Read our 6 Top Marketing Channels to Increase Restaurant Sales
We’ve spent the last few years working with restaurants to help boost their local profile and increase covers. Following recent events, over the last 2 years, restaurants, cafes and bars have had to become a lot smarter with their marketing to increase bookings and generate sales. As well as already competing against other restaurants, the changes in the economy have now meant that bills are rising and many are struggling to get the covers and sales they need to survive.
It is important that marketing is a big part of your survival to reach your target audience and connect with them at the right time, with the right message. But let’s take a step back, do you know where your audience are and how to reach them? Do you know which marketing activity is driving the most sales for you? And how are you using your data to re-engage your customers? We suggest starting with a thought out marketing strategy and plan as this is key to understanding your objectives, audience, competitors, channels and planning your activities to ensure you are achieving the best ROI.
In this article we want to share our experience and provide some key insights into the marketing channels we use and how they have worked for our restaurant clients.
Our top 6 channels include –
- Google Advertising campaign
- Social Media Advertising campaign
- Influencers and User Generated Content
- Local PR
- Local SEO (search engine optimisation)
- Targeted email marketing campaigns
Google Ad Campaigns
Unlike SEO (search engine optimisation) to boost your Google rankings, Google Ads are instant. This means you can win customers in just 48 hours max! Google Ads are also powerful as you can reach potential customers who are actively searching for a restaurant like yours at the time they are wanting to book. You also have the option of running multiple different campaigns, we strongly recommend the following –
Search campaigns are text based ads on Google search results that let you reach people while they’re searching on Google for the products and services that you offer.
Display campaigns help you to reach potential customers as they browse millions of websites, apps and Google-owned properties (such as YouTube and Gmail).
Remarketing Ads allow you to advertise to people who have previously visited your website, used your mobile app, or who are in your CRM database e.g. customer data pulled from OpenTable, Mailchimp or your Wi-Fi network, by showing them relevant ads when they visit other sites or search on Google.
Google Advertising Budget: Search campaigns will be more expensive to run, however they can be more powerful. We suggest a min of £250 per month for this type of campaign. To run all 3 campaigns we recommend a minimum of £500 per month.
To learn more about our Google Ads Services, check out our Digital Advertising Services
Social Media Ad Campaigns
Facebook and Instagram are the core social media platforms for most restaurants. If you are a new restaurant or a restaurant with little following it can be hard to reach and engage your existing audience or reach a new audience to increase your followers organically.
Social media advertising is a great way to boost your engagement and followers. Instagram and Facebook offer several types of audience targeting including, reaching a new audience, targeting customer lists and/or your followers and engagers, advertising to lookalike audiences and re-targeting website visitors. To find out more about how we can you a strong social community and stand out from the competitors, check out our social media management services.
If you own a restaurant and want to learn more about how you and your employees can utilise social media, read our Social Media Guide for Restaurants.
Instagram Influencers
Restaurant influencer marketing is the new word-of-mouth! The power of food influencers may just be one of the most successful marketing strategies ever used.
Influencers use their authority or knowledge of particular niches, along with the relationships they have built with their followers, to influence the purchasing decisions of others.
More consumers are relying on the opinions of highly influential social media users when they make decisions about where to eat, drink, and shop. This is why it is important for restaurants to research and invite local influencers to dine with them.
In present day, influencers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are becoming known as icons and educators on the latest trends, themes and much more! Restaurants can massively benefit from using influencers as well as engaging with their audience via these platforms especially TikTok. Check out our blog on the Power of TikTok to discover how your restaurant can benefit.
Here’s a few areas you can use influencers for: Encourage restaurant reviews, promote events, host giveaways and act as loyal ambassadors.
Local PR
Build relationships with your local media:
Building and maintaining relationships with your local media is a traditional form of PR, but is still very effective. They will often have a large local following and will more than likely reach out to you with upcoming opportunities to help increase the visibility of your restaurant.
Write press releases:
Whether you post them online or send them out to local media, press releases are a great way to spread the word about what you’re doing. When you write a press release, it’s important to think about what’s important to who’s reading it. Think about your brand story, your community involvement, special birthdays, offers, menus etc…
Connect with local businesses:
Creating relationships with other like-minded businesses is a great way to increase brand awareness — partnering with a similar business allows you the opportunity to gain exposure to each other’s audience. Partnering with a business that has an audience you want to access is a natural way to win new customers, and doesn’t cost anything!
Do good in your community:
Getting involved in your community helps increase local brand exposure, while also associating your brand with a charity or enterprise. Are there local food banks to donate to or fundraising opportunities for your team to get involved in?
Attend local events:
Attending local events is a great way to get out and meet your potential customers. It could help build your relationship with your existing customer base, as well as provide an opportunity to meet new people and other local businesses. These events might be networking events or seasonal events for example.
Local SEO
Ensuring you appear top on Google for your restaurant is key to ensuring you are reaching your audience on search engines.
There are a lot of paid ads, partner services, and referral options for gaining traffic. However, rising to the top of Google in the organic search results are effective, often lower in cost to getting the most relevant and direct traffic to turn into customers. Content is also key here. Fresh content in the form of a blog can help you to outrank your competitors.
Optimising your website can increase traffic, online orders and reservations whilst also building brand awareness and customer engagement. Make sure you also have a Google My Business profile which is optimised, encourage Google reviews and post regularly. To discover more about Google My Business, read our blog on Why should restaurants use Google Business.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing can be so powerful for restaurants and we are hot on this! We use Mailchimp to manage contacts and send bespoke emails campaigns based on their eating preferences, gender, age etc… You can even take it a step further and target your audiences by how frequently they visit your restaurant or order online. Why not set up a VIP package with special offers and giveaways for this audience or send birthday offers?
Make sure to capture your customer data through your social media channels, website and any of your other marketing platforms. If you are using OpenTable you can also set up an automated import to ensure you have the latest customer data on hand.
Marketing your restaurant should be smart, consistent and planned. Regular checks on the performance of your activities is going to be key so you can refine and adapt your campaigns accordingly.
We hope you have found our insights valuable. If you would like to speak to us about our marketing services for restaurants please do get in touch.
