Establishing a strong and reliable restaurant marketing strategy is one of the basic foundations you must build as a restaurant owner. It serves as your main tool to communicate your brand to your target audience.
Restaurants are known to employ different powerful and unique marketing stints. Remember the lickable lift that was launched by Jaffa Cakes in London? It offered something exciting and refreshing for consumers.
In today’s new normal, you may need to adjust your strategies to meet the needs of modern diners. You must have accurate information and data about them to maximize the marketing campaigns you run.
It will be easier to improve your online and offline marketing campaigns if you have dependable, comprehensive, and accurate information about your customers.
It might be overwhelming to design a new marketing campaign for your restaurant given the number of tools you have to choose from. In this article, we have enumerated every element you should consider before starting a new marketing campaign.
Marketing A Restaurant – What You Should Know
A successful marketing strategy must be tested and adjusted as technology continuously evolves and consumer preferences constantly change.
Despite the validity of traditional marketing methods, digital marketing techniques continue to evolve. As a result, marketers need to create campaigns that are more engaging to customers.
Although there is no fixed way for you to begin a marketing plan, there is a great way to do it. This method guarantees that you won’t miss a single detail in your business marketing plan.
What do You Need to Do?
The following steps can be followed to create a marketing plan or just a new marketing campaign. In this guide, you will learn how to take into account all the important details you need to consider while planning your marketing campaign.
- Conduct research about your customers. Determine the demographics, personality, and even lifestyle of your average target customers.
- Establish a brand persona. To make targeting easier, ensure that the persona you’ll create will describe your average target.
- Provide a unique selling proposition. Make a point to emphasize how your brand is different from others.
- Develop your brand. Ensure that your brand will emotionally connect to your customers. This makes engagement and brand interpretation simpler for your customers.
- Select the best marketing platform for your restaurant. Not everything will work for you. Check out the platforms where your target market usually hangs, and start focusing on them.
- Stick to your goals and budget. Don’t be blinded by the success that you’re yet to achieve. This helps you prevent conflicts and issues about your budget.
- Conduct a dry run. You may now launch your marketing and test the waters. You’ll never know if it’ll work for you unless you try it yourself.
- Track, monitor, evaluate, and improve. Even if your campaign is successful for now, it is impossible to predict whether it will succeed again. Track and monitor each campaign as well as figure out what can be done to make it better.
How Much Is Needed?
This is a complex question. There are platforms, such as social media, that require little to nothing of your financial investment. While paid advertisements, such as billboards and commercials, will cost you a lot of your resources.
Similar to other aspects of restaurant operations, restaurant marketing doesn’t have to fit into a specific mold, and there’s no exact figure regarding the amount you need to allocate.
There are different factors to consider to determine the perfect amount for your marketing. The age of your restaurant, your annual revenue, monthly revenue, profit margin, market share, and customer acquisition cost play an important role in this process.
If you’re just a start-up restaurant business, you may allocate up to twenty-five percent of your sales. It is ideal for restaurants with an established brand and growing revenue to take their marketing spending up to eighteen percent maximum.
Lastly, a business with a declining sales volume should stick with a ten percent maximum of what they’re already spending.
Restaurant Marketing Ideas
The best ways to market a restaurant often involve accommodating a customer’s need or desire. But how are you able to answer the questions that you don’t know? You must have a stable connection with your customers to find out their needs.
Here are some considerations you need to make when coming up with ideas for marketing your restaurant.
- What are your business goals and philosophies?
- How would you describe your ideal customer?
- Which type of clients do you aim to reach?
- What is your vision for how you want customers to perceive your restaurant?
- Do you have any major competitors?
Having the answers to the questions above will help you place your brand into a better position in the market.
What Are The Main Platforms for Marketing?
Despite not planning to utilize every available marketing platform, you should have clear plans for the major channels. Keeping your restaurant reasonably flexible can ensure that it can adjust to changing circumstances, and market itself accordingly, even though drastic shifts and changes may occur.
Here’s a quick overview of the top marketing channels you can use for your business.
- Paid Advertising – Posters and banners, media and broadcast advertising, and print advertising are the most common types under this category.
- Traditional Marketing – Newspaper, radio, and television ads are the most popular type of this platform. However, word-of-mouth is the most effective to date.
- Email Marketing – Newsletter is the most effective campaign you can run for this platform.
- SMS Marketing – Just make sure that you have a clear and firm CTA for this platform. Also, pay close attention to the SMPP gateway API you’re using in order to avoid any errors.
- Social Media Marketing – You’ve already taken care of half of the platform by setting up profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
- Online Brand Marketing – Blogging, review sites, website, and online listing are the most common campaigns for this platform.
- Events Marketing – Join different local events in your community. You may also choose to collaborate with local charities or other local businesses in your community to make this campaign work. If there are no events, step up and organize one.
- Public Relations Marketing – PR marketing may not be the most cost-effective way to market your restaurant, but it also has its share of hits. Just make sure that you’ll be working with a reliable agency to make this marketing investment worthwhile.
Restaurant Marketing Strategies
There are different strategies you can use depending on what you want to achieve. Here are some examples you can check out.
If you want to attract a new set of customers, you may do the following.
- Upload high-quality photos on your GMB profile. This will serve as a virtual tour of your restaurant, which will make it easier for potential customers to capture the essence of your restaurant.
- Offer exclusive deals for new customers. You may provide coupons or gift certificates to draw first-time visits.
- Make online reservations possible. Providing a seamless dining experience is a great way to entice future diners.
- Utilize UGC. User-generated content is popular with consumers, especially with Gen Z’s. Show modern diners what they are missing through the lens of their fellow consumers.
To encourage return business, here are the campaigns you can work on.
- Provide online delivery service. Make it more convenient for your customers to get your food on their table.
- Partner up with a local organization or charity. Showcase that you’re not just operating for income. Work with organizations that share your vision or a stand on a certain issue. This will make it easier for customers to trust your brand.
- Launch loyalty programs. Create a reward program where guests can accumulate loyalty points every time they visit and purchase from your restaurant. Ensure that you’ll offer rewards that are significantly rewarding for your audience.
- Collaborate with a local business. This allows you to expose your brand to a different set of following, at the same time, you show your community that you’re invested with them. You may expect them to return the favor by giving business to your establishment.
Also Read: Just Starting a Customer Loyalty Program? Here’s What You Need to Know!