Running a restaurant is the dream for a lot of people, but there’s no denying that the business side of it is hard work. The good news is that these marketing tips for restaurants can help you focus more on providing a great experience, and less on worrying about paying bills.
Marketing Strategies for Restaurants
Why are marketing strategies for restaurants so important? Just consider this statistic:
Around 60 percent of new restaurants fail within the first year. And nearly 80 percent shutter before their fifth anniversary.
CNBC
Even if you’re an amazing chef, have a great location, and build a solid customer base, it’s still tough to survive. Fortunately, marketing builds on itself over time, so no effort is too small.
Identify Your Target Customer
The first of our major marketing tips for restaurants is to really understand who your target customer is.
There are a ton of ways to figure this out. You can conduct formal or informal research, but essentially you want to figure a few things out:
- What is their demographic (age, gender, etc.)?
- How much money do they make?
- How much disposable income do they have?
- What are their values?
- What makes them choose you over a competitor?
- What makes them come back to you a second time?
Once you figure some of this out, you’ll want to focus on thinking about the customer with every business decision you make.
Define And Develop Your Brand
Every company has a brand, like it or not. So it’s something that you really should make an effort to build and maintain.
Branding is a never-ending process, but it’s what can really help you stand out in a competitive industry, such as the restaurant world.
Once you’ve identified your customers, you should shape a lot of your business around what they want, such as:
- Pricing that isn’t too low or too high for them
- Service offerings they want (and skip what they don’t care about)
- Messaging that matches their values
- Interesting innovations that will attract their attention
It’s your brand, but it lives in the minds of your customers. Little by little, you want to nudge them into realizing you’re the best.
Determine Your Online and Offline Presence
In our connected world, you need to make sure you use a marketing mix that combines online and offline. Every restaurant needs a presence in both – no matter how tech-savvy or old-school they are.
Digital Marketing Ideas for Restaurants
Many business owners are more comfortable with traditional marketing channels, and they don’t change as fast as the online world. But here are some digital marketing ideas for restaurants that you should definitely think about.
Create a Strong Online Presence
Make sure you have not only a website, but also profiles on as many social media and review sites as possible.
Your website is where you have the most control, but it’s often where people find you only when they are already looking.
Social media is where you have a chance to join your customers on their turf, so you want to make sure you’re saying the things they like to hear.
Review sites are where many people will find out about you (the good and the bad), so you want to get ahead of those cranky customers who would find something wrong with even the most perfect experience.
Utilize SEO (Across Platforms)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is basically helping people find you when they are searching for something relevant. It is most often thought of in the context of Google and other search engines, but you should also think about it anywhere else your customers live online. (We’re looking at you, social media and review sites.)
This is one of those areas where a solid strategy over the long term makes a huge difference.
Run Digital Ads
It’s easy to print menus, stickers, and put ads in local newspapers, but don’t overlook digital ads. This goes a long with that social media strategy we’ve been discussing, but it’s an extremely affordable way to get in front of your specific target market.
Social Media Marketing Tips for Restaurants
So, how do you get social? Many restaurant owners think it sounds so easy, but they pump a bunch of time into it and barely see any results.
There’s an absurd amount of strategy involved, and the whole landscape is constantly changing.
But here are some fundamental social media marketing tips for restaurants that will last a while.
Create Content
The foundational challenge of social media is to create content that your target market will be interested in. Fortunately, this is one area where restaurants often have an advantage. If you learn to take high-quality photos and videos of your food, that’s most of it right there. Once their mouths start watering, they’re more likely to place an order.
Why did we say restaurants have an advantage? Well, just try to imagine how creative plumbers have to get before people get excited about what they share online.
Work With Influencers
There are a lot of “influencers” who give the whole concept a bad name, but basically think of these as people who your target market listens to. If you work with the right people in the right way, they’re going to convince others to come to you.
There is an entire art to doing this well, and a science to making sure it’s working. We can help you with that!
Be Social!
The most obvious (and often overlooked) part of social media is that you should actually be social. You need to follow other people and actually interact with them. If you think you can just throw your message out there and people will love you for it, you’re going to be lonely.
Implement These Marketing Ideas for Restaurants
This is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to marketing tips for restaurants. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone. We’re a company that loves helping restaurants succeed, and we have a ton of experience watching what works and what doesn’t work. We’d love it if you reach out and say hi.
