What Can You Do to Get Your Restaurant a Lot of Reviews? Keywords: Boosting Restaurant Sales, Online Restaurant Promotion, Promotion Methods to Make Your Restaurant Known
In an age where promoting your restaurant on social networks is a necessity, other than buying Facebook ads to promote your restaurant, ratings are also important because the ratings from real users greatly impact customers’ decision to buy these days.
This is true whether it’s ratings on your Facebook page, from customers on well-known shopping apps or on Google. Other than ratings, in-depth content reviews are just as important. You can see this in the many review pages popping up over the past few years. Every page has a different reviewing style and you have to admit that they affect target consumer decision just as much reviews from real customers.
Today, MHA has some tips to give your restaurant lots of reviews. We’ll give importance to both customer reviews and reviews from review pages as well as some strategies and dos and don’ts as follows:
- Your restaurant has to look good!
By looking good, we don’t mean lavish, expensive-looking or decorated with expensive things, but arranging your restaurant to look attractive and easy on the eyes with a clear decoration concept. You don’t need to pay for anything expensive at all because, don’t forget, what’s important for a restaurant review is images, whether they are still pictures or videos.
First, you have to understand that content reviews need to have images or videos to draw your target group’s attention and then the target group can read the content reviews. So, having attractive images of your restaurant in the content reviews is a must.
Other than decorating it in the right style, one way to make your restaurant attractive is to add landmark areas or picture-taking spots for your restaurant where people understand are for taking pictures to prove that they were actually at the restaurant. An example for this is a bench in a decorated cordoned off area specifically for taking pictures or a sofa in front of your restaurant with your restaurant’s mascot and your restaurant’s sign in the background, so people can take pictures with them. Otherwise, using plants as decorations is a popular idea these days. At any rate, we recommend you to try surveying other restaurants in the area to see their decoration styles and then try to do something different to make your restaurant stand out.
TIP: Attractiveness can be created without high expense. Sometimes it’s enough just to organize and clean up your restaurant and add an interesting picture-taking spot with the restaurant’s name so people can show they’ve been there.
2. Your restaurant should have a recommended dish or signature menu.
It’d be great if it’s a dish that no one else has because, from a reviewer’s perspective, having a clear outstanding point makes the reviewer or customer able to focus on it immediately compared to other restaurants that don’t have a signature dish. The customers or reviewers find that it takes a long time to find food that stands out from other restaurants or they have to order a lot of dishes before finding a special dish they can recommend to review readers.
And, of course, restaurants without a signature menu don’t seem like restaurants they want to review, because they don’t dare to give their confirmation and invite others to visit the restaurants. We recommend that you choose a recommended menu item or signature menu to make your restaurant more credible.
Nevertheless, you need to make sure that your restaurant’s signature menu is unique, whether it’s the unique taste, long history or originality. You could advertise that the dish is made from seasonal ingredients available for only part of the year. All of this will encourage customers to try your restaurant’s food and review them after trying your signature menu.
TIP: Your signature dish has to be really good to create a memorable uniqueness for your restaurant that makes it easy to steer customer reviews or review pages. Imagine you’re a customer at a restaurant. If there’s no recommended menu item or signature menu recommended by the restaurant, you’d probably choose to just review the dishes you personally like, which might not be the menu items the restaurant wants to recommend.
3. A lot of reviews can attract more customers.
A lot of restaurants like to give importance to the ratings and reviews from customers who actually used their services because they seem more credible in the eyes of consumers than having a review page review the restaurant. On the other hand, don’t forget that review pages with a lot of followers reach more customers.
So, if you only have a few reviews from real customers, try contacting a review page to come review your restaurant. It doesn’t need to be a top ten page with millions of followers or an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers because, although reviews from famous pages can really make your restaurant known, they are also expensive to hire. Meanwhile, small review pages or micro/nano influencers are not so expensive because they want to create content so they can keep their pages constantly active. It’s also a way to increase likes and participation for their own pages.
You could offer free food, especially the menu item you want reviewed, as compensation for the review page. It’s a win-win situation. Or, some pages might require a little monetary compensation, such as for travelling or review fees which can vary according to the number of followers. Most importantly, after the reviews are posted, you need to share them on your restaurant’s page in order to compile them there. When someone visits the restaurant’s page, they’ll see all the reviews. It’s a way to create credibility and verify that your food is really delicious! Don’t forget to thank the review page.
However, if you don’t have any financial limitations, we recommend you go for those big review pages because, other than being a source of interest for their many followers, they’re a good way to draw small review pages and customers into your restaurant.
TIP: You should look at reviews from review pages, large or small, as being mutually beneficial. You should come to an agreement that benefits both parties.
- Announce your restaurant to the world on Google My Business.
Have you ever searched the name of a restaurant or place and the location, images and reviews of that restaurant or place show up as the first link? That’s a Google service called Google My Business. Your restaurant, too, can do it for free.
It’s another very interesting option because you can link customer decision-making processes and purchasing behavior all in one place. When someone searches your restaurant’s name on Google Search, the system will send the information registered with Google My Business along with the reviews of previous customers. Once you are linked with the location system on a mobile phone, Google can give them the coordinates and direction to the restaurant immediately.
As for how to make your customers rate or review you on Google, you could offer promotions, discounts or a special menu item in return for a review. So, when taking an order, the employee or the owner can recommend a promotion such as giving the customer a free snack or drink if the customer gives you a review.
After creating a Google My Business profile, the restaurant owner needs to make sure the information is correct and constantly updated, whether it’s the restaurant’s working hours, pictures of the new menu or new promotions because you could lose the opportunity to sell if it’s the first link that shows up, but the information is wrong and the promotions are old,.
It’s true that this offer might make customers want to give you a rating or review, but don’t forget that the rating relies on your restaurant’s overall quality and you have to give just as much importance to it.
TIP: Google My Business can do a lot more. You can learn about it here, click.
5.Offer promotions for customers to check in to boost restaurant sales.
Once a customer checks in and presses “Like” and shares the restaurant’s page on their own Facebook page, it becomes a word-of-mouth strategy. Imagine you’re eating at a restaurant and you like it. Whether it’s for the quality of the food, service, decoration or atmosphere, you usually invite some family and friends to eat at the restaurant by telling them about it and saying that the restaurant is really good.
Checking in and sharing the restaurant’s page has a similar effect. It lets a customers’ friends see your restaurant at the same time. Seeing the photos of the signature menu and an attractive restaurant and even a short review from the customer can sway the Facebook friends and followers, make them trust in the service and lead to them trying out your restaurant.
TIP: When you impress a customer with your excellent services, the customer will broadcast that excellence to the people around them. This can help encourage people to decide to use your restaurant’s services.
There are still many tips that can help your restaurant get more reviews, but, don’t forget, having a good flavor, good quality ingredients and good services are always key to a restaurant business. These things will be reflected in the customer’s ratings and reviews. Finally, MHA wants to encourage every restaurant to keep getting great reviews and ratings and don’t forget to follow our tips for running a restaurant in our future articles.
Images from: Google My Business
Learn more about restaurant marketing here:
- Online course: Promote Restaurant Online for 10 Times Increase in Sales
- Online course: Professional Food Photography Using Mobile Phones
- All articles related to restaurant marketing from MHA
