The café industry is tough. In most places, there is a lot of competition. For example, in Spain for every 169 people, there is a bar or café that sells coffee, snacks, and light meals.
Add in the fact that most small cafes only make around 2.5%, and you can see why you must maximize the number of people you get through the door. Because the overheads connected to leasing and heating your café stay the same, the more you sell the bigger your profit margins become. In no time that 2.5% profit margin can grow to around 15%.
Fortunately, attracting passersby into your cafe is far easier to do than you might think. Read on and you will see why we say that.
Use digital sandwich boards to catch people´s attention
If your café is located somewhere sandwich boards or pavement banners are allowed tap into that opportunity. Because they are visible from a long way off, they tend to get noticed and pique people´s interests. By the time they reach your café they are keen to know what is being advertised. It is also now possible to set up digital sandwich boards. The latest digital displays for cafes can easily be mounted on a sandwich board frame that has a battery built into it that kicks out enough power to keep the display on for hours. There are even solar-powered ones available.
In areas where you are not allowed to set up sandwich boards or banners on the pavement, just put one in your window instead. Provided your messages are attractive and snappy enough you will still catch the eye of passersby. You might also want to consider leaving the screen on for a few hours in the evening, so you can continue advertising even when you are closed.
Run a loyalty program
Loyalty programs are a particularly effective way for cafes to persuade current customers to pop in more often. Because most people have a coffee several times a week it does not take long for them to rack up enough points to enjoy a free cup or another promotion. This keeps the momentum going and encourages them to come back for more.
Of course, there are some cons to running loyalty programs, which you can read about here. But overall, they work well for cafes, especially for new ones that are struggling to gain traction.
Offer daily specials
Try your best to always have something on special offer. People like to feel that you are looking after them and running promotions is an effective way to get people to try new lines. Or, to sell through something that you do not want to stock anymore.
You can advertise these specials on your sandwich board or window display screens. It is even possible to have two or three promotions running at once. In that situation, you would advertise the one that is most likely to appeal to the people who are out in your area at each time of the day.
For example, in mid-morning it might be a coffee and snack offer that will attract parents who have just dropped the kids off and elderly shoppers. Around lunchtime, you could switch to a sandwich deal aimed at manual and office workers. Then, when the kids come out of school change it again to something they are likely to pop in and buy.
Keep on changing things up
Most of your best customers will be habitual coffee or tea drinkers. They will come in every day around the same time and nine times out of ten will order the same thing. This is great, it provides you with a core of steady income. So, you want to be sure that you always have what they typically order available
But it is important to understand not everyone is like that. Some people are always on the lookout for something new. You can attract them into your cafe by offering something different and advertising the fact that you do. Examples include:
- Holiday-themed drinks and food
- Hosting tea, coffee, or cake tasting events
- Offering activities
- Offering a selection of taster sandwiches
- Serving something a bit different from other cafes e.g., sushi or Indian samosas and pastries
The more creative you are the better. Use these unusual cafes for inspiration.
As you can see, none of the above ideas are particularly expensive to implement. Most can be set up and launched in less than a day. So, if you or a friend of yours has a café that is struggling, why not pick one or two and try them?
