Lifetime Benefits Of A New Customer – Financial Perspective
If you know anything about marketing, then you know that each new customer you bring to your business is worth something.
For instance, for car dealerships each customer could be worth thousands of dollars and end up becoming a repeat customer for life. Therefore, you could argue that marketing for a car dealership could be quite pricey to bring in even a single new customer.
What about for a gym around the corner from your home? You could say that a customer for a gym would bring in recurring revenue for years to come potentially. Therefore, their customers are worth a lot too and to bring someone new into the door would be worth quite a bit.
Those examples are pretty obvious, but what about something a little more interesting. What about the lifetime benefits of a new customer for a restaurant?
New Customer For Restaurants
This really is something you need to consider if you own a restaurant in Atlanta. If you are trying to compete against the franchises, delivery services, and constant rising prices then you need to know the value of a new customer for your business.
What is the real benefit for your restaurant for bringing in one new customer? Well, lets break that down shall we.
If you bring in one new customer comes into your restaurant and you treat them will, they like the food, and they come back, then there could be quite the long-term benefit.
Lets estimate that a recurring customer may come to your restaurant on average once a month. How does that sound? We want to be conservative on estimates as always.
That might not sound like a lot, but if you make between $15 to $20 in profit every single time they enter your establishment with their family or friends, then you are getting around $180 to $240 a year from that person. Not to mention they will probably keep coming back on average for 2 to 4 years. That in total amounts to around $360 to $960 over the 2 to 4 year period.
That means a new regular customer for your business is worth on average about $650!
Those are just averages though, in reality you could have a customer that comes every other week for the next 10 years if you continually treat them right. That is a ton of profit from a single person and the people they bring with them. Specifically, they bring in friends to eat there, family members, and slowly increase your exposure and profits overtime.
When you break it down, the lifetime benefits of even one new customer for a restaurant is quite impactful.
Value Every Customer
This should help to paint the picture that every single customer is important.
Although, what then should you be paying for marketing in order to get that one new regular customer in the door? Clearly that is the goal right?
You want to use targeted marketing, exposure, word of mouth, to-go platforms, and ads to bring new people to try your restaurant!
For starters, a lot of that is free.
For instance, you can gain a massive amount of exposure from simply becoming active on social media platforms.
Additionally, You can get found organically on Google searches from building a proper website with strong SEO.
You could also join a To-Go Market Place and get a bunch of free exposure right now! Platforms like ours, Appymeal, targets locals in your area bringing those new faces right to your door!
In addition, you can get new people to try your spot by offering discounts or specials throughout the week during those slow hours.
There is a lot you can do, but what if you want to pay to play? What if you want to spend a little bit of money to increase your chances of getting that new person in the door?
Here is what I suggest.
Pay to Play
Before you do anything, you need to research.
For a local restaurant in Atlanta you need to find top keywords, search terms, and social platforms to target.
You can find some top keywords for your general area by using a free tool like Ubersuggest. With this tool, you can find out how much businesses pay on average to rank with Google ads for specific keywords. Take for instance, “Restaurants in Atlanta”
As we can see from the tool, the cost per click, as in the amount you’ll pay for ads before someone clicks on your ad is around $1.75.
Now that is not the cost per conversion. That is only the cost for someone to, on average, click on your ad and be taken to your landing website page or to-go order page. Still, that is a good start right? New customers need to find you, before they can even go to your restaurant and we already know the value of even one new regular customer.
If that doesn’t make you intrigued, the next option could be to pay influences and bloggers in your area to post about you.
The easiest way to find bloggers in your area is by searching, “Food Blogs Atlanta” or something similar. Click on a few that come up, and shoot them an email!
Likewise, all social platforms have readily usable search features for your to find “food influencers” near you. Give them an add and shoot them a direct message. You can even offer them a few meal if they come by!
It will at least get them in the door to start the conversation.
Long story short, pick how you want to pay to play. There are many options, choose the one you think will have the best impact on your business.
Diminishing Returns
While you are pushing to bring more and more people in the door, remember that there is something called – the law of diminishing returns.
That basically means, there is such a thing as too much marketing. You need to use these tools to get in front of people, so that they can find you. But you do not need to be aimlessly throwing money at every possible marketing solution.
Get strategic with your marketing. Target new customers that might have not had the chance to dine at your restaurant yet, or people that might have landed on your website, but not put in an order.
The idea is to bring in new customers consistently over time while maintaining your already healthy level of regulars.
At the end of the day, your best resource for bringing in new customers is through the people that already love and dine at your establishment monthly.
Those are the people you need to actively be conversing with, pleasing, and encouraging to come back time after time. More often than not, those are the people who will naturally help grow your business by word of mouth, bringing in friends, and suggesting you to people looking for a good place to try.
