Marketing for Restaurants

[BigDaddyDeals]

While, there are many great ways to use marketing for restaurants, here are my favorite three.

1. SMS( Text Marketing)- Can use it for free by using Twitter or much better using a paid service. This is a great way to get customers to your restaurant quickly.

2. Email Marketing- Great combination with SMS marketing. Perfect to get customers for birthday clubs or lunch or dinner specials.

3. EDDM ( Every Door Direct Mail)- Take advantage of a special rate 16 cents to get your offer to a particular mailing route. You must send to at least 200, but suggest 2,500. This works even better when doing a co-op mailing.

[vangogh]

I think any of those can work, though I'd make sure with the first 2 you've previously requested and received permission to send SMS messages and email. Otherwise you run a strong risk of being considered spam. Assuming you have permission, I think they can be a great way to remind your customers about you. I get things like birthday discounts from restaurants I've eaten at and like and it does usually get me in again.

[Wozcreative]

And definitly social media! Having your restaurant offer a free cooking to you if you sign in, or post a review of their experience.

[JacobPhillips]

A really good and relatively new one is using Google Adwords Express. It allows for businesses to advertise specifically in their geographic area meaning that if someone nearby googles "chinese food" your restaurant will be the first to pop up.

[IADS]

I have a friend that owns an high end restaurant with his family. He is the chef. He started a food blog and was picked up as a feature writer for a local magazine. He is now a local celebrity, and most people around here know his place because they know his story. He is even written about by a lot of restaurant reviewers, and has even gotten national coverage. He is now working on getting on shows like Good Morning America, and Rachel Ray... as well as other Food Network shows. So, my advice to you is to become a food celebrity.

[dianecoleen]

Your chosen industry has a greater competition. Thus, you should take advantage of the easiest way to attract your target market as soon as possible. It is also for your restaurant to pace on the latest track. Since, you've exceled through your favorite marketing techniques(as you've provided) then this would be the best time for you to try another tactic that would help excel your restaurant to another level. You can use social media to know how many customers knew of your restaurant. You can also hear from that signal the feedback of your customers regarding your food and services. Thus, giving you chances to improve on particular matter. You can also make use on some of the local listings sites, this can help you gather lots of review which is also an advantage on your business.

[Business magnate]

For a restaurant, I would use newspaper ad with short copy and one irresistible offer.

From my experience, that gives you the best results, especially for small restaurants.

If you have resources you could use something like Burger King, when they recorded the reactions of their customers when told "Sorry, we no longer serve Whoppers." That was great online buzz marketing campaign. It was named the "Whopper Freak-out!"

[JacobJames]

I have worked with many restaurants in my local area to get them on deal sites like Groupon, Living Social, or Local Deal Websites. These services are great for getting new business and driving traffic to your website. Here is the strategy that I use:

1. Contact the deal site rep ( i.e Groupon, Living Social, etc )
2. Setup the deal ( This usually takes 4-6 weeks for big sites like Groupon, less time is required for local deal websites)
3. Make sure to have website links of the restaurant, maps, and contact info in the deal description before it goes live.
4. On the restaurant website before the deal goes live, I make sure to create lead capture forms with call 2 actions that say " Enter you Name and number and get notified of our weekly specials "
That way anyone coming from the deal site to the restaurant website is captured even if they do not purchase the coupon deal.
5. After the deal goes live I make sure the owner has a QR code flier near the register where people who purchased the deal can scan their mobile device and get updates on daily specials for that
restaurant.

It's a great strategy a lot of restaurants I have worked with use to build their customer base.

[patrickprecisione]

I have a friend that owns an high end restaurant with his family. He is the chef. He started a food blog and was picked up as a feature writer for a local magazine. He is now a local celebrity, and most people around here know his place because they know his story. He is even written about by a lot of restaurant reviewers, and has even gotten national coverage. He is now working on getting on shows like Good Morning America, and Rachel Ray... as well as other Food Network shows. So, my advice to you is to become a food celebrity.

Wow, good for him! A food blog is a great idea. I would also recommend using social media and taking a ton of photos of the restaurant, and especially, the food. What better way to sell a restaurant than having alot of great pics of the food?

[semaphore.v]

Google local submisstion
zomato.com is local restaurants directory share some good information related local restaurants so you should submit restaurant information in such kind of site.
Social-media is no powerful tool to branding..! and with smart phone people always use to share location.

