If you run a restaurant or café, the answer is a resounding yes! Marketers and venue operators from across the country are starting to jump on the animal wagon, and consumers love it!
You may have noticed a few cat cafes popping up in Melbourne and Sydney, or heard of restaurants in France, Italy and Germany that welcome people’s pooches into their venue; there’s even a café in Sydney Park, Café Bones, where your furry best friend can enjoy a ‘pupaccino’ or Fourth Chapter in Melbourne where a delicious handmade doggie biscuit is a great treat.
But, what about you? If you would love to make your café or restaurant a real destination for animal lovers, but don’t really know where to start, these marketing tips will help point you in the right direction!
Get Involved with Local Animal Shelters
Help out with a fundraising event, feature animals that are up for adoption on your businesses Facebook page and sign up for email updates from your local pound or RSPCA centre, so you always know what’s going on. This will not only show that you care about local animals and their wellbeing, it will also give your local animal shelters a much-needed helping hand.
Place Water Bowls and Lead Hooks Outside Your Establishment
If you want to attract pet owners to your restaurant but aren’t quite ready to take the leap into letting four-legged companions inside, you can start by making the outside area of your venue pet friendly.
Hang up some hooks on the lower part of the wall where people can tie their dogs and place out some bowls of water. You might even want to put signs up saying dogs are welcome in your courtyard. This will not only make you a popular attraction for pet lovers, you’ll also draw in some foot traffic from people out walking their dogs who want a coffee but don’t want to just leave their dog on the sidewalk while they get it.
Share Pictures of Your Staff and Their Pets
One of the best parts about having social media accounts and a blog is that you can get a little bit more personal. A restaurant and café is more than just a place for food, people often choose where to eat based on the atmosphere and how much they like the staff. Your Facebook and Instagram account and blog is the perfect platform to sell yourself and your team to your customers. If you want your establishment to be a hot spot for pet owners, show your customers how much your staff love their own animals.
This could be in the form of your barista and their tank of fish, your waitress and her adorable beagle or even your manager and their fluffy cat.
#Customersandtheirpets
As well as sharing pictures of your staff and their pets, why not include your customers in the fun? To get the word out their that your establishment is animal friendly, and to show that your team is a pretty cool bunch in general, snap some cute shots of your customers and their pets when they visit and share them on Facebook and Instagram (with their permission, of course).
Not only does this highlight to your current customers and future clients that your restaurant or café is per friendly, it will also help your social media pages get more traction and exposure.
Are you ready to make your venue the next big thing for pet owners? To keep up with customer demand, Vectron’s POS systems will make taking and processing your orders easier than ever. Contact us for more information today!