3 Marketing Hacks to Promote Your Café!
Marketing is a crucial component for any business, be it of any nature or size. Hence, it is essential to dive into marketing and make the most of the available means. In today’s world, where everything is online, marketing too has become online, in the form of digital marketing. However, that does not negate the impact of offline promotions and marketing activities, digital marketing gives your business an additional space to showcase your brand and attract the younger demographic. If you are a café owner, or thinking about starting one, then you must be stressing on how to get customers to your café, and operate a profitable and growing business.
Well, worry not! Here we have compiled a few marketing strategies that you must implement in your café to take it to the next level.
More than two-thirds of the world has gone digital. Thus, marketing for cafes calls for a digital strategy. One of the positive aspects of digital marketing is that a cafe or restaurant can market its business to a large group of people at a time, as and when they want to. Here are a few of the ways a business can attract more and more customers.
1. Define a USP
USP or Unique Selling Point is ‘that one thing’ which sets your business apart from other brands. Ask yourself, what is the one thing that your café offers to its customers, that other cafes do not? The features by which a customer remembers a brand is the brand’s USP. It can be as simple as having good Wi-Fi connection in your café, or fast cappuccino deliveries for people on the rush (especially in the mornings). This will help you create a distinct brand identity that will allow your customers to identify you amongst other cafes. A USP for your café could be the ambience you provide, for example, it can be rustic, or luxurious, depending on the type of crowd you want to cater. Or you can develop a signature taste or flavor and incorporate it in your recipes! You can evolve your menu to include local delicacies that can be enjoyed with coffee, and showcase your unique menu items.
2. Organic Marketing
Organic marketing strategies allow you to attract customers to your brand naturally over time, rather than employing paid advertisements or sponsored posts. In brief, it includes digital marketing strategies you don’t pay directly for, such as, social media posts, updates, blogs, guest posts, email marketing, etc. The main key to drive organic traffic to your business is ‘being consistent’, and ‘knowing your audience’. Understand the demographic that visits your café regularly, and the type of content they prefer. Do they like to watch short-form video content, or read blogs? Do they like to see aesthetics of your café on social media? Which social media platform are they most active on? Analyze this data and create the form of content that best engages your audience. You can also list your business on Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, etc. For example, if someone in your geographic area googles ‘Cafes near me’, and you have listed your café in Google My Business, then your shop will show up in the search results and the customer can reach out to you.
3. Loyalty Offers
This is another digital marketing strategy that caters to customers who regularly engage with a brand. For example, you can host giveaways on your Instagram profile, and offer promotional discounts or vouchers to the winner(s). Another way could be to start an email list, and ask customers to subscribe to it. You could offer exclusive offers to your subscribers. You could also give points to your customers on their every purchase. Best of all, your customers can earn their first 100 points simply by signing up which gives them a sense of accomplishment and gets the ball rolling. These points would enable them to avail discounts on their next order, and inherently push them to spend more. The aim of reward programs to induce a feeling of inclusion and exclusivity. It can be a membership-based, closed-access club that offers particular privileges to its members, whether it’s paid or not. Of course, this is only true if your loyalty programme is positioned as such!