So you want to take your newly started restaurant or even your family-run restaurant business to new heights? In this modern age, you need to build or adopt a good Restaurant digital marketing strategy to market yourself in a way that stands out from your competitors. It may seem very easy to run a restaurant since everyone wants to eat, including you and me.
However, do you know how to make a restaurant? In short, you can do so by building a restaurant or brand name, deciding the type of cuisine to serve, understanding the demographics and making changes accordingly, making a business plan covering every aspect, self-funding it or getting funded by someone, choosing a good location, obtaining a license.
These are a few steps through which you can open up a restaurant.,
However, you cannot get your restaurant up and running right away. For that, you need to get your Restaurant marketing done right. To make your entrepreneurial journey more accessible, we bring you the best Restaurant marketing ideas so you can attract a broader range of audiences and bring in more business.
But before we delve into the world of Restaurant marketing strategies, we first need to understand What is restaurant marketing? It is a way to showcase how your restaurant and cuisines differ from others. If done correctly, you can earn much business.
Let’s look at the guideline on How to promote a restaurant successfully.
So you want to take your newly started restaurant or even your family-run restaurant business to new heights? In this modern age, you need to build or adopt a good Restaurant digital marketing strategy to market yourself in a way that stands out from your competitors. It may seem very easy to run a restaurant since everyone wants to eat, including you and me.
However, do you know how to make a restaurant? In short, you can do so by building a restaurant or brand name, deciding the type of cuisine to serve, understanding the demographics and making changes accordingly, making a business plan covering every aspect, self-funding it or getting funded by someone, choosing a good location, obtaining a license.
These are a few steps through which you can open up a restaurant.,
However, you cannot get your restaurant up and running right away. For that, you need to get your Restaurant marketing done right. To make your entrepreneurial journey more accessible, we bring you the best Restaurant marketing ideas so you can attract a broader range of audiences and bring in more business.
But before we delve into the world of Restaurant marketing strategies, we first need to understand What is restaurant marketing? It is a way to showcase how your restaurant and cuisines differ from others. If done correctly, you can earn much business.
Let’s look at the guideline on How to promote a restaurant successfully.
Build A Website
In this fast-changing digital world, websites are now seen as the face of business, just like you put in the effort to create an aesthetically pleasing ambiance and the environment through different ideas. Similarly, creating an eye-catching website with a good user interface is essential.
Since your website would be the face of your restaurant business, you should make sure that website is nothing short of exceptional.
Moreover, it should resonate with your restaurant’s overall theme and brand. Suppose your restaurant is based on providing health-conscious food. In that case, your website should somewhat feel to the potential customer when they visit it.
Apart from making it eye-catching and representing your restaurant’s theme, there are a few other things you need to take care of when Marketing for restaurants online.
- You should include general restaurant information, including phone number, address, and website. To make it easier for people to locate your restaurant embed your location of the restaurant through google maps.
- Get your Menu card uploaded to the website. This is one of the reasons, or probably the only reason for me to visit a restaurant website. So make sure it’s on your website. Moreover, it should be easily accessible so customers don’t lose interest.
- Upload images of what you deliver at your restaurants instead of just writing the description, as it will make people more tempted to try your restaurant’s food. Make sure the quality of images is in high resolution.
- Lastly, upload images of your restaurants. So that your potential customers buy into the aesthetically pleasing ambiance of the restaurant and visit you.
It is also essential to allow customers to book a reservation table for themselves through your restaurant’s website. What’s the point of having a website if you cannot even make a reservation through it? It’s all about convenience, don’t force them to call you for issues like these because there is a chance they might go to any other restaurant that offers online reservations.
Master The Local SEO
Another important Restaurant marketing tool is local SEO. Do you know why? Let’s explore how local Seo helps in restaurant marketing. Local Seo is an essential part of the restaurant’s social media strategy because many restaurants are tied to the location there. So it is a no-brainer to increase your focus on Local Seo to get more business. Doing Local Seo for your restaurant includes:
- Register for many review sites for restaurants, including, but not limited to, City square, city search, Open table, Zomato, etc.
- Maintain your name, address, phone, etc., consistently because one mistake can dent your online presence, and you wouldn’t do that, Would you? So be focused while doing Local Seo.
- List your business on google.
However, all of this is not enough. You need to pay extra attention to the keywords you choose. It would be best if you did good research before setting your foot on the ground in local Seo. Otherwise,, your efforts will go in vain because SEO requires research.
