So you have a good restaurant with good food and service and yet the dining room is not always full. You spend a lot of money on marketing and wonder why it doesn’t work for you.
Well, let me tell you that there are many other restaurants with good food, good service and a nice 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 believe me, it’s different. No two restaurants are alike (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 instead of 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 unique.
So how can you do that? Don’t worry, I’ll help you. Just follow these three easy steps and you’ll be 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? Do you 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 you have 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 accommodate families (with a play area or toys or entertainment for children, etc.)
o Reasonable prices
o Food quality
o Originality of the dishes
o Impeccable presentation
o Excellent service (good is not good enough: it must be excellent to have an impact!)
o Wide selection of hard-to-find specialty wines or wines
o Wide selection of beers or hard-to-find specialty beers
or special cocktails
o Open kitchen where people can see/talk to your cooks
o Beautifully decorated place
or live music
o Candles on the tables
or cloth sheets
o Original art on the walls
o Any other distinctive advantage it may have or may provide that its competitors do not provide.
2. Make a second list of benefits or special things that your competitors offer but you don’t.
For example, do you have a large venue and your restaurant is small? They offer full bar and you don’t? Do they have a super chef with a reputation you can’t match? Do they have a great location while your place is out of the way?
3. Make a list of ways you could enhance your competitor’s unique advantages.
If their premises are large and yours is small, you can take advantage of this by stating that you offer “A unique experience in a welcoming environment where you will receive very personalized treatment.”
Or the other way around: 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 wide and excellent selection of wines.
If you have a great location, say it’s “conveniently located in the center of town, within walking distance of…”
Or if you’re out of the way, you can always say “our restaurant offers free parking and is well 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 phrase.
This will become your USP
Once you’ve created your USP, write it down, review it, and edit it multiple 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 may take a few paragraphs. It’s okay.
Now you need to edit out all the fluff (trim the fat) and focus on the core message until you have a clear, 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 customers. Announce it to the world by using it in all your marketing and sales materials…
Remember, attention spans are getting shorter these days, so your USP needs to be short and memorable.
If you follow some of these techniques and create 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, catchy messages. If you can articulate the essence of your venue in a few precise words and consistently use them to promote your business, you should be able to stand out from the crowd.
happy boating,
