Cheer Up, New Restaurants! How to Compete with the Local Competition During the Crisis
Your restaurant’s new, but you don’t have any customers because of local competition that regular customers are so fond of that it’s hard for them to try new things. Has anyone ever been in a situation like this before? Let’s look at how to cheer up and change customers’ minds from going to the local restaurants to coming to your restaurant.
Don’t Steal the Local Restaurants’ Customers If You Don’t Offer Anything Different
If you want to open a restaurant and the location you’ve selected already has a legendary or regular restaurant where the locals go, the first thing you have to do is make a plan. To cheer up is to thoroughly analyze the market to find out what the customers are missing or whether the local restaurants have any gaps you can fill.
Once you find that gap or marketing opportunity, cheering up to attract customers from local restaurants is not hard. However, you should never open exactly the same kind of restaurant as a local restaurant. You sell the same kind of food. Your restaurants look similar. Your prices are comparable. Even if your flavors are better, it’d be hard to convince customers to leave the local restaurant.
If You Compete Directly, You Need to Create a Difference and Find Your Own Unique Selling Point
It is necessary, if you want to attract customers from the local restaurants, to find a difference or unique selling point that the local restaurants don’t have. For example, if you want to open a rat na (pork & gravy over rice noodles) restaurant near a local rat na (pork & gravy over rice noodles) restaurant, you have to find something the local restaurant doesn’t have, such as extra topping, extra types of meat, different types of noodles, and it’s important that your flavor is comparable to the local restaurant’s. The price for the basic dishes should be similar, although customers will understand if the dishes with different toppings are slightly pricier.
Otherwise, you can create a selling point based on the price and amount. For example, your food can be cheaper and you can give more. However, this might be too big of a fight. Another method is to use the restaurant’s atmosphere. For example, if the local restaurant doesn’t have an air conditioner and the customers have to sweat it out, your clean air-conditioned restaurant with a good atmosphere might look safer for their health.
Avoid a Collision with Different Menu Items
Another method with a good chance of convincing the local restaurants’ customers is to avoid a direct collision in selling foods along the same line. Opt for selling different dishes. You can be completely different or be different but along the same line. For example, if the local restaurant sells phad Thai (Thai-style stir-fried noodles), your new restaurant could sell kuaitiao khua kai or rat na (Thai-style chicken & rice noodle stir fry or pork & gravy over rice noodles). Although they’re different, they’re still along the same line. Phad Thai (Thai-style stir-fried noodles) customers could easily change their minds and try your kuaitiao khua kai or rat na (Thai-style chicken & rice noodle stir fry or pork & gravy over rice noodles). What’s important is you have to make sure your quality and prices aren’t that different from the local restaurants.
Or, if you want to be completely different from the local restaurant which sells main courses, you could sell drinks and desserts instead. This way, you definitely won’t be stealing their customers. Plus, there’s a chance to share customers. After the customers finish a meal, they can cap it off with a dessert. Making an ally is another way to cheer each other up.
Offer a Full Delivery Service from the Start
Delivery is a major way for new restaurants to create s
ales opportunities without having to worry about local restaurants because online customers don’t really care about this. And online customers might not live near your restaurant. They might be outsiders who don’t even know the existence of the local restaurants. As long as you can make online customers interested in the menu, you’ll have a chance to sell without fearing the local competition. In addition, some local restaurants might not even use this channel because they might be too busy managing their storefront.
Since we’re talking about delivery, we have to say that this era opens opportunities for cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens. A lot of restaurants generate sales without having to care about local restaurants. They can even make more profit because they don’t have to invest in building a restaurant, don’t need a lot of employees, don’t need to keep a large stock and can use their home kitchens to silently steal the local restaurants’ customers.
In conclusion, our suggestion for cheering up new restaurants is to do your homework about marketing gaps from the start, present different things, use new technology to help your selling methods, emphasize delivery channels, use reviews and online marketing and make your storefront sign interesting.
Local restaurants might have their stories and legends, but new restaurants like yours can create stories about dishes and ingredients to attract customers. If you can do these basic things well, cheering up is not hard.
If you’re interested in learning about basic online marketing tools such as sending Facebook ads to the right target group, using line@ to increase sales and pinning your restaurant on Google Map so customers can find you easily using Google My Business, you can take our “Promote Restaurant Online for 10 Times Increase in Sales” for free, click
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