Today’s customers expect quite a bit from the restaurants they frequent. Aside from quality food and service, there are other key components many people are looking for, such as: a clean, comfortable, enjoyable atmosphere, an establishment that values ecological responsibility, or a restaurant that forgoes in-your-face selling at every corner.
This combination of preferences makes earning and retaining customers challenging for the fast-paced restaurant environment that works with a high volume of customers every day.
As restaurants focus on pressing day-to-day tasks, like producing high-quality, memorable food, it's not uncommon to drop the ball in other areas of the restaurant’s marketing efforts that will keep customers coming. Here are three common marketing mistakes restaurants make, usually without recognizing it:
Failing to pay attention to perception
As a restaurant owner or manager, you know every aspect of your restaurant like the back of your hand. For examples, you know that your restaurant is clean and meets the set standards for cleanliness and hygiene in the kitchen and the dining area.
However, customers coming in off the street don’t have the same understanding, and often must rely on their perception to come to conclusions about their dining environment. When it comes to tabletops or trays, their cleanliness is a mystery to customers.
One quick and easy fix that’s both effective and offers the ability to stylize tabletops, baskets and trays, is inexpensive, disposable paper as a clean barrier between food and surfaces it could potentially touch. Using butcher paper or kraft paper as a tray liner, restaurant table paper cover or placemat all provide your customers peace of mind, which can generate loyalty and more reasons to return.
Failing to take advantage of custom printing for paper products
The uses for paper in the food service industry go on, including takeout containers, sandwich wraps, freezer paper for storage, and many more.
Because many of these paper products will end up in the hands of, or at least in view of, your customer, why not take advantage of that by adding a simple branding touch like the restaurant logo? Or, perhaps a brief marketing message, such as the introduction of a new menu item? To make it more elaborate, perhaps the history of the restaurant or a similar story-based item could spark interest and appreciation in your customers.
In all these cases, your food service paper products can become powerful marketing tools that can improve brand visibility, customer engagement, and customer retention. Custom branded food service paper like printed butcher paper is a simple and inexpensive way to leverage of every opportunity to market to new and existing customers in a relevant and non-intrusive way.
Is your restaurant making any of these tasteless marketing mistakes? If so, the good news is that there’s time to turn things around. To find out more about restaurant branding options, see this guide, 5 Examples of Dramatically Improved Restaurant Branding or contact us today to discuss your options for food service paper to help with your restaurant branding and marketing efforts.
