Your restaurant may be among the best in town and has received praise from diners on many occasions. But over the past few months, you may have noticed that your monthly revenue has plateaued. With fierce competition, new restaurants sprouting up, and customers’ expectations for ‘something new’, growing your dining establishment has become harder than ever.
To attract new customers and retain the old ones, restaurateurs today have to give their best on all fronts. You need to employ effective marketing tactics to promote your restaurant. Here are some restaurant marketing ideas that will propel your restaurant’s growth:
1. Use Delicious Visual Content
The importance of visual content has been proven time and again. 65% of people will retain your message even after 3 days if it’s paired with a relevant picture. Open any social media channel, especially Instagram, and you’ll see how well the so-called ‘food porn’ performs.
This makes sharing top-notch images of hunger pang-inducing food one of the best ways to promote your restaurant! With a strong Instagram presence, you can attract customers to your establishment while generating an impressive online fan following.
2. Set Up a Yelp Account
On average, Yelp receives 89 million unique visitors from mobiles and 73 million from desktops every month as of December 2016. Moreover, restaurants are the second highest category to be reviewed on the site. So, whether you create a Yelp account or not, your restaurant is most likely to be reviewed. Which is why you must be proactive and set up an account.
This way, you can add pictures, serving hours, locations, menu, and other details about your restaurant. Having a slew of positive reviews on Yelp will prove to be a major asset. At the same time, negative reviews can damage your reputation. So, make sure that you address such reviews in a polite and professional manner.
3. Introduce Loyalty Programs
Customer loyalty programs are great to keep your customers coming back. This will show your customers that you appreciate their patronage. They may even refer your restaurant to friends and family. For the loyalty program, you can offer free drinks or discounts upon visiting your restaurant a certain number of times.
To track their visits, you can partner with food apps that have integrated loyalty programs.While you can also use punch cards, they can be inconvenient for customers who wouldn’t want to clutter their wallets. Some of the popular apps for loyalty programs are:
- Belly
- Loyal Blocks
- Perka
- LevelUp
4. Use Geo-Targeted Ads
In most cases, people want to dine out at a restaurant that is close to their workplace or home. With geo-targeted ads, your restaurant will come on top of search results when someone is looking for a place to eat in your vicinity. This will help you reach the right audience and use your ad dollars more efficiently.
5. Reach out to Food Bloggers
Food blogger outreach is one of the best way to gain new customers and increase the prestige of your restaurant. You can reach out to local food bloggers and invite them to your restaurant. Ask them if they’d be willing to write a review for you.
You can consider offering them a free meal or an appetizer to increase the chances of them accepting your offer. A thumbs-up from an influential food blogger can make your restaurant one of the hottest spots in the city.
6. Distribute Restaurant Swag
Promotional items are a great way to make sure that your restaurant will remain in the minds of your customers. You can give away mugs, glassware, or kitchen appliances imprinted with your restaurant’s logo. Your customers will appreciate your gratitude upon receiving promotional swag. Moreover, these promotional products have an impressive lifecycle, so your brand will remain in sight for a long time.
With these six restaurant marketing ideas, you can provide your business the much-needed growth. You can also consider partnering with delivery services or offering coupons to drive sales and attract new customers. Promo Direct offers top-notch promotional products that can complement your marketing strategy. Feel free to contact us for finding one that aligns with your goals.