Promoting or advertising a restaurant is not easy, but it is possible. You just have to play your cards well, and everything will fall into place. Every area has several restaurants; this should tell you that you have many competitors.
What you are willing to offer will make you stand out and get more patronage than others. We will show you many ways to advertise/promote your restaurant, so to give your restaurant an edge over others regarding patronage.
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Have you tried to figure out how to promote and advertise your restaurant? We have answers. Here are ways to promote and advertise your restaurant.
Almost every restaurant has a Google Business Profile that shows their business location, website link, and some images about the restaurant. To promote your restaurant, you will most importantly have to open a Google Business account showing location, website link, and images.
When you do this and optimise your profile for traffic, you will benefit from Google Business and generate more revenue. Google allows restaurant owners to add a link to reservations.
Reservations add a link to your website or reservation system on your profile, making it easier for customers to place reservations using your Google profile. Google Business has helped many restaurants make tremendous progress in their business.
Many restaurants have testified that their customers have increased tremendously since using Google Business. You can testify, too; all you need to do is add a reserve table button to your Google profile.
Attractive food photos matter a lot in the advertisement or promotion of your restaurant. When posting your food online, you must ensure it is high quality and equally attractive.
Food pictures are popular on social media. An excellent way to get people’s interest in your restaurant is by posting mouth-watering images of your food. If you want to do it well, you might have to employ the services of a photographer and graphics designer. Hiring a photographer might be expensive, but it is worth it if the photographer is good.
You can also take the pictures yourself if you will be able to make them look good. In all, ensure your food looks attractive to your viewers. To make your food look aesthetic, you can use ingredients with matching colors and make sure your dish does not have a dull color because dull colors hardly attract.
Using beautiful plates is also very necessary. Your plates should be clean and good-looking. When photographing, ensure the dishes are not abstract from each other. Your dishes should match when photographing to give the picture a striking look.
Many restaurant owners only care about their dishes; they give little or no care to other materials, like plates and tables, that make the dish look nice.
Taking pictures of your dishes on a table that does not look appealing will also reduce the quality of your pictures and make the dish less captivating; this is why you should also ensure your tables are nice looking before taking pictures.
Remember lighting. You have to ensure your lighting is in order before taking pictures; all these will make your dish pictures look pleasant and captivating.
However, these necessary measures we have explained should not only be taken when you want to take pictures of your dish for the media; you must apply them to your everyday service in your restaurant, as customers may come and decide to take pictures of your post to share online.
It will be of the utmost advantage to you if your food, plates, and tables are in good shape, as they will attract more customers.
Image Credits: Freepik
A good, easy-to-read online menu will significantly make people patronize you more. Make clear menus that your audience will not have to stress themselves to see or understand; it is a big turn-off and will affect your business significantly.
Users look at your menu most when going through your website; hence, it should be easy to use. To make a better menu that your customers will find easy to use, you can patronize some delivery sites like Open menu. open menu makes your menu look stylish and easy to use.
Aside from making use of delivery sites, ensure you do not put the menu on a subpage; instead, put it on your home page to be more accessible. It is also essential to make your menu accessible to all phone users. Your font and grammar are other parts of your menu you should consider; make your fonts easy to see and your grammar understandable. Do not write jargon or make unnecessary statements; keep it simple.
If your restaurant should boom, you will need loyalty from customers. Running loyalty programs is a very effective way of getting loyalty from your customers. You can partner with apps and give discounts or gifts to customers who visit several times.
Partnering with apps will help you analyze, track and channel campaigns in the right way to boost their efficacy. These apps have the tools to make your loyalty programs good. Giving discounts to loyal customers will make them happy and even more loyal, knowing that you appreciate their patronage.
And one good thing about loyal customers is that they are quick to tell whoever is willing to hear about your restaurant, which is why you should do your best to keep them.
Some prominent restaurants go as far as giving their loyal customers free food or drinks but if your restaurant can’t afford that, giving just a discount is also good. However, we should remember that what makes customers loyal is the restaurant’s excellent service and food taste. The environment could also be part of it. Take note of these things.
Give incentives to your customers, and they will come looking for you next time. You can give them appetizers for free or give out a complimentary plate of food to customers who buy or order large quantities of food. But you will have to be careful in your course of giving incentives.
