For a lot of restaurants, lunch can be a tricky time for sales.
If your restaurant traditionally plays to the dinner crowd, lunch can be a slower period – especially during the workweek.
If you’re open for lunch, then there’s absolutely no reason that you’re restaurant shouldn’t be making the most out of it; a successful lunch hour can lead to much greater profitability. Read ahead to learn how you can increase lunch sales in your restaurant.
Who are your lunch customers?
First thing’s first. It’s crucial to determine who your lunch customers happen to be. Lunch demographics can be totally different depending on what kind of food your restaurant serves, where you’re located, and a variety of other factors.
For example, let’s say your restaurant is a QSR located in a busy college town. In this case, you’ll probably be dealing with value-minded students looking for a quick (and cheap) bite to eat.
Fortunately for you, with CoGoBuzz, we’ve devised an easy way to discover exactly who your customers, and when they like to eat. More on that later…
Focus on convenience
Not everyone has a flexible lunch hour. Regardless of your demographic, this is an important thing to keep in mind. Part of maximizing your lunch revenue means injecting a dash of flexibility into your lunch service. Here’s a few ways you can do that.
- Place an emphasis on takeout. Maybe even have a set of ready-made dishes on sale.
- Have call ahead ordering. Whether they’re sitting down, or taking it to-go, it’s much more convenient for busy customers when they’re food is ready upon arrival.
- Have a separate pickup location for customers who want to get in and out. Some places even have reserved parking for extra convenience.
- Be as quick as possible.
- Add an online ordering form to your website.
It’s all in the menu
Optimizing your menu for lunch doesn’t just mean taking your dinner menu, making the portions a little smaller, and reducing the prices accordingly. Yes, your lunch items should have smaller portions, and they should be cheaper. However, your menu has to be designed with the lunch customer in mind.
Try including more handheld dishes, such as sandwiches or burgers. Include elements of your dinner menu. If one of your most popular dinner selections is blackened Mahi-Mahi, then try featuring a blackened Mahi-Mahi sandwich for lunch.
Awareness
Awareness can often be the issue when it comes to picking up lunch sales. Sometimes, customers don’t even know places are open for lunch, even when those places have poured tons of effort into creating an awesome lunch experience.
Slow lunch sales? This might be your problem.
Need an easy fix? With CoGoBuzz, we’ve figured out how to automatically promote your lunch hour using powerful digital solutions. Read on for more.
Increase Lunch Sales With CoGoBuzz
CoGoBuzz, our fully-featured marketing service, digitally promotes your restaurant directly to customers’ mobile devices.
Our advanced WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions engage customers both in-store and out. Through WiFi, CoGoBuzz displays an interactive landing page on your customers’ mobile devices when they login to the HotSpot. This lets them check out your current lunch specials! With our SMS service, you can send automated text messages at specific times, notifying them that you’ve got a special lunch deal for them today.
On top of all that, we produce full customer profiles and integrate them with your favorite marketing list. CoGoBuzz features digital text-based loyalty programs, and more! Check out the rest of our website to find out more.
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What has your restaurant done to boost lunch sales? Sound off in the comments!