Are you opening a new restaurant? Or maybe you already own a restaurant but you need to work on growing your market or changing your target audience to grow your revenues and increase your sales and footfall.

The clearer your target market, the higher your chances of retaining customers and increasing your sales through more defined targeting and services tailored to your audience’s preferences and purchasing behaviors.

What you need to do at the beginning is identify your target market so you can confirm other details such as the concept of your restaurant, its style, the communication means and the food served itself. If you already own a restaurant, then you should identify your existing target market to evaluate your growth options and know how to target your new audience and whether you need to alter your menu and your communicative language.

What is your target market?

Your target market is the group of consumers who are more likely to buy products or services, in the hospitality sector they are the diners that are more likely to visit your restaurant or order your food online and whom you will try to attract and then retain.

Note that the target market is not the group of people whom you’re trying to sell so they choose you not the opposite and based on them you will tailor your marketing and digital media strategy.

Examples of target customers for a small coffeehouse that offers sandwiches and beverages in an industrial area.

The coffeehouse is usually busy in the morning but notices that it encounters a slower pace after 10 am. The coffeehouse can work on promoting happy hours during the usual corporate lunchtime through flyers or signage in the coffeehouse itself. You can create combos for colleagues or if you think you should add on the menu that is suitable for lunchtime breaks.

How to find your target market?

Finding your target market has to occur after a series of analysis for different factors:

Geographics: Where are your customers?

If you aim to sell your food online, then social media platforms are where your customers gather. If you have a physical site, you should look at the area with maximum vehicle and foot traffic.

Demographics: Who are your customers?

 Characteristics of your customers such as age, sex, income, marital status, education, religion…

Ask yourself: what is the profile or characteristics of the customers who are more likely to eat at your place?

This data can be also gathered when creating a customer profile in the database of CRM.

Psychographics: Why do they buy?

We mean their attitudes, emotional drive, and values. What pushes your clients to dine at your place or order food? Is it because they’re too busy to cook? are they family gatherings that bring them to your restaurant? What is their lifestyle and passion?  Once you identify this information, you should be able to have insights into what motivates them.

Behavior: How do they buy?

We mean their purchasing and spending behavior and even their digital behavior that enables you to develop customer relationships and generate more sales. Their behavior data dictates information like your hours of operation and social media interactions so you can deliver greater value to your customers.

Once you identified your target market, it’s easier to choose how to communicate with them and reach them.

Goals of identifying and establishing your social media

• Understand the segments you need to target and how to approach them
• Show you the organic interest in your restaurant
• Assist you in your business plan
• Identify which channels to use to communicate with your customers
• Understand what differentiate you from the competition

How to reach your targeted customers?

Social media

Facebook, Instagram, or Tik Tok are all platforms that can be chosen to work on based on the data collected about your customer’s profile. One or two platforms are enough for a startup.

Regularly post updates about your restaurant, such as the menu, offers, seasonal items, and events like happy hours or ladies’ night, Tacotaco Tuesday. Create engaging content that increases customers’ interactions through sharing stories and creating polls and asking them questions about their preferences for instance.

Loyalty programs

You need to build a reward system or a loyalty program that suits your customers. You already have all the information about them so you know how to customize the programs to retain them. If most of them order food online, then it’s better to focus your reward system on online orders and deliveries.

If they are health-oriented, then you can offer them discounts or free meals in the healthy items category.  

If they visit you in large friend groups, then it’s better to create discounted combos for them that include several options.

Advertising

 Choose your paid advertising carefully to have the best return on investment. Should you have a billboard or promote your social media ads? Which tool has the most return on investment, gets you more reach and better visibility that leads to more traffic? Do you need to send promo codes to attract your customer?

All these tools can and should be tested before counting on them to decide which one suits your restaurant the most.

Social media ads can be tested through views and clicks while promo codes through their usage and billboards through the daily effective circulation of vehicles and passengers that pass by the billboard and are exposed to the billboard.

Understanding your target market’s needs begins with identifying your target customers and studying their traits and spending behaviors for the sake of your sustainability and growth.