How to increase sales in catering in 2024 – 8 Tips for Customer Development and Sales Boost – F&B
In the Food & Beverage sector, competition is present in every relevant part of business. Thus, for any business that concerns it, maintaining its sales at high levels can prove to be a difficult and demanding challenge.
In a critical era of constantly evolving conditions and changes, sales in catering and their strengthening is not a simple matter. Not only does it need an organized and clear goal setting and focus, it also requires the formation of dynamic strategies that will contribute to the retention of the existing clientele, but also to the renewal and attraction of new ones.
The Covid-19 pandemic has obviously affected the food business sector, resulting in the need for more activity in the field of promoting services and developing strategies aimed at strengthening a catering business in general.
This article covers the range of marketing strategies required to manage an existing clientele while attracting new customers and maximizing sales.
How to increase sales in a catering business in 2024
From properly configuring the menu to utilizing online tools, the Food & Beverage sector needs innovative ideas to boost its momentum. The modern era requires plans that consist of smart strategies, every business will have the ability to outperform the competition.
Variety in services
The situation of the last 2 years that undoubtedly affects the catering industry must act as a driving force for businesses to enrich their services, adapting each one to the data of the times. By modifying the services of a catering business with benefits such as delivery and take out, the sales process is automatically enhanced, giving customers more options.
Delivery & Take out Menu
A simplified version of the menu for easy use in delivery and take out sales, is an immediate and very popular move that can bring renewed air to a business but also greatly facilitate these services.
Online Ordering
With the internet constantly in everyone’s life 24/7, online orders are an essential benefit for any business that wants to arm in the present and aim for the future. The largest portion of modern customers consider online ordering / booking as well as online payment a self-evident service, stating that in this way, convenience and immediacy in ordering is what they want.
Deals and Happy Hours
Providing offers and lowering prices in specific contexts (such as Happy Hour, holiday season, etc.) is a practice that has been proven for years, particularly effective for catering. Both with the existing clientele and with any new customers interested in this service, the offers have the potential to boost the sales of the business, even motivating the ideal target group of each business.
At the same time, with the “Happy Hour” service, it becomes possible to attract customers during the hours when traffic is reduced, ie outside peak hours. Of course, for the most efficient operation of the above tactic, proper marketing is necessary for the immediate and fast promotion of the service.
Online Presence of the Company
Nowadays, when more and more people are constantly using their mobile phone in every activity, the methods that make a business website accessible to the public, are what every business in the catering sector needs.
Responsive Web Design
No matter how hard a business tries to optimize its website, it will never reach the success data it wants, if it does not make its online presence accessible and easy to use from mobile devices. In short, the responsive web design application enables a website to be functional and fast from any mobile device.
Google My Business
Creating a company profile on the platform Google My Business . It enables every business to publish free of charge the most useful information for it, in order to reach the right audience. Google My Business includes information such as business name, address, opening hours, services, ways of communication, photos, customer reviews and generally any data that will contribute to the identification and promotion of a business on the internet.
Importantly, the GMB platform works on a location- and relevancy-based basis. Thus, when an internet user performs a google search with keywords the food he wants and the area in which he is located (eg Italian Restaurant Kifissia), the google results will show the businesses that identify with these keywords, based on their GMB profile.
Social Media Marketing
The best way for a business to promote its services nowadays is to utilize Social Media platforms. Thus, a business operating in the catering sector, it is necessary to take advantage of the possibilities provided by social media in order to more easily present its services to the public, attracting them online.
In order for there to be the desired response from the public, the traffic to the pages and therefore the growth of the clientele, it is necessary that the profiles of a business on social media are active. What does this mean? The publication of photos of the business menu, the space and the staff during work is a particularly beneficial practice for highlighting the profile and website of a catering business.
At the same time, organizing events, offers and happy hours and attracting interested customers through social media is also an effective method that will reach the ideal target group and give the business the boost it needs to maximize its sales.
Email Marketing
Through organized email marketing strategies, a business can maintain systematic relationships with its existing clientele. New additions to your services, events at your place, happy hours and attractive offers are issues that directly concern the customer and email marketing is one of the best ways to promote them. Newsletters in recent years have given a new dynamic in the field of marketing and are now a necessary practice.
Customer loyalty
Keeping a standard clientele satisfied for a long time is very important for catering. In this context, one of the new trends in marketing for Food & Beverage businesses is the organization of customer loyalty systems.
How exactly does this work? Through relevant platforms and applications, a business can set up its own loyalty system for its customers, offering redemption points with every purchase. In this way, customers are satisfied with the bonuses they receive and are most likely to continue making purchases from this company. Thus, in a direct way, the business grows and builds its customer base.
Increase your business sales today!
The above practices, with the appropriate preparation and strategy, are capable of proving to be particularly effective for a business that wishes to develop its customer base and boost its sales in 2022. A basic prerequisite for this to happen is that each business finds the coordination it needs to evolve and increase its profits.
At H-Lead, for the effective operation of all our customers, we undertake sales management for every F&B business seeking quality change within the competitive catering industry. Our strategies, through an organized management and consulting program, have the power to talk to each client individually, meet his expectations and highlight your business in a modern and effective way. Increase your business sales today!