You would like to separate your SEO keywords by:
- Using broad terms, these will be more generic than other terms, which may include keywords like “restaurant” and “Houston restaurant.”
- Others would be niche terms, which will refer to the kind of cuisine your restaurant offers or plans to offer its customers. Some examples of niche terms may include but are not limited to thai food restaurants, etc. It may include descriptive themes such as “family table,” etc. You can use google maps or Yelp to narrow down your categories.
- Brand keywords, of course, indicate the name of the restaurant. But, if you have just started and have not been able to pull a huge following yet. Then it is better to focus on your niche’s keywords until you get your restaurant recognized by many to be able to get searched constantly by others.
Once you know what target keywords you plan to use, you should then make sure that you place them in your website’s URL, titles, alt tags, and meta descriptions. You also need to place your keywords throughout your content.
If this part of marketing overwhelms you, then you can avail of services of Content marketing service agency Houston to get your Local Seo the right way.
Stimulate Better Restaurant Reviews
Before visiting a restaurant, we all do read reviews about the restaurant. And studies have a substantial impact on our decision on deciding a restaurant. So, good and bad reviews can make or break your restaurant.
So, another vital Restaurant marketing tip for restaurant owners is to encourage more reviews for your restaurant. Because having no reviews about your restaurant is like having a bad review.
Still not getting it? Let’s try to understand the importance of reviews through an example. You are scrolling down to amazon or any other website to buy something. There are two similar products, but one has many reviews, whereas the other does not even have a single one. So it is pronounced that you will buy the product with more reviews instead of the other one that does not have a review.
Similarly, for restaurants, people tend to go to restaurants that have reviews. To support this idea, we back this with a survey conducted by Brightlocal, which found that two-thirds of customers make their opinion of a business after reading only four reviews.
This is why restaurants should ensure that it has some great reviews. And how would you do that? You need to understand what makes your restaurant unique and bring in the wow factor in front of the customers, be it a dish or some crazy ambiance. If you can do this, it is likely they are going to talk about it and leave a review.
Implement The Right Strategy For Bad Reviews
The modern world has been swept away by the technological revolution, and this revolution has certainly negatively affected restaurant marketing too. There was a time when any new restaurant could open up and tweak their dishes without noticing.
However, with the digitalization of the world, things have changed. Restaurant, unfortunately, is just one bad review away from any food review websites like Yelp, and guess what? People would stop visiting it. One or two complain about a specific dish, and people prefer not to see the restaurant.
But this is just another challenge that comes to you when marketing your restaurant digitally. However, there are Restaurant marketing plans to overcome this challenge.
You can tackle this problem of bad reviews, which are inevitable, of course, by replying to them fast to control the damage. This is because more than 40% of customers who complain want to get an answer in less than an hour.
You would like to reply as quickly as possible, but you must ensure that you respond with a cool head and sanity. It is not good to blame the customers who come with complaints, nor is it a good thing to start making excuses.
If you want to promote your restaurant and bring in more business, you need to understand and address the issue. Moreover, offering your sincere apologies to the customer is equally important.
For instance, if the complaint is about lousy customer service or poor food quality or dish. Then it is best to explain to them that what experience, unfortunately, they had to go through is not at all their usual standard.
It would be best if you also communicated with them. You will make sure it never happens ever again. Moreover, try to offer them compensating deals such as a free meal or a voucher only if appropriate.
Or you can find other creative ways of dealing with this problem by offering deals or vouchers to people who leave bad reviews. However, this is undoubtedly a bold move. So think well before making a move.
Sponsor Local Event
Are you looking for more restaurant marketing plan examples? We have got you just that. One of the most successful and vital Marketing ideas for restaurants includes getting your business involved in local events since we all know that restaurant, for sure, is related to their local roots. By applying local events, a restaurant gets to improve its name recognition.
This is why 68% of the restaurants were involved in charitable or sponsorship events in 2019.
Want to know another exciting thing about it? Customers like such things. So you must know what else to do to market your restaurant well.
Charitable organizations are doing much better than ever to score points with their customers, especially if their target audience is millennials. You should know that 33% of consumers now buy products from brands they believe are related to doing something good to the environment or bringing social change.
Similar would be the case with restaurants. Don’t you think? They would feel more optimistic about eating from restaurants that are cage-free.
So, it is time to show your customer that you are one of those who want to think about the community too. It would help if you sponsored any league team or partnered with a local charity. This will create a good impact.
