Running a restaurant is filled with challenges getting customers through your door again and again shouldn’t be one of them. Whether it’s attracting new customers or retaining old ones, a little marketing can definitely go a long way. Here are 6 tips to spice up your restaurant marketing game.
Tingle Tastebuds with Foodie Photos
One of the best ways to promote your restaurant online is with high-quality photos of the food. It’s vital that these are high-quality shots, as a poorly lit photo of a not-so pretty dish may actually do more harm than good. The recipe for great food photography is equal parts science and artistry. Choices in lighting, background, even the toppings on your pizza model, can all make or break the shot.
Visual content naturally catches the human eye better than text or sound. Use photography of tasty looking food to garner attention for your restaurant, and often it will motivate hungry eyes to visit.
One of the best social media platforms to show off your food is Instagram. Instagram provides an easy-to-use interface and specializes in sharing visual content such as photos and videos.
Use Social Media to Interact with Customers
Speaking of social media, it’s one of the best marketing tools a restaurant can utilize.
Apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are free, powerful platforms that can reach hundreds of people in your area, and sometimes millions of people around the world.
Share behind-the-scenes updates that let your fans into the action in the kitchen. Only use local, fresh produce? Document your trip to the farmer’s market. If you feature local brews, publish your current tap list each week. And always remember to share promotions, events, and menu changes. In addition, make sure to use hashtags on your posts to reach a larger audience and attract even more followers.
These platforms also open a consistent line of communication between your business and customers, allowing you to interact with patrons and answer any questions they may have.
These could be important questions such as “What are your restaurant hours?” or “How do I get there?”. It’s also a good idea to update followers on important events at your business such as closing for the holidays.
Add a Dash of Video Soul to the Pot
In today’s digital world, it’s easy to see a business as a soulless automaton. Add some life to your brand by adding some soul to your content creation.
For example, take videos of eye-catching techniques and share them on social media. This is as simple as flipping some food in a pan over a large flame, or chopping some fresh vegetables. Let your local talent shine, too! Servers and hosts are naturally affable, give them the spotlight and let them introduce drink specials, favorite meals, or even why they love working at your restaurant!
These videos don’t need to be long, 15- to 30-seconds is more than enough. If your restaurant has a local vibe, it’s a good idea to update followers on huge milestones for the restaurant and its employees. If a long time employee just graduated college, ask them if you can share it with your followers. Consumers love when local restaurants show off their personality and that they’re more than some lifeless company. It adds charm and soul to the restaurant, which is hard to come by when eating at ubiquitous chain restaurants.
Partner with Local Food Influencers and Bloggers
By connecting with influencers, you’ll be able to market to their established network of food lovers and followers, potentially securing them as future customers. Food bloggers can speak directly to your prospective visitors from a place of trust and shared interest.
They can share their own experience from your establishment, as well as your restaurant-related content and promotions to a wide circle of followers.If you pay influencers or bloggers, or offer them free product or meals, be sure that they disclose this arrangement on their posts. But, if they just genuinely love you and your food, even better!
Use Recipes as Original Content
Do you have a popular dish at your restaurant? Is there a sauce people swoon over? Consider using the recipes of favorite dishes to create original content you can share with followers.
Sharing recipes allows you to generate new, unique content for your restaurant and has the added bonus of advertising your special dishes. Sharing recipes also has the bonus of reminding customers your food is freshly made and made-from-scratch, as opposed to being frozen or just heated in the microwave.
Don’t worry about giving away your secrets — most foodies will attempt your recipes at home but still come to your restaurant for the real deal. Plus, most people enjoy the service and experience of a restaurant just as much as the meal itself.
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Make it Easy to Leave a Review
Reviews can make or break a person’s dining choice. Not only is the restaurant’s rating an important factor, but also the number of reviews. If a competing restaurant has a similar score as yours, but has hundreds more reviews,
chances are customers will decide to eat their instead of your establishment.
A way to remedy this is to encourage patrons to leave a review on Yelp, Google,TripAdvisor, or Facebook. Make sure you and your staff ask patrons to leave feedback on any of these sites. Most of the time, customers are happy to leave a review.
The next step is to make it easy. Claim your Google Business and Yelp listings and monitor the reviews and the questions folks are asking. If you have an email list, include links to your listings at every opportunity.
Let Us Help with Your Restaurant Marketing
GoZone WiFi’s Smart WiFi Solutions can ensure that your restaurant marketing is continually
engaging, marketing and branding to your WiFi guests even when you are personally unable to.
Take advantage of marketing tools that do the work for you. Contact us today for more
information on how to maximize restaurant revenues with WiFi marketing.