Do not give incentives that will make you incur huge losses for yourself. You must apply wisdom while giving incentives so you can avoid mistakes. Some customers have this feeling of entitlement that when you give them incentives today, they expect you to give them every other day.
When you do not do that, it becomes a problem, and This is why you should sit down and plan your method of incentives well before doing it. Incentives, however, are one of the best ways to keep your customers and make them loyal.
In all you do, pay attention to the power of social media influencers. Social media influencers have great power over social media users and can influence their choice of restaurant. Social media influencers are social media users that have large followers.
The best way to do this is to invite the influencer of your choice to your restaurant and give them tasteful dishes for free. They will, in turn, share the experience with their followers. That way, they are indirectly advertising your restaurant, and the restaurant will surely get the publicity it needs.
There are many good influencers with many followers on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms. Still, you don’t just wake up one day and choose one.
Do your due diligence before choosing an influencer. Do your research, and find out influencers with large number of followers who can also advertise and promote your brand. Once you confirm that they fit your restaurant’s brand, message them and see if they will be interested in working with you. Employing the services of influencers is one excellent and effective way of promoting your restaurant.
Do you need help hiring the best influencer for your restaurant? Check out our influencer marketing services.
Online reviews are another form of advertisement. When customers say how good your food and customer service are online, more people would want to experience it. When people patronize you, ask them to drop their reviews online.
You must encourage your customers to share, give their reviews, post your dish images, and share their experiences with your restaurant online. Most customers are always eager to give their reviews; you need to remind them. You can ask them in person or through your posts on social media.
You can also write it on your website, menus, coupons, and receipts. Asking for reviews is one of the best strategies to promote your restaurant, as social media users are more convinced when they see reviews from fellow users. Start asking for reviews today, and you will surely see the difference.
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It doesn’t just end at asking for reviews; you will need to respond to them too. One thing you should know is that reviews are not at all times positive. You can get negative reviews, too, but how you respond or manage them matters. When customers give their reviews, thank them, whether positive or negative.
Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers. Customers are always happy when their reviews are responded to, which makes them always want to give them because they know you value them.
Even when customers give negative reviews, do not respond harshly; respond respectfully so you do not to aggravate the customer’s displeasure. See things from the customers’ point of view and let them know you acknowledge you are at fault.
Tell them you will work towards solving the problem and try to ensure it doesn’t happen again; this will calm them down. Some restaurants that did not correctly handle their online reviews have always regretted it.
Some reply with automated texts, which aggravate customers’ anger. Handling online reviews is a delicate task and should be handled with wisdom.
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Email marketing is one of the best restaurant promotion strategies many restaurants neglect. Email marketing is usually done by sending out a newsletter. Your newsletter could include your menu, coupons, and some other information. But this in recent times is no more very effective as many restaurants do it, too; this is why you should make yours special.
Build up a good database of previous customers. When you know your customer history, you can leverage email marketing. You can use good email marketing software platforms to help you manage your campaigns effectively. Always send follow-up emails to customers that read your mail.
Please stop sending it to those who do not read your emails. However, you must know that this is not an avenue to disturb your customers with emails begging for their patronage.
Also, you will save the email address of customers and use them for your promotion. In that case, you must adhere to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You will also ask the customers first and will only continue if they consent.
Running online Ads is another good way to advertise your restaurant. They are easy to start and are equally budget-friendly. Facebook and Instagram ads are well-known, very effective ads for you. They are many others, too; you can research more. Each of these online ads has distinct features that make it effective.
However, promoting your business continues beyond just running ads; you must target your audience according to their interest and location. It is of high importance that you show your ads to the right people who will patronize you.
You must also monitor your ads performance; this will help you know if it is working out or if you will have to redirect. Remember to make your ads attractive and captivating.
Attractive ads keep the viewer glued to the screen; hence you should endeavor to work on the images and theme of your ads. Online ads are very effective in advertising and promoting your restaurant, but you must do it correctly.
Please, check out the cost of online ads if you want to estimate the cost for your restaurant business. If you are into franchise advertising, please check out the cost of franchise advertising.
To promote your restaurant, you must have a good source of communication with your audience. You always need to keep your customers engaged; there shouldn’t be dull moments, and to be able to do this, you must start a blog; that way, you can share your success stories and the problems or setbacks you have experienced, recipes, and comic stories.