Many restaurants team up with sports teams from local high schools. And due to this team up, members of groups encourage others to eat from those restaurants and distribute their flyers. And in return, the couple donated some percentage of the sales they received by distributing flyers to the teams.
Focus On Personalizing The Experience
Are you interested in finding more Restaurant marketing plan examples? You should know that customer experience is significant for any business, especially for restaurants. You should make sure that every customer of yours feels special.
It is a no-brainer that we all want to be remembered, taken care of, and catered to immediately. This is because it makes everyone feel good. And it is also easy to understand that if someone makes us feel good, then we also feel good about the place or person that made us feel special.
So you know that personalization has a similar impact in marketing too. But we believe that instead of just personalizing the way you write emails or messages to your customers, which is by no doubt important. It would be best if you also tried to personalize your customers’ experience. It will have a perfect effect on your business, trust us!
There are many apps available that can help you do this. For instance, you have Hostme to help you personalize the experience to new levels. This app, in particular, will store the data of customers. This data would include things like which table they like to take and the type of juice they love. It also keeps an account of special dates like anniversaries etc.
This way, you know about their favorite table, so you can get your customer placed when they come the next time. Moreover, with the help of the data, you know about their favorite food and juices so that you can offer them those. You can also tailor things according to their preferences and make their experience worth it.
It is crucial for you as a restaurant owner to understand that these small things are of great importance in the eyes of the customer. So to make the experience of your customers better, it is better to use all the tools available to you.
Use Social Media Effectively For Marketing.
The world has become digital and social media has a vital role in shaping people’s decisions in one way or another, whether you like it or not, but it is the truth.
You can get much business by marketing your restaurant effectively on social media if you own a restaurant. But the question is, How do you promote the restaurant on social media? Although it would require a separate article to explain how one can use social media to promote their brand.
Let’s focus on a few essential things;
- It is necessary to maintain a consistent brand voice. You should apply the same rule to the images you use.
- It is best to upload content that is user generated. You must establish a hashtag for your brand and ask your customers for pictures they take at your restaurant.
- Another Restaurant marketing plan is to offer exclusive discounts to your customers. You may provide coupons to them as well. This is a great way to encourage user-generated content. As a return discount or coupon, you ask them to upload a picture of them at your restaurant and share it under your brand’s hashtag.
- Take your customers for a kitchen tour and film these scenes.
Suppose you are too busy running the restaurant and don’t have time to promote your restaurant on social media. In that case, you should hire an agency to do that. And there is no agency better than Social media marketing agency Houston for this job.
Run Ads Effectively
Ads come in handy in promoting any business. If you are running ads for your restaurant, you need to focus on AdWords (it is where people search for places to eat) and not forget to use social media.
Moreover, geo-targeting would be very beneficial for any restaurant as these ads will save you money by ensuring that only users within a certain radius can see your ads. Most ad platforms offer the geo-targeted ads option.
You can get expertise from Paid social services to run successful ads for your restaurants.
You must have understood that for restaurant marketing, you must research well and use a solid strategy. The above marketing steps would help any restaurant owner looking to market his restaurant and increase its brand image.
It’s a very competitive market, so it would be wise to start today. Suppose you don’t have time to market your restaurant. In that case, you should hire a Digital marketing agency for startups to ensure your restaurant is appropriately marketed.
In this fast-changing digital world, websites are now seen as the face of business, just like you put in the effort to create an aesthetically pleasing ambiance and the environment through different ideas. Similarly, creating an eye-catching website with a good user interface is essential.
Since your website would be the face of your restaurant business, you should make sure that website is nothing short of exceptional.
Moreover, it should resonate with your restaurant’s overall theme and brand. Suppose your restaurant is based on providing health-conscious food. In that case, your website should somewhat feel to the potential customer when they visit it.
Apart from making it eye-catching and representing your restaurant’s theme, there are a few other things you need to take care of when Marketing for restaurants online.
- You should include general restaurant information, including phone number, address, and website. To make it easier for people to locate your restaurant embed your location of the restaurant through google maps.
- Get your Menu card uploaded to the website. This is one of the reasons, or probably the only reason for me to visit a restaurant website. So make sure it’s on your website. Moreover, it should be easily accessible so customers don’t lose interest.
- Upload images of what you deliver at your restaurants instead of just writing the description, as it will make people more tempted to try your restaurant’s food. Make sure the quality of images is in high resolution.
