With the deadly coronavirus spreading from Asia across Europe and the US, more and more countries are announcing radical measures to contain the pandemic: from restricting gatherings to a complete closure of all public places: bars, restaurants, cinemas, concert halls etc.
How are restaurant and bar owners supposed to survive at least two weeks, but possibly much much longer – of complete lockdown in the times of coronavirus?
If you’re a restaurant owner – it’s time to act, not hide and cry. We came up with 7 practical and simple ways how you can use the online to keep your restaurant business going in the times of the coronavirus – and emerge from it even stronger than before!
We will walk you through the 7 hacks that will allow your restaurant to make quick cash during the lockdown– and give you the exact templates and tools to implement them.
Here’s what you can do to save your restaurant from the coronavirus:
- Introduce ‘no-contact’ home delivery options & food shopping
- Sell out perishable ingredients with home delivery with a big discount
- Pre-sell tickets to post-corona events (including a big re-opening party)
- Put together ‘cook at home’ recipes from your restaurant
- Use social media more often to share recipes, stories and…collect emails
- Create a mailing list
- Create a recipe book and sell it online
1. Introduce ‘no-contact’ home delivery options & grocery ‘dropshipping’
While the contact restrictions are limiting dining out, most restaurants can still do home delivery. If you haven’t yet – jump on the bandwagon and join a home delivery service like Uber Eats (here’s a practical guide on how to become an Uber Eats Restaurant Partner). You can also ‘repurpose’ your waiters as delivery men during that hard time.
Remember that some people may be afraid of any contact – so offer them a no-contact delivery (leaving the package in front of their door)
I know – they may not be thrilled at first – but you should remind them it’s in everyone’s interest to keep your business afloat.
Grocery ‘Dropshipping’
Have you heard of ‘dropshipping’? The term is used when a company which sells goods online gets the manufacturer to deliver them directly to their client.
How can you use ‘dropshipping’ to save your restaurant during coronavirus?
You can post recipes from your restaurant on social media + offer the clients to do ‘ingredient shopping’ for them! Just like Hello Fresh (a meal kit delivery service) – only that instead of preparing the portioned ingredients, you would simply…order them from a store which does grocery delivery (e.g. Tesco Online Shopping) – and pre-sell via a PayPal.me link (an online payment provider which allows you to create a direct payment landing page where people can pay via debit/credit cards or PayPal) on your social media or in your newsletters (with a markup).
You can also sell your stock that way – see more about it below!
Before you do it, check what legal restrictions on selling food you have in your country.
2. Sell out perishable ingredients with home delivery with a big discount
Did the lockdown catch you with a huge amount of perishable stock that will go off unless you cook it or sell it quickly? Or maybe you have some leftover ‘cupboard staples’ like pasta or rice (people are literally fighting for those in supermarkets now…)?
It’s a great opportunity for you to make some money selling them!
- Post information about ‘essential food packages’ and ‘cooking kits’ available with home delivery – on your social media and to your mailing list (don’t worry if you don’t have any yet – I will teach you how to create it soon 😉 )
- Make it fun – post a recipe on how to cook the ingredients (make sure they are simple and fun as well!) on your Facebook page + send it to your email list.
- You can prepare a special series of recipes ‘Corona Survival Kit’
Before you do it, check what legal restrictions on selling food you have in your country.
3. Pre-sell tickets to post-corona events (including a big re-opening party)
The lockdown is not going to last forever (or so we hope!) – so make sure you line up some exciting events like a ‘Post-Corona Re-Opening Night’ – and presell tickets to them to get some quick cash through the door now.
4. Put together ‘cook at home’ recipes from your restaurant
Staying at home does not mean that one should eat boring, bland food…
On the contrary – the lockdown – and spending time at home with family – provides a great opportunity to do some cooking together!
5. Use social media more often to share recipes, stories and…collect emails
First of all – to encourage people to buy food from you and cook at home – you need to show them how to do it!
And what’s the best way to show people how to cook remotely? On a video!
You can create a daily ‘Evening cooking show’ and show your audience how to cook simple dishes from your restaurant live – this will be a great way to engage your audience…and encourage home delivery or grocery shopping by your restaurant!
Just make sure they are *simple* – so that the cooking results in success (despite the shortages of food 😉 )
What else can you share on your Facebook to encourage people to buy from you during the lockdown?
- Share stories connected to your restaurant/ cuisine
- Ask people how they are – this is the best time to make real connections – and offer a random act of kindness – e.g. donate food
- Talk about how to make your most popular dishes at home
- Create a special ‘corona survival menu’
If you want to know more about what kind of content you can post on your restaurant’s social media – here’s a full blog post on how to promote your restaurant on Facebook.
6. Create a mailing list
Now – most importantly – in addition to posting ‘survival tips’ on social media – you should try to get people to give you their email addresses too.
Why?
While a lot of restaurants have jumped on the ‘social media bandwagon’ – very few collect email addresses.
Which is a big mistake – because when you compare social media and email marketing’s ‘organic reach’ (you can read more about it here) – you will notice that email marketing has a much better potential to reach your target audience than social media.
The reason is – quite simply – while over 90% of emails are delivered to your subscribers’ mailboxes, only about 2-6% of Facebook posts are displayed to your followers.
But how to get people to signup to your email list if you don’t have any subscribers?
On social media!
Ask people to sign-up to your list by simply sending you their email to you in a private message:
- offer them a discount for a home delivery
- offer them a free ticket to your post-corona events
- offer them a free dessert or an ‘extra item of choice’ to their ‘remote shopping basket’
What to send in the coronavirus restaurant newsletters?
- Information about how to stay safe during the virus
- Questions showing your concern for your customers
- Recipes for how to make their favourite dishes from your restaurant at home
- ‘Coronavirus Survival Guides’ with simple recipes from ‘cupboard staples’
- Invitations to post-corona events
Since it’s no time to faffing around with templates, inventing catchy subject lines and copy – we prepared ready-made restaurant newsletter templates to send during the lockdown for you!
7. Create a recipe book and sell it online
On top of sharing inspiring recipes for free, you can create an ebook ‘Corona Survival Guide – How to Survive the Lockdown When You *Really* Can’t Cook’ – I know not everyone is a bron writer but…you can easily outsource writing a few dozen pages to cheap copywriters on websites like Fiverr.com or Freelancer.com.
Or maybe you will actually discover writing talent in yourself or in a member of your staff?
Alternatively, you could ask each of your staff members (especially the cook/ chef!) to share their favourite *simple* recipes
After you’ve put your book together – you can send it via email to those of your subscribers who paid you for the book on PayPal.
Now it’s time to Act!
Download our special Restaurant Lockdown bundle to get:
- FREE email marketing tool
- FREE restaurant templates designed especially for corona lockdown times
- FREE social media scheduling tool
- Advice what to do step-by-step in the form of an actionable checklist
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