30 Of The Best Restaurant Marketing Ideas You Need To Know
Obtaining new customers, improving sales and increasing the bottom line. These goals form an integral part of every restaurant marketing plan.
But how do you take your creative restaurant marketing ideas and turn them into an actionable plan that benefits your business? How do you attract new customers to your venue?
What is the recipe for success?
“THERE IS MORE TO ONLINE ADVERTISING THAN PUTTING SOME MONEY INTO A CAMPAIGN, CREATING A PRETTY PICTURE AND WRITING A HEADLINE. THERE IS A WHOLE MARKETING FUNNEL TO CONSIDER AND A LOT OF CUSTOMER RESEARCH, DEFINING OF GOALS, AND ANALYSIS OF DESIRED OUTCOMES INVOLVED. IF YOU DON’T SET OUT TO DO IT RIGHT, YOU WILL JUST BE THROWING MONEY AWAY.” — SHANA HAYNIE
The key components you need to address when putting together your restaurant marketing ideas involve:
- Email Marketing
- Blogging
- Social Media Advertising
- Social Media Posts — Branded, Sales and Shared
These activities will form the core of your digital marketing.
EMAIL MARKETING FOR RESTAURANTS
Connecting with your customers and potential visitors with email can play a significant role in marketing for restaurants.
Including content such as contests, giveaways, current specials, discounts, notifications of upcoming events, and email only exclusives can greatly benefit your restaurant.
If you offer a loyalty program, you can encourage customers to sign up for emails and entice them with deals, special offers and exclusive promotions.
Using your website, pop-ups or a dedicated social media campaign, you can encourage customers to return to claim their reward from your promotion, this could be anything from a free drink, money off a specific meal, etc.
57% OF GUESTS WHO RESEARCH A RESTAURANT BEFORE VISITING WILL VIEW RESTAURANT WEBSITES BEFORE SELECTING WHERE TO DINE. SOURCE: UPSERVE
BLOGGING FOR RESTAURANTS
Having a blog on your restaurant website gives your SEO more pages to work with, and your customers more touchpoints to engage with you. It is important that you decide on a schedule for updating your blog and stick to it. Customers will not be happy to see such pages only being updated periodically, or worse — displaying the wrong information.
When crafting blogs for your restaurant digital marketing, you could include topics such as:
- Featured meals
- Tips and tricks from your chefs
- Updates on what’s happening at the venue
- Interviews with staff members
- Discussions about the menu and possible changes that are being considered
If your content is providing your customers with value in some form, they are going to want to read it, and return to read it again when you update.
SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING FOR RESTAURANTS
For Social Media advertising to work properly for your restaurant digital marketing, you need to have a budget set aside for it.
There are different types of campaigns across the different platforms, and you will need to monitor and maintain all of these to make the most of your budget.
Facebook Ads will help you to increase brand awareness and your genuine Facebook followers; it is one of the first steps you can take to generate awareness of your venue and increase your reach through paid advertising.
Traffic Campaigns can help you increase bookings, promote special offers and encourage more people to visit your website. This tactic is especially useful when combined with a strong Call to Action (CTA) asking potential customers to ‘Visit Our Website’ or ‘Book Your Table Now!’
Brand Awareness campaigns are designed to increase the overall reach of your brand and encourage people to remember who you are.
Customers need to see your content on a regular basis before they decide to visit your venue; traditionally it’s argued that a customer needs to see content two or three times, but some now say that it should be seven times. Regardless, if your brand isn’t posting content regularly, you are actively decreasing your chances to appeal and remain relevant in the eyes of potential customers.
SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS — BRANDED, SALES AND SHARED
Broadly speaking, your social media content can be split into three sections, and you should be dedicating equal time to each 1/3rd.
Branded Posts — These are posts which have the primary objective of encouraging engagement. From motivational quotes, thoughts of the day, contests, giveaways, reviews and testimonials, these posts aren’t trying to directly sell to the customer — they are encouraging interaction.
Sales Posts — This is where you promote yourself and call your customers to action: Book a Table, Order Now, etc. Your content needs to be interesting, visually appealing and give the customers the information they need to make their decisions. This means you need to provide them with the type of cuisine, what price it is, when and where they can find it — and how they can reach you.
Shared Posts — These posts will generally be articles, blogs or pieces of external content that you’ve provided to your audience. They must give the customers value, otherwise they’re not going to get shared. These posts will help you build a relationship with your target audience, build their trust, deliver your Brand Voice and Values and ultimately increase successful marketing for restaurants.
This article 30 Of The Best Restaurant Marketing Ideas You Need To Know was originally published at https://virtual-solutions.co.uk/restaurant-marketing-ideas/ Virtual Solutions https://virtual-solutions.co.uk/contact/
