With tough competition all around and uncertain risks looming about, it is rather difficult to start a new food business in Malaysia, but it shouldn’t be the reason to stop trying. With the right amount of passion, determination, innovation and creativity, any new business can find success.
But before we achieve it, we must find out how to seek the right audience for your food business in order to increase exposure of your brand. It may seem intimidating to start from the bottom with little to no experience, but with these simple yet effective tips to promote your new food business, you will gain the right push to reach to greater heights.
Photogenic Food
Before we judge any food with our sense of taste and smell, we judge it with our eyes first. Making your food and beverages looking presentable and attractive is key in attracting new customers to try your eatery. It is always best to invest on high quality visuals for your ads and for your menu as well.
Keeping up with the visuals can be difficult but necessary to develop trust between the seller and the customer by maintaining the presentation of the actual food. Attractive and creative packaging of the food and beverage is also important to create a sense of quality and professionalism to your customers.
Menu Variety
Being a food business with many varieties of food choices means that every type of customer will have something for themselves. Whether if it’s a type of meat, vegetables, cooking method or style of cooking, the more you have, the best chances to attract every potential customer to try your new place.
Even if you are a certain café that serves specific types of food, it is best to always have more variety, especially for those customers who wish for a healthier choice or are sensitive to certain types of food and ingredients. You want to make an environment where everyone can be served equally and eat their meals happily.
Customer Service
While maintaining the quality of your food is important in hooking in your customers to come, the quality of your service is equally important in keeping your customers to stay. The experience of eating great food can be ruined if the service is terrible, as customers are fonder of dining places where the people treat them kindly with respect.
Proper courtesy towards your customers, constantly checking in with your diners, anticipating their needs, speedy delivery of their food and simply serving with an inviting smile is enough for people to visit to your store again and again. This is an effective way of promoting your food business as people will spread the word of your eatery simply based on how you treat them.
Enticing Offers
The chance to eat for cheap will never not work for hungry patrons. By offering different types of promotions, discounted prices and free offering for visitors, it will result with many of them flocking in to grab the chance of eating at a cheaper price.
These offers can range from introductory discounts, lunch & dinner promotions, seasonal events and happy hour periods. This is a great way of attracting new customers to try something different in a new restaurant with the hopes that they will return for more.
Customer Feedback
Not everything a store offers will satisfy everyone. There will be inconveniences and complaints being spoken by the visitors, be it about the food, service or the environment. Instead of neglecting them, it is important to listen to their grievances as they are valuable in moving forward.
Their feedback is significant to any food business in order to improve on what is lacking, be it the taste of a food item, adding healthier options or the manners of the service workers. This is done with the hopes to satisfy their current customers and entice new ones with a better and refined image.
Membership Program
Another approach of promoting a food business is by introducing a membership system. This is done by giving customers the opportunity to sign up for a membership program so they get access to exclusive deals that are beneficial to them whenever they come to visit again.
These exclusive offers could range from birthday discounts, gaining points for free meals or drinks, buy one free one deals and free coupons. These promotions are essentially made to motivate customers to visit more often, thus building a relationship of loyalty towards one another.
Email Marketing
To further engage loyal customers and members to return again, a good marketing strategy towards them would be through e-mail advertising. Via e-mails, you can update them on new products, low discounts, seasonal events, exclusive offers and weekly newsletters.
For loyal diners, they would want to know more of their favourite food places. This is done by keeping a list of your current customers. That being said, it is best to not aggressively send e-mails to them so that it won’t feel like a nuisance and make them feel tired of seeing your brand. With the right balance of engagement, they would feel driven to come back again.
Online Experience
Before they enter to a certain restaurant, some people wish to know more about it. This is where creating an official website to said place can come in handy. Your official websites can include history of the store, items that are in stock, menu list, blogs, FAQs and newsletters.
It is always better to have a polish website so that potential customers who wish to visit would have a favorable online experience when they seek what you are offering. By learning effective and creative website design, you can create a smooth and interactive website that users would enjoy using, thus motivating them to visit your store.
Social Media Engagement
The online world has become bigger than ever, as many people around the world resort to social media to connect with others, follow their favourite personalities and learn of daily news. With sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it would be a waste to not invest on these social media platforms to spread the brand awareness of your food business.
By creating an account for your food business, you can update your followers on events, discounted offers and new products. You can also interact with them whenever they are in need of asking any questions about your place. As long as you post regularly, you will keep a stable engagement among your devoted customers and attract new followers.
Celebrity Push
Collaboration can be necessary to succeed in a promotional campaign and the most common partnerships is between the brand and a celebrity. With the right person to take on the image of your food business, it will give your brand the right kind of exposure to many of their followers with the hopes that it would drive turnouts to your store.
Choosing the right celebrity can also impact your brand in various outcomes. Be it a musical artist, a TV personality or an online influencer, who you choose to approach shows the kind of demographic you wish to attract. By researching who their audience is, you can determine how you want your brand to be perceived by the public.