- Lastly, upload images of your restaurants. So that your potential customers buy into the aesthetically pleasing ambiance of the restaurant and visit you.
It is also essential to allow customers to book a reservation table for themselves through your restaurant’s website. What’s the point of having a website if you cannot even make a reservation through it? It’s all about convenience, don’t force them to call you for issues like these because there is a chance they might go to any other restaurant that offers online reservations.
Master The Local Seo
Another important Restaurant marketing tool is local SEO. Do you know why? Let’s explore how local Seo helps in restaurant marketing. Local Seo is an essential part of the restaurant’s social media strategy because many restaurants are tied to the location there. So it is a no-brainer to increase your focus on Local Seo to get more business. Doing Local Seo for your restaurant includes:
- Register for many review sites for restaurants, including, but not limited to, City square, city search, Open table, Zomato, etc.
- Maintain your name, address, phone, etc., consistently because one mistake can dent your online presence, and you wouldn’t do that, Would you? So be focused while doing Local Seo.
- List your business on google.
However, all of this is not enough. You need to pay extra attention to the keywords you choose. It would be best if you did good research before setting your foot on the ground in local Seo. Otherwise,, your efforts will go in vain because SEO requires research.
You would like to separate your SEO keywords by:
- Using broad terms, these will be more generic than other terms, which may include keywords like “restaurant” and “Houston restaurant.”
- Others would be niche terms, which will refer to the kind of cuisine your restaurant offers or plans to offer its customers. Some examples of niche terms may include but are not limited to thai food restaurants, etc. It may include descriptive themes such as “family table,” etc. You can use google maps or Yelp to narrow down your categories.
- Brand keywords, of course, indicate the name of the restaurant. But, if you have just started and have not been able to pull a huge following yet. Then it is better to focus on your niche’s keywords until you get your restaurant recognized by many to be able to get searched constantly by others.
Once you know what target keywords you plan to use, you should then make sure that you place them in your website’s URL, titles, alt tags, and meta descriptions. You also need to place your keywords throughout your content.
If this part of marketing overwhelms you, then you can avail of services of Content marketing service agency Houston to get your Local Seo the right way.
Stimulate Better Restaurant Reviews
Before visiting a restaurant, we all do read reviews about the restaurant. And studies have a substantial impact on our decision on deciding a restaurant. So, good and bad reviews can make or break your restaurant.
So, another vital Restaurant marketing tip for restaurant owners is to encourage more reviews for your restaurant. Because having no reviews about your restaurant is like having a bad review.
Still not getting it? Let’s try to understand the importance of reviews through an example. You are scrolling down to amazon or any other website to buy something. There are two similar products, but one has many reviews, whereas the other does not even have a single one. So it is pronounced that you will buy the product with more reviews instead of the other one that does not have a review.
Similarly, for restaurants, people tend to go to restaurants that have reviews. To support this idea, we back this with a survey conducted by Brightlocal, which found that two-thirds of customers make their opinion of a business after reading only four reviews.
This is why restaurants should ensure that it has some great reviews. And how would you do that? You need to understand what makes your restaurant unique and bring in the wow factor in front of the customers, be it a dish or some crazy ambiance. If you can do this, it is likely they are going to talk about it and leave a review.
Implement The Right Strategy For Bad Reviews
The modern world has been swept away by the technological revolution, and this revolution has certainly negatively affected restaurant marketing too. There was a time when any new restaurant could open up and tweak their dishes without noticing.
However, with the digitalization of the world, things have changed. Restaurant, unfortunately, is just one bad review away from any food review websites like Yelp, and guess what? People would stop visiting it. One or two complain about a specific dish, and people prefer not to see the restaurant.
But this is just another challenge that comes to you when marketing your restaurant digitally. However, there are Restaurant marketing plans to overcome this challenge.
You can tackle this problem of bad reviews, which are inevitable, of course, by replying to them fast to control the damage. This is because more than 40% of customers who complain want to get an answer in less than an hour.
You would like to reply as quickly as possible, but you must ensure that you respond with a cool head and sanity. It is not good to blame the customers who come with complaints, nor is it a good thing to start making excuses.
If you want to promote your restaurant and bring in more business, you need to understand and address the issue. Moreover, offering your sincere apologies to the customer is equally important.
For instance, if the complaint is about lousy customer service or poor food quality or dish. Then it is best to explain to them that what experience, unfortunately, they had to go through is not at all their usual standard.
