Advertising within a Restaurant

Updated September 29th, 2013

Learn how to increase your sales and strengthen your restaurant’s brand awareness with merchandising, POP displays and advertising inside the doors of your restaurant.

Though it is effective, you should not limit yourself to advertising only outside your restaurant, as that is similar to applying only half of your resources towards your work. In fact, the interior of your restaurant is a wide expanse of space, a canvas of sorts that can be utilized for displays, merchandising or food photography. For example, the area near the point of purchase (POP), where customers pay for their food, is ideal for marketing your merchandise and depending on the service type, the POP can be the counter near the cash register, the area behind the bar or even a table where customers eat and receive their bill.

If you are a fine dining establishment, you should be careful not to display gaudy ads in your dining area, as it detracts from the sophistication of your restaurant. However, casual full-service and quick-service restaurants can experience a tremendous growth in profits by making full use of their empty space. In particular, merchandising and POP advertising can benefit your restaurant and its name with the following:

Impulse Buys

When a customer is standing near the cash register, ready to pay their bill, it isn’t very difficult to sway them into spending a few extra dollars and this can be done without words. Display merchandise, mints and candies, pre-packaged food and baked goods near the counter to encourage impulse buys when customers pay their bills. Humans are visual creatures and a well placed, quality image or product can seal the deal.  You can also appeal to humans’ attraction to beauty before they even get to the bill-pay counter. Table tents are a simple way to incite impulse buys of appetizers or desserts. Showcasing homemade baked goods in a bakery display case near the entrance of your restaurant can also increase dessert sales. Either they’ll crave them coming in or they will remember them at the POP and purchase them on the way out. Moreover, according to research published in Bakery Production and Marketing, half of casual dining customers would visit a restaurant more often if it had a bakery. This is definitely an option to explore to bring in more revenue.

Promoting New/Profitable Items and Upcoming Events

Promotion is a process that should occur on a regular basis. Customers tend to forget about a special item if they are not presented with it regularly. Again, the most suitable route to earning the attention of clientele is through the eyes, as people do not want to hear a 30-second spiel about much of anything. A quick, snappy, memorable poster or photo is the proper medium to launch the sales of new menu items or increase profits by selling more often. The former applies also when discussing upcoming events, in addition to the use of small (eye-catching) flyers or miniature reminders. The customers you already have are the ones that are most likely to attend special events and promotions in the future, so it is essential that you keep them informed.

Branding

In the vein of visuals and their vitality, reinforce your positioning and include the SAME logos, slogans and designs on your marketing materials. The more frequently customers see your name and designs, the more they will remember you, since they have an “image” to associate with your brand. Ponder for a moment the importance of brands in our culture. When people buy, they buy based on the name, for they know that it will guarantee them quality and a particular sort of service. Make sure that your name makes a name for itself.

Types of Merchandising and POP Advertising

To recap, there is probably a bit of free space in your restaurant that can be used for advertisements, whether for other businesses or for displaying your own restaurant’s design concept and products. You should consider showing off your own food, merchandise and events in a similar way with table tents and the following tools:

Wall hangings and signs

Posters and signs with your logo and/or photos of your menu food can stimulate customers’ appetites, increasing the likelihood of those particular items being sold.

Digital advertising displays

As long as it does not begin to look cluttered, merchandising and advertising displays can support your branding efforts and help you increase profits. Digital advertising displays work exceptionally well for quick-service restaurant.  This is because they give customers something to avidly do as they wait in line to order and more often than not, the order of a customer will positively alter, as their hunger is amplified by the desirable images. Create your own displays if you are artistically talented, or hire a professional to design your merchandising and advertising displays. Either way, be sure to feature your newest or most profitable items. You can also use these digital displays to advertise upcoming events or products.

Written by Daniel Grossmann