10 Revenue-Boosting Hacks Every Restaurant Owner Should Know

Prasad Vemulapalli | April 28, 2023

The restaurant industry is very competitive, with customers spoilt for choice when selecting an establishment for dining out. To stay in business and be able to compete with the very best out there, a restaurant owner should have the foresight and tactical acumen to draw up marketing strategies that will entice customers. It all comes down to satisfying the customer’s needs, and here are 10 revenue-boosting hacks that will help you, as a restaurant owner, rake in the moolah while dishing out the sumptuous fare. 

Enable Online Food Ordering

Since COVID-19 hit us, going to restaurants to dine out has taken a big hit. Even after the pandemic died down, people have gotten used to ordering food from restaurants, and this trend is here to stay. Hence, if you implement an online ordering system for your restaurant, it will increase your revenue. 
You can punch above your weight and take on well-known restaurants on equal terms by enabling online ordering. If you have quality food to offer, you will have enough customers. 

Platforms like OrderEm can design a tempting and attractive online ordering app for your restaurant, as they are past masters in the field and have helped many clients in the restaurant business multiply their sales. 

With an online ordering app in place, order booking and delivery will be a piece of cake, and you can say goodbye to annoying wait times, jammed phone lines, and lost orders. 

Provide Customers With an Instant Table Reservation System

We live in a fast world where every second is valuable. Right from the morning, every moment counts, which holds true when booking tables at a restaurant. The table booking game can be an unpleasant experience for customers, especially on weekends. Your business will suffer if you cannot provide them with tables when they show up at your restaurant. 

The best possible solution is to have a table reservation option on your restaurant’s website. This way, you guarantee customers' seating arrangements while sending out the message that you are an elite business that values customers’ time and money. 

Engage OrderEm to make your restaurant website, and they will ensure that you have a streamlined web presence that clients can use to reserve seats with minimum fuss. Spare your customers the agony of calling in and booking a table, and your revenue will increase. 

Employ Menu Psychology

Have you heard of menu engineering? It is the use of psychology on menus to increase sales at a restaurant. Orderem can create a menu template for your restaurant website or app that will trick your customers into buying more food than they need when they order from your establishment. 

One oft-used trick is placing images of expensive food in the top right corner, where customers will first look when they open the menu. For example, a picture of a steak on the top right will resonate with the hungry customer, and the odds are high that they will order that particular item. 

Make Irresistible Offers

Everyone has a tough time turning down a restaurant offer or promotion that looks too good to be true. As a restaurant owner, if you can make an offer that sounds too tempting, it will attract customers like flies, especially bargain seekers, who are hardwired to sniff out a great deal. 

Customers who take advantage of your special daily or weekly offers are the most likely to spread the good word about your restaurant through word of mouth, the best kind of promotion ever, increasing footfall and revenue simultaneously.

If you need help creating and tracking restaurant promotions and offers, let OrderEm do it. They can include special promos and offers on both your website and the restaurant app, leaving you free to attend to more important matters. 

Use SEO to Rank Your Website High on Search Engines

Every restaurant has a specific cuisine that it caters to. For example, if you have a restaurant dishing out Asian fare, you want related keywords to be included in your website content so that customers looking for that kind of food know that you serve it. 

When potential customers go to Google to search for specific keywords, you want your restaurant to show up on the first page of the search results; it is essential to increasing your restaurant sales. OrderEm can do this for you, including the most searched keywords in the content of your website. This will attract new customers, increase the average value of orders, and ultimately increase your revenue. 

Social Media Promotion

Everybody and their uncles are on social media. It is the most powerful influencer of trends and choices, and if you have a significant presence there, it translates to extra visibility and increased revenue. 

Update your restaurant's social media pages regularly with the latest pictures and descriptions of dishes, special offers for faithful customers, and information about any special events you may host. Encourage feedback in the form of comments and keep your customer base engaged, and your revenue will increase. 

Happy Hours and Special Offers

Keep aside a few hours every day as happy hours. During this time, your restaurant will serve dishes at discounted rates. This will make people flock to your establishment to take advantage of your offer. This works out better if you include deals on liquor as well. Figure out your target audience and make offers commensurate with them. This is a sure way of increasing your profits and spreading the good word about your restaurant. 

Create a Mobile Restaurant App

It is not enough if you have a website dedicated to your restaurant. In this age of mobile phones, you must have a mobile app from which people can order food, make reservations, and purchase other goodies. OrderEm can make a beautiful app for your restaurant, keeping all parameters in mind so that you have a unique app with custom colors, specialized font, and all the right features. Trust us; this will increase your revenue exponentially. 

Implement QR codes for the Menu

If you want to modernize your restaurant while increasing revenue, say goodbye to printed menus in favor of QR codes. Customers will simply scan the QR code of your restaurant, browse the menu, and order online, all while sitting at your restaurant without engaging a waitperson in conversation. Radical, isn't it?

Know Your Customers and Have a Sales Plan in Place

After you have been in business for a few months, determine your target customers. The action plan to increase sales at your restaurant must have a sales plan. This plan will tell people why your restaurant is better than others and why it matters to you that your customers are treated to a different experience. This will positively increase footfall, bringing in more cash with unique dining experiences. 

Conclusion

Owning and managing a restaurant is not everyone's cup of tea. It is a challenging experience, and you have to start with all guns blazing to make an impact on customers. Remember that the competition is fierce, and there is no room for error. Follow the above revenue-boosting hacks, and your restaurant business should be off to a great start.