It would be best if you also communicated with them. You will make sure it never happens ever again. Moreover, try to offer them compensating deals such as a free meal or a voucher only if appropriate.
Or you can find other creative ways of dealing with this problem by offering deals or vouchers to people who leave bad reviews. However, this is undoubtedly a bold move. So think well before making a move.
Sponsor Local Event
Are you looking for more restaurant marketing plan examples? We have got you just that. One of the most successful and vital Marketing ideas for restaurants includes getting your business involved in local events since we all know that restaurant, for sure, is related to their local roots. By applying local events, a restaurant gets to improve its name recognition.
This is why 68% of the restaurants were involved in charitable or sponsorship events in 2019.
Want to know another exciting thing about it? Customers like such things. So you must know what else to do to market your restaurant well.
Charitable organizations are doing much better than ever to score points with their customers, especially if their target audience is millennials. You should know that 33% of consumers now buy products from brands they believe are related to doing something good to the environment or bringing social change.
Similar would be the case with restaurants. Don’t you think? They would feel more optimistic about eating from restaurants that are cage-free.
So, it is time to show your customer that you are one of those who want to think about the community too. It would help if you sponsored any league team or partnered with a local charity. This will create a good impact.
Many restaurants team up with sports teams from local high schools. And due to this team up, members of groups encourage others to eat from those restaurants and distribute their flyers. And in return, the couple donated some percentage of the sales they received by distributing flyers to the teams.
Focus On Personalizing The Experience
Are you interested in finding more Restaurant marketing plan examples? You should know that customer experience is significant for any business, especially for restaurants. You should make sure that every customer of yours feels special.
It is a no-brainer that we all want to be remembered, taken care of, and catered to immediately. This is because it makes everyone feel good. And it is also easy to understand that if someone makes us feel good, then we also feel good about the place or person that made us feel special.
So you know that personalization has a similar impact in marketing too. But we believe that instead of just personalizing the way you write emails or messages to your customers, which is by no doubt important. It would be best if you also tried to personalize your customers’ experience. It will have a perfect effect on your business, trust us!
There are many apps available that can help you do this. For instance, you have Hostme to help you personalize the experience to new levels. This app, in particular, will store the data of customers. This data would include things like which table they like to take and the type of juice they love. It also keeps an account of special dates like anniversaries etc.
This way, you know about their favorite table, so you can get your customer placed when they come the next time. Moreover, with the help of the data, you know about their favorite food and juices so that you can offer them those. You can also tailor things according to their preferences and make their experience worth it.
It is crucial for you as a restaurant owner to understand that these small things are of great importance in the eyes of the customer. So to make the experience of your customers better, it is better to use all the tools available to you.
Use Social Media Effectively For Marketing
The world has become digital and social media has a vital role in shaping people’s decisions in one way or another, whether you like it or not, but it is the truth.
You can get much business by marketing your restaurant effectively on social media if you own a restaurant. But the question is, How do you promote the restaurant on social media? Although it would require a separate article to explain how one can use social media to promote their brand.
Let’s focus on a few essential things;
- It is necessary to maintain a consistent brand voice. You should apply the same rule to the images you use.
- It is best to upload content that is user generated. You must establish a hashtag for your brand and ask your customers for pictures they take at your restaurant.
- Another Restaurant marketing plan is to offer exclusive discounts to your customers. You may provide coupons to them as well. This is a great way to encourage user-generated content. As a return discount or coupon, you ask them to upload a picture of them at your restaurant and share it under your brand’s hashtag.
- Take your customers for a kitchen tour and film these scenes.
Suppose you are too busy running the restaurant and don’t have time to promote your restaurant on social media. In that case, you should hire an agency to do that. And there is no agency better than Social media marketing agency Houston for this job.
Run Ads Effectively
Ads come in handy in promoting any business. If you are running ads for your restaurant, you need to focus on AdWords (it is where people search for places to eat) and not forget to use social media.
Moreover, geo-targeting would be very beneficial for any restaurant as these ads will save you money by ensuring that only users within a certain radius can see your ads. Most ad platforms offer the geo-targeted ads option.
You can get expertise from Paid social services to run successful ads for your restaurants.
You must have understood that for restaurant marketing, you must research well and use a solid strategy. The above marketing steps would help any restaurant owner looking to market his restaurant and increase its brand image.
It’s a very competitive market, so it would be wise to start today. Suppose you don’t have time to market your restaurant. In that case, you should hire a Digital marketing agency for startups to ensure your restaurant is appropriately marketed.