Having a blog will help your customers familiarize themselves with you and, at the same time, help build your brand. Setting up and managing your blood can be tasking, but you have to keep it natural, don’t stress about it. Go with the flow, and in a short time, you will get used to it.
You don’t need to write long articles, and the goal is to keep people who visit your website connected and engaged so they can come back next time. You can equally engage them with video contents.
Starting a blog will even help you pass information faster to your customers. Having a blog for your restaurant will go a long way in helping to promote the restaurant and ensure you make quality and captivating posts.
Discounts and coupons are an excellent way to attract new customers and make your loyal customers keep coming.
It is no news that people love it when they spend less; hence they always get excited at the mention of discounts or coupons.
You can advertise your discount sales on your website or other websites; However, you will be charged a fee that is sometimes outrageous, but you will get the result you desire.
Remember to share good customer reviews on your website and social media platforms. Good reviews can attract people to your restaurant, don’t hide those reviews; allow the public to see them. Some restaurants even attach reviews to different dishes, which has helped so far.
Your review quality and quantity can determine your rank on search results. Sharing your customer reviews is an intelligent form of advertising and promoting your restaurant.
Having an easy-to-use website for customers is very important. The website should also have a table reservation and an option where customers can order and pay online.
Your website should be easy to use and allows customers to browse your menu, order and pay, and even make reservations; it should also give visitors that feeling of being in a restaurant whenever they visit, even if they have not dined with you yet. A Smooth website is essential, as no one would want to go through the stress of searching for hours before making orders.
Your menu, location, opening hours, and other necessary information should be easy to find on your website. You also need to consider the features or tools made available by your payment provider, that way; you will be able to serve your customers well. A good website is essential and will help promote your restaurant.
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In all you do, pay attention to the power of social media. Posting on your restaurant’s social media platforms is another good way to engage with customers and attract new ones.
Posting your dishes in an enthralling way, with appealing ingredients, would go a long way to attracting customers. You can also share your ingredients, what inspired you to make the dish, and a short story about the dish; this will keep your customers engaged and make them long for the food.
You can hire an agency that will help you manage your social media marketing and give you good results. In all, remember to be original. Don’t try copying other brands, do your thing your way and stand out.
Having a social media marketing agency with you will mitigate the risks of wasting your social media marketing budget. There are many benefits of hiring a social media manager; one is that they helps increase sales on social media, get you more sales, promote your brand, etc. In context, if you need social media agency services for your restaurant, you are at the right place.
We have been helping restaurant business owners like you get high return on their investment since 2009.
Let’s help you thrive online. Book a free consultation call for your restaurant or check out our case studies.
Sending birthday emails or messages to your customers makes them feel valued and appreciated. Ask your customers about their birthdays and keep a record of them. Need to know how to do this? Worry no more; you can ask them when they make orders, bookings, or reservations.
You can also ask them over the phone; this is another way to promote your restaurant and increase sales. You can send a message or email to your customers a few weeks before their birthdays, telling them how nice a place your restaurant is.
You can also give them discounts or gifts to make the deal mouth-watering. Knowing your customers’ birthdays enables you to send them targeted messages or emails that will be more effective and engaging rather than just sending them random messages that might be irrelevant.
Once in a while, post pictures or videos of your staff doing what they know best. How good your staffs are at their job, and how happy they are too, helps build your restaurant’s reputation.
Do not think your customers do not notice the countenance of your staff; they do. You will be surprised the day issues regarding your staff will pop up. Customers notice even the most minor things about people they patronize; they wait for the right time to say it.
Another way to promote your restaurant is by giving to the less privileged; However, giving to those who do not have should be normal way of life, and it can also help promote your restaurant.
Show your customers how much you care for the less privileged by giving them a percentage of your profit. You can also organize a fundraising program in your restaurant once in a while.
In conclusion, following these 18 strategies will help you promote your restaurant without spending too much. All you have to do is to be consistent, and with time you will achieve the desired result.
Sociallybuzz is a leading social media marketing, management, and digital advertising agency for small and medium-sized businesses. With over 12 years of experience, we know how to create and execute marketing campaigns that will help you grow your business. Our social media agency specializes in using the power of social media to create highly targeted campaigns designed to get franchise and restaurant owners more customers and sales.
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