In the United States, there are approximately 100,000 restaurants, ranging from dive bars to Michelin five-star restaurants, steakhouses to sandwich courts, fast food to fusion, etc. In other words, restaurant competition in the U.S. is intense. Consequently, you’ll need a bullet-proof restaurant marketing approach in order to boost sales and attract more guests.
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Marketing Tips For Restaurant Owners
And while there is no single “best approach” to market a restaurant because it always depends on the restaurant’s location, category, target audience, and other factors, there are some basic principles that any food-friendly institution should follow.
That being said, you’ve come to the right place because this all-in-one restaurant marketing strategy will provide you with all of the strategic, creative, and competitive ideas you’ll need to attract, retain and gratify consumers.
Utilize a Marketing Software Solution to Differentiate Your Restaurant on the Market
Nowadays, perhaps the most sophisticated way to send out marketing messages and even outreach to prospective and existing customers is based on user behavior, such as the number of visits, their duration, as well as visitors’ demographics like gender, birthday, or postal code, as you expand your client database. As a result, the fact that this restaurant marketing software can issue automatic notifications, emails, and reminders to customers whenever a visitor satisfies your pre-set criteria can definitely save you a lot of time and prove a fantastic way to expand your business.
This highly automated marketing works by implementing some of the best restaurant marketing software, allowing restaurant owners and managers to automatically increase their online ratings and reviews, determine customer sentiment, and automate marketing communications. With this approach, you can improve your marketing efforts and digital operations to attract new consumers, increase your restaurant’s reputation, and keep the existing customers coming back repeatedly.
Start Blogging
Starting your own blog is a terrific way to engage with your consumers and establish a community. Blogs allow you to play around with your restaurant’s voice and personality, a place to share your triumphs and setbacks, recipes, humorous stories, and anything else you think your customers might be interested in.
A blog does not have to be a massive undertaking, as you can make your blog as straightforward or as sophisticated as you want. In addition, quality is better than quantity, which means that you don’t have to post regularly. Nonetheless, having a restaurant blog set up for when you have an announcement or news to share is a smart idea.
Invest in Paid Advertisements
Utilizing Facebook or Google paid ads can bring your restaurant in front of a huge number of qualified customers. For instance, even though mobile ads are typically more expensive than desktop ads, they have pretty high conversion rates nowadays when people are glued to their phones 24/7.
In that context, Google Ads offers a variety of mobile personalization and targeting options to help you get the most out of your bids. You can, for example, raise your bids around dinnertime, when people are looking for fast meals on their phones.
Additionally, increasing your bids during dinnertime improves your chances of appearing for a certain query. This implies you could be the first ad to appear for a certain keyword search when users are looking for a certain type of dish that you are advertising.
Respond to Customer Feedback
The public’s impression of your restaurant is impacted by whether and how you respond to customer feedback and for that reason, here are some suggestions to do it in the best way possible:
- Thank customers for their positive as well as their negative feedback.
- Respond to positive feedback to demonstrate that you value your customers’ opinions and to encourage them to leave more.
- Respond to unfavorable reviews politely, promptly, publicly, and professionally, then offer to resolve the issue privately.
Many companies benefit from reading feedback thoroughly and responding to it since reviewers are typically charmed by the thoughtfulness exhibited and are more liberal in their criticism knowing that the restaurant owner values their opinion and is trying hard to improve.
Offer Discounts and Coupons
Discounts and coupons for your restaurant business are a guaranteed method to get consumers in the door. For instance, you can offer your new email newsletter subscribers a complimentary dish as a reward. You can also reach out to them easily through a web texting service.
In addition, you could also try advertising a deal through some online marketplaces like Groupon. This way, you’ll receive a lot more attention, however, you’ll have to pay a percentage of sales to the deal website, so take that into consideration as well.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, marketing a restaurant successfully hinges on a number of factors. Hopefully, you found some of our ideas helpful in making your marketing efforts more effective. We know that marketing is tough when you are competing against so many other restaurants, but we hope that these tips will help you get ahead.
In the end, you should feel proud of what you’re doing and excited about all the great things that are to come for your business. You’ve worked hard to get where you are now, so keep building on that success in the future.
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