In order attract older customers to come to your restaurant establishment to eat, you will need to implement a plan and understand some tips for restaurant business marketing. Only with a solid marketing plan, intelligent marketing tactics combined with restaurant promotion, can one succeed in attracting the clientele they desire.
Understanding Older People and The Elderly Crowd Is The First Step
The older crowd of people normally prefer a clean, nice and quiet establishment to eat inside of. Most older people enjoy familiar faces they know, which means your turnover rate can not be high with employees and staff. In order to get the older people bringing their friends, increasing and attracting new customers, and keep them coming back is all starting with a friendly face and a thank you for coming to our restaurant.
If you have a lot of kids that come in your restaurant business as customers that are obnoxious and loud, your chances of attracting older people to your restaurant are almost zero from the start. While it is possible, you will be playing an uphill battle.
Business Tips For Attracting Older People To Eat
The good part about getting older customers is that they will become loyal to your business. You can expect to see them eating everyday if your marketing plan is correct from the start. Lets start with with some proven and successful restaurant marketing techniques and tactics that work to attract potential customers, the older and elderly crowd.
- Sit down and brain storm some promotion ideas about attracting older people to your restaurant with a pen, paper and strategic planning.
- Older people enjoy a quite and home feeling environment. Find employees and a team that is possibly retired and want a part time job to work. If older people are working and serving the guests, the older crowd will feel inside they can relate more to your staff, thus making them more attracted and comfortable eating in your diner.
- Putting a sign out front of your business if there is a lot of traffic on your road is a great way to advertise specials for older people. You might do some sign marketing that could be effective by saying “Monday and Thursday Evenings Couples Over 55 Get 50% Off Their Entire Purchase!”. Older people like to save money, so this is a great way to start promoting – similar to using coupons for discounts.
- Try to generate some radio advertisements through the media aimed at radio stations older people listen to. You might have a old western radio station or a 1960′s radio station, either way, this is a great way to see some results from your marketing methods, thus resulting in more profits and money for the business.
- When you offer value prices and discounts to older customers, you should be building a relationship with them at the same time. Make small talk. Ask their names and what they do. Just some basic questions. When they come back, greet them by their name. This is one of the most valuable and powerful effective marketing strategies that is free!
- Let your customers eat free the first day of opening your restaurant. This may be costly, but view it as hospitality marketing. You may even select one day before opening the restaurant for ONLY people over 55 years old to eat free. They will love this and it will for sure make your restaurant stand out and more memorable then the rest.
- As the owner, you should be inside the restaurant greeting customers to increase the chances of having them as repeat customers in the future. Older people like to see an owner involved in the dining experience.
- Improve your relationships over time with people dining by getting to know them more and more each visit.
- Sometimes give them a free meal when they least expect it or at least a significant discount. This is a huge benefit that older people will love and remember. Many times, they will often thank you for the generosity you have offered, but pay the full amount anyways.
- Offer a to-go menu to promote ordering in. If enough requests are there, offer delivery if this is attractive to your crowd of customers.
Enjoy the process of advertising and using paid promotions to see what works. Improvise a long the way if you can find cost effective ways to get more older visitors. Enjoy the process of getting to know and making friends with the older crowd that comes in and eats at your business. Many of them will be extra friendly and bring their friends to the restaurant too.
Be patient, this process takes time and persistence!