So you have a good restaurant with good food and service and yet the dining room is not always crowded. You spend a lot of money on marketing and wonder why it isn’t working for you.
Well let me tell you that there are plenty of other restaurants with good food, good service, and a friendly atmosphere, so your place might not be as special in the eyes of your customers as you would like it to be.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Why should they come to your restaurant instead of visiting one of your competitors?
Well the truth is, if you stand out from other local options, they probably won’t.
You have to think a lot about your place and what makes it special or different from any other restaurant. And trust me, it’s different. No two restaurants are the same (except in the case of franchises, which, by definition, want to look and operate exactly the same).
So what makes your restaurant special or different?
You need to articulate the essence of your restaurant, the essence of your offering, so that people know why they should go to your place rather than your competitors. This is called your Unique Selling Proposition (or USP).
You must create and advertise a USP that identifies your restaurant and makes it a unique establishment.
So how can you do that? Don’t worry, I’ll help you. Just follow these three easy steps and you’re on your way to creating your own USP:
1. Make a list of the real benefits or advantages that you currently offer to your customers.
Think about what is special about your restaurant. Is it your food? Your wine selection? Your service? Your location? Your decorations? Do you offer live music? Have a large menu selection? Open kitchen? Etc
Ask your customers, your employees and your suppliers what makes your restaurant special or different. Maybe you have a unique recipe that people really appreciate and enjoy, or maybe your chef comes out of the kitchen and greets customers, or has bilingual servers who can communicate with foreign travelers in their native languages.
Some aspects that can help you determine your USP are:
o Wide variety of dishes on the menu
o Unique, ethnic foods or menu items.
o Restaurant specially designed to host families (with a play area or toys or entertainment for children, etc.)
o Reasonable prices
o Food quality
o Originality of the dishes
o Flawless presentation
o Excellent service (good is not good enough: it must be excellent to have an impact!)
o Wide selection of wines or special wines difficult to find
o Wide selection of hard to find beers or specialty beers
o Special cocktails
o Open kitchen where people can see / talk to their cooks
o Beautifully decorated place
o Live music
o Candles on the tables
o Cloth bedding
o Original art on the walls
o Any other distinctive advantage that you may have or may provide that your competitors do not provide.
2. Make a second list of benefits or special things that your competitors offer but you do not.
For example, do you have a large venue and your restaurant is small? They offer a full bar and you don’t? They have a superchef with a reputation that you can’t offer? Are they in a great location while your place is out of the way?
3. List the ways you could enhance your competitor’s unique advantages.
If your place is large and yours is small, you can take advantage of it by stating that you offer “A unique experience in a cozy atmosphere where you will receive a very personalized treatment”.
Or the opposite: if your venue is large, you can say “We have facilities large enough to accommodate your office party or special occasion.”
Or you can make up for not having a full bar by offering a large and excellent selection of wines.
If you have a great location, say it is “conveniently located in the center of town, within walking distance of …”
Or if you are out of the way, you can always say “our restaurant offers free parking and is worth the trip as you are sure to have an extraordinary dining experience …”
You get the idea right?
So write down the top five advantages and / or differentiators that make your place unique. Then combine them into a sentence or short sentence.
This will become your USP
Once you’ve created your USP, write it down, review it, and edit it several times to make it as clear and complete as possible.
Write your new USP in a one paragraph statement. You may have trouble expressing it concisely and clearly. It can take a few paragraphs. It’s fine.
Now you need to edit all the fluff (trim the fat) and focus on the core message until you have a clear and unique USP that people will immediately recognize and identify with your restaurant. It has to become a memorable phrase.
Share it with your employees; share it with your clients. Advertise it to the world by using it in all your marketing and sales materials …
Remember, attention span is getting shorter these days, so your USP should be short and memorable.
By following a few of these techniques and creating a powerful and memorable UPS, you will be ahead of your competitors who simply advertise their restaurants in the more traditional way.
People respond to short, flashy messages. If you can articulate the essence of your niche in a few precise words and consistently use them to promote your business, you should be able to stand out from the crowd.
happy sailing,