KNOW how customers find your business online, don't speculate
KNOW how customers find your business online, don't speculate... I've spent the last 6 years polling the public. My goal is to figure out HOW customers find your bar or restaurant online. You can jump to the poll results now by clicking here. Experts in restaurant and bar marketing do not take other people's word for it. They don't go off of national statistics. They don't speculate. I ASK the public and the results will surprise most bar and restaurant owners. We are so conditioned to think social media is the end-all-be-all for driving traffic into our doors. In reality, it accounts for a very small percentage of this, around 4%.
Online Reviews and Search Engines dominate this traffic!
Other than word of mouth, online reviews (Facebook reviews, Google reviews, Yelp, and Tripadvisor) are by FAR the biggest sources of traffic from customers who have not yet heard of you. Social media is awesome for reconnecting with your audience repeatedly if they actually see your posts. Social media is your fishbowl, review sites and search engines are the OCEAN. Consider this, if people who have never heard of you before don't follow you on Facebook or Instagram (obviously), how would they ever see your posts? You can reach these people with paid posts, yes, but this can get extremely expensive, especially in tourist economies where this would have to be paid for year around.
Tourist economies will live or die based on this.
Tripadvisor literally kept one Mexican restaurant in business that I recently visited in Aruba. After passing the 20 TA stickers that were all over the door and the menu, I discussed this with the owner. With his terrible location, tourists would NEVER find his place without the help of Tripadvisor's great location and awesome star ratings.
