Word-of-mouth marketing is one of, if not the, most effective ways to sell someone on getting to eat at your restaurant. In fact, according to Nielsen, 84% of consumers say that they trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends about products and services. That makes these recommendations the highest ranked source for trustworthiness.
As it turns out, good word-of-mouth doesn’t just get you more customers, it can actually make you more money from those who you’ve already successfully gotten in the door. According to loginradius.com, a positive recommendation will motivate the customer to pay an average of 8.8% more.
Reviews are essential too. The sway that a positive review can have over the prospective customer is actually significantly larger than you might think. According to BrightLocal, 88% of people trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from personal contacts.
Don’t underestimate social media as another huge factor in word-of-mouth. According to SDL, 58% of customers on social media will share their positive experiences with a company, and will also go out of their way to ask family, colleagues, and friends for their opinions about brands. The more customers that are taking pictures of their food in your restaurant, the better.
As you can see, if you’re not optimizing your restaurant’s marketing for word-of-mouth, it’s time to start. There’s no single way to ensure you’ll get word-of-mouth. But there’s many factors to consider, and there’s a lot you can already start doing right now. Here’s a few tips to get you started.
- Listen to your customers. Find out what they like and don’t like about your restaurant. And do your best to have excellent customer service, and a welcoming environment.
- Have a loyalty program? Offer benefits or rewards for referring friends or giving a positive review.
- Try having special events or parties. Last year, a friend and I went to a restaurant on Halloween, in costume, for a special deal. Naturally, we took a picture that ended up on social media.
- Incentivize customers to share posts on social media. Promote special hashtags and send out special deals to followers. Share your most passionate fans posts on your own page.
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Our in-store WiFi solution discovers your core demographics, revealing crucial customer data.
We deliver a full customer profile that lets you examine customer Likes, Interests, and more. If you want to cater to your customers, and get better word-of-mouth, there’s no better way when CoGoBuzz literally discovers them for you! Check out the rest of our website to learn more about CoGoBuzz’s wide range of awesome features.
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How have you promoted good word-of-mouth for your restaurant? Sound off in the comments!