Digital Strategy Plan for a New Restaurant

In the current day and age, the hospitality business especially the restaurants are struggling to bring in new presence and are unsuccessful in continuing in later stages.

A new restaurant doesn’t specifically mean your demographic will enjoy it.

Furthermore, an understanding of your environment and digital presence, can drastically change your company from being unknown and unsuccessful to a company which will strive under any conditions.

A well made digital marketing strategy plan has to be implemented into the making of a business to be successful in the future.

Additionally, having a clear goal in mind will mean that the company has a vision and a mission that they will need to strive for.

One of the main problems that come from not starting a restaurant correctly are:

• Location: This is when the company has placed themselves in the wrong market environment not reaching their customers to gain profitable results.
• Poor customer experience/staff management: Having poor customer experience stems from the fact that the company will have poor staff management.Also, having such an important factor go wrong from the start means that  the company will never be able to succeed with profit levels.
• Complex menu: Having a menu that contains too many choices means that the customer will take too long when picking an item of food that they will want to buy, potentially frustrating the customer. 
• Inexperience with the managers coming in forms of not involving himself in the company when dealing with the customers means that he might be missing out on the potential feedback to improve the company but also the customer will feel like that management is not involved when dealing with the customers. Additionally, not understanding the market/ report analysis and overall research will cause the company not to succeed as it will not reach its potential profit levels allowing for highest results of financial gain.

Now that we have identified some of the problems that might arise when starting a restaurant business, let’s look forward to how to correctly start your company.

Starting off with the vision and the mission those are the two most important factors when considering opening a restaurant company or any company at that much.

The vision is the statement of the current state of business and how you want to see it in the future with objective organization in mind. In addition, the vision has to closely align with the mission of the company to allow for success in the upcoming future.

The mission is a statement of the organization’s purpose. Furthermore, it will show all the reasons for the existence of the company, they must be stated clearly so the customer can understand where the company is going. 

Example of a vision for a new restaurant company: To serve happiness to our customers through delicious, quality meals and extraordinary restaurant experience while working toward the greater good for our employees, community and environment.

Example of a mission for a new restaurant company: 

• To delight and nourish our customers with healthy, quality and delicious food and excellent service at a reasonable price
• To understand our customer’s changing needs and constantly improve our customer experience
• To generate a sustainable profit growth for our company’s shareholders
• To create long-term relationships with our business partners
• To enhance our employee’s excellence, continuous development and happiness
• To contribute to our society through initiatives that align with our corporate social responsibility program

The SWOT analysis 

It is important to set a correct SWOT analysis for a new restaurant company, here is an example of what a swot analysis could look like:

S – Strengths

• It is a new and refreshing idea in the market.
• Culturally diverse staff.
• Modern and relaxing environment
• Outstanding taste
• Amazing customer experience

W – Weaknesses

• Confusing or a complex menu.
• Price might be expensive
• Environment is not set right
• Not setting the right branding or the current target market

O – Opportunities

• Healthy foods going into new trends
• High exposure location
• Loyal customer base

T – Threats

• Competitors are more established in the current market
• Similarities in the restaurants
• Competition is close by not allowing for a niche

Goals:

Every restaurant company will have different goals when opening the company but some of the general goals will be stated here.

Short term goals for a new restaurant company (3-6 months) :

• Decrease food costs to less than 30% of revenue
• More investment into marketing and advertising
• Increase social media presence

Some long term goals for a new restaurant company (1 year onwards):

• Employee satisfaction/loyalty and training 
• Expansion of the location

Setting a goal will mean that the goals will have to be SMART .

• S – Specific ( A clear number for the goal)
• M – Measurable ( A goal which can be measured as is not too high out of reach)
• A- Achievable ( A goal which is feasible by the company)
• R- Realistic ( A goal which has been done by other companies and is not ouf reach)
• T- Time bound ( A clear time goal to complete this goal in and achieve the results)

Target audience:

As always the target audience will depend on the kind of restaurant you are opening up. However, the most target markets will by young adult between ages 18-35.

A step by step plan:

Research the place you want to start your company in.

Look at the competition and what they are offering that might affect your business.

Start social media presence.

Advertise your unique features to the customers.

Conclusion:

Overall for a starting restaurant company it is difficult to be the best and at the top of the market, thus considering many factors of goal setting and having a clear vision of company is very important. Additionally, a small brief step by step plan will help a company persue what they want in their future stage of life cycle.

References:

https://www.posist.com/restaurant-times/restro-gyaan/top-10-reasons-why-restaurants-fail.html

https://investor.mkrestaurant.com/en/corporate-info/vision-mission

https://restaurant.eatapp.co/blog/restaurant-swot-analysis

https://www.slideteam.net/short-term-and-long-term-goals-for-restaurant-business-plan.html