[JaydenSamuelson]

The best option is direct marketing when people visit your restaurant. We can start giveaways when people revisit the restaurant. There are many options which people can use to market their restaurant services. Free gifts can also be one the coolest option to market the restaurant service.

[level3]

Don't forget Loyalty Marketing. Having a loyalty club for a restaurant is a great way to increase customer frequency.

[zholtan]

fliers distributed in a range of 3 kilometers round, fliers with menus pix, discounts, and a coupon of third order for free. I did that and I wad surprised of the result.

[SWAMP80]

I've run social media marketing campaigns for restaurants and have found that Facebook works really well - people like to know if you have specials and be reminded that you are still there! You keep yourself top of mind when you can insert yourself into their every day lives. Also have had some successes promoting restaurants by engaging one-on-one with people on Twitter. And then there's always local blogger outreach - if you can find bloggers in your area that do restaurant reviews and/or are food bloggers - they can be great contacts AND advocates for your business. Also have had success with Groupon to get foot traffic and general awareness of the restaurants. Just keep in mind what ever you offer through Groupon they take half - so if you charge $50 they take $25 and you keep $25.

[billbenson]

Have you found that spamming forums works really well as well?

[patrickprecisione]

Have you found that spamming forums works really well as well?

This made my day, billbenson. That is all.

[Rench]

Grow up your own business, with buying a tourist android aplication and join social business network called Move 24/7, which is based on modern tehnology for smartphones. Visit move24-7.net

[BrendaBlueDock]

Wow, as I read the suggestions I'm really impressed with the quality answers that you were given. My concern is, it is very easy to spend way to much on advertising without having a great return on your investment. Track every marketing campaign you run and make sure you know who came in from what offers. Also I would only run one campaign per month.
A long term solution for restaurants is to have a native app built and get people who already love your place coming back on a regular basis. With push notification technology you have the ability to have immediate contact with your customers. Your having a slow Tuesday night, send a deal that for the next 3 hours you can get 10% off all dinners and fill your dinning room right when customers are saying hey what should we have for dinner! I could say much more but if you would like to chat more feel free and call me any time.
Happy 4th

[MostHeather]

Lots of great advice! Although it's probably a given, be sure that your eatery has it's own website with the menu, operating hours, daily specials etc. available too! Always helpful for Internet searchers that might not be privy to SMS messages and other methods of promotion.. :)

[Teledini]

Those all seem like good methods to me! For getting people into the restaurant, I agree with your original post as well as many of those below. One area that restaurant owners often overlook, however, is take-out or delivery optimization. By that, I mean making it as easy as possible for customers to call your place and get in touch with you as possible. Click to call services work great for this, as customers are often looking at an online menu, and can be quickly calling with just the push of a button.

[patrickprecisione]

Those all seem like good methods to me! For getting people into the restaurant, I agree with your original post as well as many of those below. One area that restaurant owners often overlook, however, is take-out or delivery optimization. By that, I mean making it as easy as possible for customers to call your place and get in touch with you as possible. Click to call services work great for this, as customers are often looking at an online menu, and can be quickly calling with just the push of a button.

That's a good point, Teledini. Didn't think of that. Are you in the restaurant biz?

[vangogh]

In addition to click to call you can also let people order directly from the site. I like being able to place the order without even having to call.

[PayForWords]

A few more small things I would try:

1. On opening night, do a sale "Maybe Buy 1 Get 1 Free." (Think you can't afford it? Think if your business goes under...)

2. Get a coupon or two in those local coupon books that clubs/individuals sell

3. Word of mouth - probably the most effective ESPECIALLY if you are in a small community or know a lot of people.

[John Crenshaw]

These are all great suggestions. I do digital marketing for local companies for a living so perhaps I could offer some advice from that perspective.

Restaurants can be one of the best businesses to market online for 2 reasons:

1. They're highly local. In other words, I'm probably not flying from Ohio to California to visit a restaurant (although it happens). They're targeting a local area, and businesses targeting a local area can get ranked in Google much easier than regional or national companies (of course it all depends on the competition). David Mihm publishes a yearly local search ranking factors that can give you some great info on factors that affect how a local business ranks in Google. I probably can't post links yet because I'm new so just Google "mihm local ranking factors" and it should be the first result. It can be complicated, but to start with you should claim your major business listings detailed on GetListed.org. Then you should encourage customers to check in and/or write reviews about your restaurant. Offer like $2 off to customers who check in on Yelp and Facebook to get the ball rolling. After a while people will be checking in themselves, but you may find it beneficial to keep that deal going.

