How a Taco restaurant wins over competitors using community
Taco 'bout community
If you're new to the social scene in Lagos and you ask "where can I get good Tacos around?", you'd almost always get El Padrino as the answer from those who know. They aren't the only ones who make or sell Tacos in Lagos, heck some people don't even like their Tacos, but that doesn't stop them from owning the Taco space in Lagos.
This is a story of how they owned the local Taco market by leveraging community.
There are other restaurants, shops and businesses that make and sell Tacos in Lagos, one that bears mentioning is Potakos. El Padrino (EP) and Potakos both make good Tacos.
EP's Tacos come with toppings and to the uninitiated, the Taco can be eaten without the toppings. Unknown to them, EP's Tacos were designed in a way that allowed the customer to make their own ‘flavour’ by mixing the toppings they wanted. This gives control of the taste to you, the customer, but for someone who doesn't know this, the Tacos may be overly-spiced and thus not good enough.
On the other hand Potakos's Tacos come without toppings, they've been mixed to taste okay from the get-go, so a new customer comes in, tastes it, and it tastes good enough. You get the same Taco everytime!
Compared to EP's Tacos, Potakos ‘may’ seem much better, but even without the topping knowledge, people still flock to EP. This tells us something interesting. A good product Taco isn't enough to bring in and keep the customers.
So what is it?
An engaging and thriving community is.
Because of EP's investments in their community, people keep coming around. Some come to eat Tacos, some come to meet with their friends, some even come like addicts would to get their daily/weekly dosage of the good good Taco.
To see this at play, go to both of them on any given Tuesday. Tuesday's are important because it is the one day where Tacos are celebrated. It is like happy hour or day but for Tacos. It is even nicknamed Taco Tuesday.
EP packs a crowd on Tuesdays. It is so full and the people who come are so loyal to the EP brand that even when they switched locations multiple times, people still came through.
Basically, El Padrino is to Taco in Lagos as Maggi is to seasoning cubes. And they were able to achieve this through community.
How?
In looking at how they've worked with their community, you start to see some strategies and trends. I'll highlight some of these here and share some notes on why or how they work. The strategies here are summarised and dumbdown, the aim here is to give you an idea of how communities can shape and grow your business.
Your friends, your customers
The owner connected with, gisted with and took her time to know each of their returning customers. They were friends, so for them and coming to get Tacos was like coming to gist with their friends. And this brought them back every single time. So whenever they thought about Tacos, they thought about friendship.
Make the experience social and fun
They hold different social events from parties to bingo sessions, to bar crawls, listening shows and comedy nights. They organised different events all around Tacos to make people who ate Tacos feel more connected socially. So whenever they thought about fun and socialising they thought about Tacos.
Partner with parallel brands that sell to your customer segment to share their customer growth
Their Taco shops and events were always situated close to a very niche audience hotspot, places where their ideal customer frequented. From their first office at Workbox a private coworking space to their Taco Tuesday pop ups at La Taverna an upscale restaurant and then their current place at Bature Brewery a craft beer company. This made it easy for them to get a share of the existing market that these brands had, while they built theirs. And they built it well.
Each of these strategies takes time to build and cultivate, but they work well. El Padrino has been building this for 5 years now. Building or creating a community not only grows your business, it also makes your brand a house/community-hold name and it serves as a moat against possible competitors.
Disclaimer: This article was not influenced by any of the brands mentioned here, the writing is of my own professional opinion and experience.