Cafe expanding into outside catering

C

CafeCulture

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We opened a cafe some months back and have one major problem- small size of premises! We have catered for a number of meetings and received positive feedback.

We now wish to get more business of this type- any suggestions/ comments please would be much appreciated.
 
Good to hear that your new venture is going well. Is the free coffee for AAM users still on offer? ;)
 
Hi CafeCulture,

There are a number of ways you can generate this type of business. Probably the best place to start is by compiling a list of all the neighbouring businesses that fall into your target market, i.e are likely to be having meetings.

Once you have compiled the list then the next step is to target them the most effective and low cost way will be by calling in and leaving a brochure/menu with the owner/main admin person most likely to be responsible for booking catering for meetings.

You should make some kind of good offer to try and get their business, such as a free sandwich platter so they can try you out. This might sound expensive but you need to consider that giving away a little bit of free food in this manner is likely to be much more cost effective than spending a fortune on advertising.

Be sure to build up a database of prospects and customers and just keep following up with them to remind them you are there. Then over time when they need a outside caterer you will be top of their mind.

Good luck,

Matt

www.betterbusinessresults.com
 
Hi Matt

Thanks for all that guidance. Would you suggest we get professionally printed leaflets like something on [broken link removed]

Also for our existing customers- in cafe and with catering, should we develop comment cards?

Many thanks
 
Yes Vistaprint are good for a basic brochure, or you might be able to do something on a PC with a decent printer if you get some good paper.

Capturing customer feedback is always a good way of improving and making sure you are offering what people want. You should also consider capturing customer details so you can follow up with them.

For example we recently implemented a marketing system for a pub where customers can subscribe to a list where they receive special offers via text message. This can be very helpful for keeping customers aware of new offerings or sending out electronic discount vouchers such as come for a free cup of coffee at a particular time of day when you might otherwise be quiet.

Matt

www.betterbusinessresults.com
 
BetterBiz said:
Hi CafeCulture,

There are a number of ways you can generate this type of business. Probably the best place to start is by compiling a list of all the neighbouring businesses that fall into your target market, i.e are likely to be having meetings.

Once you have compiled the list then the next step is to target them the most effective and low cost way will be by calling in and leaving a brochure/menu with the owner/main admin person most likely to be responsible for booking catering for meetings.

You should make some kind of good offer to try and get their business, such as a free sandwich platter so they can try you out. This might sound expensive but you need to consider that giving away a little bit of free food in this manner is likely to be much more cost effective than spending a fortune on advertising.

Be sure to build up a database of prospects and customers and just keep following up with them to remind them you are there. Then over time when they need a outside caterer you will be top of their mind.

Good luck,

Matt

www.betterbusinessresults.com
Click to expand...
Just read a few articles on the Betterbusiness website; worth checking out- good sound bite information. I work in the area of microenterprise development and stop start knee jerk marketing is the most common business development problem among our client group.
Cheers
tangerine
 
CafeCulture, Tangerine - many thanks for your kind words. You can find more articles on our blog at [broken link removed] also if you have any more marketing questions be sure to post them and I will try and help.

Matt
 
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