Running a restaurant is truly not an easy feat. Making a business profitable is an exhausting task, but indeed a fulfilling experience for restaurateurs who understand the industry well. Creativity and originality are two key factors to make any restaurant business become the talk of the town, but once that’s been achieved, the second major challenge is to make the business a profitable venture for both the customers, as well as the owners. So how do you do that? In this article, we’ll talk about four key approaches that can help you improve revenue with less or no marketing budget.

Upselling

Regardless of how incredible business is at your restaurant, odds are you might want to take your restaurant sales up a notch and increase profits. One of the least demanding approaches to do this is through restaurant upselling. Upselling in restaurants is an important and effective way to increase profits within the restaurant business. It implied persuading clients to redesign their present buy or purchase more things.

In an offline setting, a key requirement for effective upselling is having a team or staff members that are particularly trained on how to upsell without creating any nuisance for the customers. For instance, while taking orders the waitstaff can observe the customer's requirement and suggest items with the highest profit margins, like wine, as well as give a short description of why it would be a good purchase.

As for online establishments or delivery only kitchens, attracting people on the website with a low offer and then presenting them with better, more expensive or special options from the menu is the bread and butter of upselling. For instance, you can prompt your customers that by paying just $5 more, they can get a large can of the soft drink or two scoops of ice-cream instead of one. Utilizing upselling techniques can help you increase your profits to the maximum potential.

Manage your online reputation

All customers visit a restaurant's website or look up for online reviews before actually visiting the restaurants. That makes it imperative for restaurants to maintain a good online reputation with a plethora of positive reviews on Facebook, Google,  Yelp, Swarm, TripAdvisor and so on. Apart from providing a stellar customer experience and excellent food, you must encourage your customers to leave positive reviews online. If you find anyone complaining about your services on any one of the review sites, be sure to respond to it on time with a polite message. Keeping a track of online reviews, being available to answer the queries of your customers and having a strong online presence on popular social networks will help you to maintain a rather healthy image on the restaurant review sites.

It’s also a great idea to claim your business on Google Places and Google Maps. This will help get the word out as people search for their next bite. This will help build long-term loyalty.

Create a brand identity

A restaurant brand identity consists of a company name, logo, tagline, and typeface. Even your packaging should reflect the values of your business. All these essential components focus on the company's core philosophies, the kind of food you'd be serving and the type of customers you would be catering to. In order to create a strong brand identity, analyze your strengths and weaknesses, identify your target audience, and determine the brand’s personality. What's the message that you would like to communicate to your audience? Think about famous food chains and try to recognize their voice. For instance, Dominos's voice exemplifies traits such as affordability, taste, family convenience, and fun.

Leveraging Online Ordering

80% of the internet users order food online at least once a week. Ordering food online is convenient, easy and affordable with all the offers and deals that restaurants provide to beat the competition. Having said as much, if you are not wandering into the space of online ordering, you will miss out on numerous potential clients. Furthermore, if you have a space crunch and you can't feast in excess of 20 individuals, or if you don't have enough servers to deal with your orders, getting your business online is the best way to expand and increase revenue. Read more about the benefits of online ordering here.

Making a restaurant business a successful venture can be an exhausting journey for most. But the good news is that it can be done and today's time, without spending a lot of money. All you need is a solid brand identity, a user-friendly website and a seamless online ordering system in place to get onto the path of success. But remember that they’re simply the starting point to build a solid foundation and reach a potential audience. Focusing on getting the most value, meeting guest expectations and creating better margins will help you get ahead in the market.