etc... is going to negatively affect your brand’s recognition. Incorporate same aesthetic elements everywhere in order to have a consistent look and feel. The more well-planned each and every component of your brand is, the more likely you are to gain new customers, and please the already existing ones.
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