The 2 aims every cafe website should have, but don’t

What is the aim of your cafes website?
What is the aim of your bars website?
What is the aim of your restaurant website?

What is the point in having a website!?

So you own a cafe, bar or restaurant and you are thinking of investing IN or improving your establishment’s website.

• Where you start?
• What is your aim?
• What do you want to achieve?

For most business owner these questions, unfortunately do not get asked, nor answered.

In my opinion, this is the fault of the web designer, but in truth one can argue that a web designers job is to build you a website, not build you a business.

The client (in this case a cafe, bar or restaurant owner) wants a good looking website.
And the web designers aim is the same.

The nicer looking the website – the better it is – correct?
The nicer looking the website – the more expensive it must be – correct?

And while the above 2 statements are true they still do not result in a good website.

So I return to the initial main question
What is the point in having a website!?

The ‘point’ of ANYTHING you invest in with regards your website should be to return that investment – simple as that.

If you are restaurant or bar owner and you are spending money on items for your business which do not intern bring value to your business, your business will not go far.

Whether they be loyalty cards or comment cards, flyers or posters, menus or your cafes website they MUST add value to your business.

So… how can a website add value to your business?

or

more correctly put

What do you WANT your website to do for you?

You see the first lesson when it comes to website design, it that websites can do ANYTHING!?

Forget contact forms and opening hours. My god, you can place that info on a Google+ page and they’ll show up to anyone looking straight away.

What do you want your website to do for you and your business!?

What do you really want it to do? Think big, get greedy, what do you want to accomplish.

The reason I ask is I need to get you thinking and realising just how powerful a website is.
Flyers and posters can push a few sales sure but:

• a well designed website can revolutionise your business.
• a well designed website can generate leads for your cafe 247
• a well designed website can take reservations for your restaurant
• a well designed website can take payments
• a well designed website can do almost anything...

The goals of you and your business should be in align with your website.

Your website cannot be a one off investment. Your website must grow with your cafe, bar or restaurant.

So… what should these aims be?

1.) The main aim when owning one cafe, bar or restaurant should be to own 2 cafes, bars or restaurants!

2.) The aim of any cafe, bar or restaurant website today should be to becomes it own online ordering portal

Let’s break then down

1) The Main Aim When Owning 1 Cafe, Bar Or Restaurant Should Be To Own 2 Cafes, Bars Or Restaurants!

Of course!

What self respecting ambitious cafe, bar or restaurant owner hasn’t thought about the day he/she could open their second. And so it should be.
You cant become rich owning 1 eatery. And if you are, you are stressed to the max running it on full steam.

The aim of the first is to get it running to full capacity so that you can open your second and then perhaps your third. That way all can run smoothly not having t be constantly pushed and you can sit back and watch the money flow in.

To achieve this aim you will need something bigger your cafe, bar or restaurant. You will need a brand.

Without a brand you will simply be OPENING a second cafe, bar or restaurant – my god who wants that?

The whole point of going through the stress of establishing the first was that the second and subsequent future establishments would become not only easier to open and get running but much more importantly easier to establish and faster to make profitable.

To accomplish this you need to build your business into something bigger than it is.
A business has a ceiling to what it can accomplish. It is limited by time and staff and hours and geography.

A brand has no limits. Once a brand is established it can grow anywhere and become anything.

Brands can become global, business' cannot.

So… if deep down you truly want to open that second cafe, bar or restaurant than you need to begin working on your brand. This MUST be done online; which means the growth of your business must be intrinsically linked to the growth of your website.

(I just starting typing a few lines to convince you why growing a brand offline is more difficult when I realised- why the hell do I have to convince you to get online in todays age!! 
GET ONLINE! The internet is the most powerful tool of the 21st century. Get your business online and build a lead generation machine.

• First you build your business
• Then you build your brand
• Then you build your second cafe, bar or restaurant

This brings us to aim number 2.

A completely different aim and one completely to do with profit

2) The Second Aim Of Any Cafe, Bar Or Restaurant Website Today Should Be To Becomes It Own Online Ordering Portal

As a cafe, bar or restaurant owner in todays world I am hoping you are familiar with some if not all of the below businesses.

• Living social
• groupon
• Just eat
• eat city
• etc

What they all have in common is they make money by utilising large amounts of traffic.

And by sending that traffic to your business in large volumes you are willing to slash your margins to the bone in order to get the volume of orders.

It is a good business model but of course results in a lot more work for less profit while other bigger companies makes all the real money

As mentioned the only reason these sites work is because they have large amounts of traffic.

However, if you take a step back you should see the potential of what is at hand.

If you are happy to sell 50 soup and sandwiches for 75% off on Groupon while Groupon takes their cut
Then IF you can sell 50 soup and sandwiches on your own website you keep all the profit

You just need to build the network.

And this network is built upon the foundation of a Lead generating website.

The goal of your website should not (as mentioned above) to be to
look good

A good website is one that does the best job possible of converting the visitors to subscribers to customers.

The easiest way to do this is to convert visitors to subscribers and followers first.

Once you have built a substantial network of fans, followers and subscribers you can begin your own Groupon style, Just eat esk marketing campaigns.

Having huge sales with huge discounts knowing that your large following will avail of the offers in large numbers.
By doing this your network gets bigger and bigger, resulting in more sales AND you keep 100% of the profits.

It is not as difficult as it sounds, nor expsinve – it just takes time

There are no easy ways to build your network / following.

Any company that says other wise is talking bullshit.

But don't let that deter you

If anything it should excite you.

As once an engaged audience is built the marketing potential is endless.

From Mothers day to Patrick Day, Christmas to January sales if you have a local loyal and eager audience willing to buy your offers it becomes so much easier to quickly and steadily build your business.

​In Conclusion

As you can imagine aim 1 and aim 2 are both linked.

I recommend focusing on aim 2 first. Building a brand takes a little bit more money and so if you can establish even a small and steady flow of profits through your website this can be rerouted back into the website to expand its reach even further.

Want to change your website from a static brochure to a additional revenue stream?
Want to open that second establishment sooner rather than later?

Let's begin! Get in touch