Restaurant Marketing is much more challenging than you might think and it has changed a lot in recent years. If your marketing strategy is not up to date, your restaurant could be missing out on a lot of potential business. A good restaurant marketing strategy will highlight the unique aspects that your restaurant has to offer, while using the marketing channels that are available in the most effective way possible.
So where should you start when it comes to putting together a plan for your restaurant marketing campaign? If you are looking to create a powerful and effective restaurant marketing strategy, here are some tips that you can keep in mind.
Consult the Restaurant Marketing Professionals
Chances are if you are a restaurant owner, your passion is food and not marketing. You might have a little knowledge of marketing, but your expertise lies in running a restaurant. It’s a much better use of your time to outsource the work to a restaurant marketing company, who will be able to help you develop a plan for promoting your business. A restaurant marketing company has years of experience planning these marketing campaigns and they will be able to create a very effective strategy for promoting your business.
Identify What Makes Your Restaurant Unique
One of the important conversations you will need to have with the company that is managing your restaurant marketing campaign is about what makes your restaurant unique. Think about the areas in which you outperform the competition. You can’t be everything to everyone, but there are one or two things that you do very well and they should be celebrated.
For example, are you the only place in town that makes fresh pizzas in a traditional wood-fired oven? Are you a cocktail bar on a rooftop with an open-air patio and an amazing view? Do you offer a menu consisting of fresh, organic and healthy ingredients sources from local farms? Does your restaurant offer the cheapest lunch specials in the neighbourhood? When you have determined what makes your restaurant unique, then you can focus on this attribute in your marketing.
Figure Out Your Venues Target Audience
Who are your customers? Are they upper middle class couples going on a romantic dinner for a special occasion, or are they students on a budget looking for cheap and tasty eats? Are your customers mostly families with small children, or hungry drunks grabbing a snack on the way home from the bar at 3am? Do you cater for the brunch crowd, the business lunch crowd or do you mostly get busy around dinner time?
When you think about who your customers are, you can start to determine the best way to market to them. For example, if you are popular with students you could post an update about a discount special and try to get it shared on the Facebook page of a local university so that it will be seen by your young, hungry and budget-conscious customers.
Make Specific Goals For Your Restaurant
Setting goals will help you to identify the objectives of your restaurant marketing strategy, so that you have something to work toward. Your goals should be specific, so that they have deadlines and numbers attached to them. It’s much better to say, “We want to increase sales by 20% by the end of this year” than to simply say “increase sales.” When you make your goals more specific you will be more motivated to achieve them and you will be better able to measure your progress.
Have a Functioning Resturant Website
Making sure that your restaurant has a website is the first step in any marketing strategies. These days, every business should have a website – for many reasons. A website will help clients to find you when they perform local searches and it will allow you to show valuable info such as your menu, your opening times and information about events and promotions. Websites are crucial for every business these days and if you don’t have one, it’s almost like you don’t exist.
These are just a few of the ways that you can create a restaurant marketing strategy so that you can effectively promote your business. With the right tools and a great plan you will be able to build your restaurant brand and bring more traffic into your establishment – so get started on putting together your marketing strategy today!