The Best Ways to Get More Customer Walk-Ins

Whether you own a restaurant, busy retail store, or hair salon, you need to increase your customer walk-ins. The benefits of doing this include:

• Increased sales
• Bigger profits
• Heightened brand awareness

Not to mention, when people see that your establishment is always jam-packed with people, it makes them feel more incentivized to come and check you out, too. The benefits of customer walk-ins are endless, which is why they need to be your priority moving forward.

Here’s the big question: how can you get more customer walk-ins? This is a tough task, especially for businesses with lots of competition surrounding them, but it’s still possible. Get started today by following these proven methods to get more customer walk-ins no matter which industry you’re in.

Improve Your Business Premises

Firstly, you need to start from the outside by improving your business premises. Curb appeal is key.

If your premises is dated, rundown, and damaged, then no customers will want to go near you — it’s a fact. In their minds, it says that you don’t care about your brand representation, which is why they’ll assume your products and services are low-quality.

One of the most common issues for businesses is the ground – specifically, the concrete. For example, the concrete pathways leading up to their entrance might be completely damaged, making it unsafe for people to walk on them. Or, their concrete parking lots could be covered in potholes, meaning it’s not an enjoyable experience for customers to park there. If this applies to your business, then you need to use K&E Flatwork for concrete replacement. This will automatically improve your business premises, making them fit for modern customers.

In addition to fixing any concrete issues you have, it’s also a good idea to spruce up the outside of your business premises. This can potentially range from upgrading your windows to an exterior painting job to freshen up the place. Ultimately, you need to take some time to assess your business premises from the outside so that you can identify where the key problem areas are and which parts need to be upgraded.

Offer Free Samples

Another way to get more customer walk-ins is by offering free samples outside of your entrance.

For instance, if you’re a bakery shop, you could hand out small cake samples to people who are walking by. Although this might not seem like much, it’s an excellent way to make a great impression and encourage customers to come inside the next time they pass — especially if your samples taste amazing.

Now, if you’re a business that offers services, not physical products, you won’t be able to hand out samples. However, what you can do is hand out leaflets and company cards that advertise your products and provide people with your opening and closing times.

Use Eye-Catching Signs

Outside of your store, make sure to add some eye-catching signs so that passersby know exactly what you’re about and what you offer. Do you have low prices? Let them know! Are your products better than your competitors? Make this clear!

Remember, your signage needs to pop out and be as easy to understand as possible. Keep the number of words to a limit and focus on strong visuals. Otherwise, nobody is going to notice.

Also, signage is a long-term investment. If you invest in good signs, they can last for years, so there’s no need to worry about the cost.

Optimize Social Media for Marketing

Through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, you can put marketing messages out there that help to drive your in-store traffic.

One of the most popular ways that businesses do this in 2024 is through check-ins and tagging discounts. Essentially, the way this works is that customers will receive a special discount (e.g., 10%) if they tag the business on social media. This way, the business gets more exposure due to the person’s friends and followers seeing it.

Also, you can use your social media business pages to promote in-store sales, events, and more. For example, if you have a buy-one-get-one-free sale coming up, you can send the message out on social media and start directing customers to your store — simple.

PR Newswire reports that over two-thirds of small businesses now use social media. To boost your customer walk-ins and overall brand awareness, you definitely need to do this, too. Remember, it’s free to run business pages on all of the major social media platforms, so it won’t even cost you a penny!

Offer Student Discount

These days, businesses are heavily focused on attracting young customers, such as college students.

One of the best ways that you can do this is through a student discount. To get people through the door, it should be at least 10%. The higher you put your student discount, the more attractive you’ll be.

For example, let’s say that you’re a restaurant in a busy student area. If you offer 50% off for students on a specific day of the week, then this is almost guaranteed to get results. Of course, your profit margin will decrease on this particular day, but it’s more than worth it due to the fact that you’ll be gaining more loyal customers who will then come back to your establishment on other days of the week as well.

Collaborate with a Local Influencer

No matter which city your business is located in, there’s guaranteed to be at least a handful of social media influencers in the local area. By collaborating with one of these influencers, you can potentially send hundreds of new customers in your direction, which is why this particular marketing method is seen as so effective for store walk-ins.

The way it works is simple: you pay the influencer and they then promote your store on their pages. It could be something as simple as them taking a selfie while inside your establishment and then writing about how good your products are. As long as the message is conveyed in a genuine way, the influencer’s followers will then be inclined to come and visit your store.