2. They perform comparatively well on social. Like a lot of others replied, you can offer deals, hold events, post pictures of food, whatever. A killer tip that we've had incredible success with: Have the chef come out and take pictures with the guests, then post those pictures on Facebook and tag those guests (with their permission of course). People will be more likely to share the photo because the chef came out and talked to them individually...it's like a big social proof thing. Not to mention if you tag guests in photos, those photos will end up in those guests' photo albums on Facebook for everyone to see. Take the photos in front of your sign or something so it's clear where they are.

The key on local SEO is to be careful, follow the rules, make sure you don't stumble on any of the many pitfalls (do plenty of research on this before you start).

The key on social is to think about ways to make your stuff more viral...like what can I do to encourage people to share this or check in or whatever so other people see that they've been here?

[OlegLola]

Hello!
I've got one more suggestion for you. In order to increase your clients loyalty, create an mobile app. It's a new way of promotion that works well.
There are so many advantages of using app for the restaurant business. You can encourage your clients to use your app by offering them special bonuses via it. Also you can provide them with very useful feature – online ordering, it saves a lot of client's time. You can also get benefit from the abilities to read and post reviews. Or there may be other additional ideas. But you shouldn't underestimate its role in increasing your business.

[markhendricks]

Getting involved in community fundraisers that happen at your restaurant work great.

Do something for the local fire department, let them be the waiters, greets, busboys-girls
for the day and give them all of the profits for that day. Create the promotional materials
for them to use and they will do the marketing legwork for you, go on radio and tv with
the fire chief to explain and promote what you are doing together to support the local
fire dept... or the little league baseball, soccer, football, cheerleading, junior and senior
high bands, the list goes on an on... you could do this 4 times a year or more.

Make sure all of the customers that come in get a special offer of some kind that
is sure to draw them back again to be your long term customers. Otherwise
you don't make anything for your effort on the backend.

As always, my best to you --

Mark Hendricks

[chris1583]

My favorite is Yelp. Because many restaurants are local businesses, Yelp has a lot of great (and free) tools to market a restaurant. I think you can even offer coupons and other promotions as well. I eat out quite a bit, and I almost always search Yelp for a good place that has the type of food I'm in the mood for that day.

[vangogh]

David Mihm publishes a yearly local search ranking factors that can give you some great info on factors that affect how a local business ranks in Google.

You may not be able to post links yet (actually I think you can), but I definitely can. Here's the 2013 local search ranking factors (http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors). It was just update last week I think. For any business with a physical location, this is your best bet for building a search presence.


My favorite is Yelp.

Yelp is probably the first or second place any local business should join. Google Places being the other. Set up profiles and let your customers know to review you at both.

[nexxterra]

My favorite is Yelp. Because many restaurants are local businesses, Yelp has a lot of great (and free) tools to market a restaurant. I think you can even offer coupons and other promotions as well. I eat out quite a bit, and I almost always search Yelp for a good place that has the type of food I'm in the mood for that day.


I am really surprised that Yelp was only mentioned on page 3 of this post, it is by far one of the best resources for marketing your restaurant and as an owner, paying attention to the reviews can help keep your doors open.

[Patrysha]

Yelp only works in larger communities from what I've experienced. If you're not a larger center the effectiveness of Yelp goes way, way down. There are 43 restaurants in my town, only 14 are listed in Yelp, only six have reviews and one of them is for a restaurant that closed down at least two years ago...

[vangogh]

only six have reviews and one of them is for a restaurant that closed down at least two years ago

I've seen this with similar listings. I realize it's hard to try to go back and clean out reviews, but all these sites should have a mechanism for users to report a business that's no longer open. Maybe after x number of people reporting it, the business gets flagged for a manual review.

[Patrysha]

I've seen this with similar listings. I realize it's hard to try to go back and clean out reviews, but all these sites should have a mechanism for users to report a business that's no longer open. Maybe after x number of people reporting it, the business gets flagged for a manual review.

Oh, I'm sure there is...my point was more that the small town peeps (at least in my area) aren't actually using the site. If they were there would more than six reviews and the old ones would have been pushed down making the closed ones irrelevant. In the nearest city, even one of the newest restaurants (opened July 3rd - so 6ish weeks old) has more reviews than all our restaurants combined.