How to Market Your Restaurant During Coronavirus Pandemic?

During the situation of COVID-19, the business will inevitably be impacted…
The restaurant industry is facing the same crisis. In the time of falling revenues and footfalls, restaurant owners are also striving to maintain their fixed overheads and other expenses.
Related Read: Factors that impact a restaurant success

According to the National Restaurant Association of India, “The restaurant industry, with an annual turnover of over Rs 4 lakh crore and a direct employee base of over seven million, is in a fighting a severe battle for its basic survival amidst the COVID-19 outbreak”.

Being a Restaurant owner, you must be worried about what will happen after this outbreak and how will you manage cost, marketing and every other thing. (Don’t be panic the article is for you only, please read it completely)
Related Read: Important Restaurant industry stats (updated)

There is another fear is in mind that customers may be scared eating out or socialising after that major coronavirus pandemic. We all know that the outbreak of COVID-19 and its effects will impact all businesses, including the hard-working owners, farmers, operators, online delivery services, staff, and simply on everyone in the food industry. 

Now the question is in this tough time, what should you do? 

See this is the time to keep your customers engaged during the crisis. I know that this is a hard time, everyone’s life is affecting but we all know that time will change quickly, the economy will take a boost again, things will get better soon. It’s better to be prepared now so that you can take advantage in future. In -short, this is a great time to come up with marketing ideas for the restaurant during COVID-19.

1. Communicate How You’re doing

The first and foremost thing to be remembered is this is time to win your customers trust rather than focusing on making money. Communicate with your customers while everyone is online currently at a high rate.

Share good thoughts with them.
Make them feel you are caring for them.
Communicate what changes you are doing amidst Coronavirus crisis.
Share positive thoughts, try to bring good vibes. 
Serve tips to prevent the virus to spread. like this – \

2. Share online Recipes, Tutorials, and do live cooking shows

It is the best time to engage with people using an online platform. People are at home and have so much time, they are looking for something to do, then it’s a very good idea to give them online cooking classes, teach your audience making your favourite dishes, share short cooking video/ recipe and tutorial.
These ideas will help you showcase your brand and make a different identity. So start by today only 🙂

3. Winback Existing customers

Focus on retention, reach out to your old customers. They are already trusted and have faith in you. Try to win the trust of those customers by communicating them over social media or you can use personalised text marketing also. 

Use customers data you already have like their phone numbers and email address, shoot marketing campaigns like what measures you are taking to prevent the spread of the virus or how you are dealing with the situation. 

Recently I have received text messages from the famous cafe and this is how they are engaging with the customers –

4. Use Social media proactively 

Social media marketing is the best way to connect with the audience all the time. Since all people are at home, they are using social media more frequently. This is the time to get connected with them by sharing good thoughts, memes, safety measures, thought that you’ll come back soon etc.

5. Plan Your Re-entry

We know this is a tough situation and it’s the same for all, but things won’t last for a long time. When the Economy will finally sustain, everything will be back on track. You can capitalise through a well-planned re-entry event.

The plan doesn’t have to be fixed right now but you can make raw notes on restaurant marketing ideas that coming in your mind, make a list, start thinking about what you will offer to customers, loyalty programs, something creative, or something else. ultimately to boost your restaurant sales.

Conclusion – Remember that the COVID-19 is a tough period only, Customers are going to conclude which restaurants succeed or fail.
In such a case, Restaurants need to be making an aggressive effort to show the precautions and effective measures they are practising to keep their areas clean and sanitized.

Thanks for Reading 🙂