Running a restaurant is no simple feat. It can be laborious and taxing on you to make sure that everything from the kitchen to the dining table stays fixed just the way you want it to be. But just focusing on serving customers and making sure everything is right will not work for your business. You have to let others know about your establishment also, what better way is there apart from digital marketing.
Lately, the number of people using social media to post pictures of what they're eating has been an increasingly rising trend. Coupled with the growing population who are more reliant on online websites to research their choices, digital marketing has exploded in terms of the reach it can offer to anyone without spending too much. Digital Marketing can directly affect the amount of footfall you can expect in your restaurant.
Digital Marketing for Restaurants can be a game-changer for you based on the strategies you adopt. You can choose to spend money on digital marketing or not. It is up to you but, the returns you will get will be in line with what you spend on it.
Here are some essential divisions of focus to get started with digital marketing.
As mentioned in the introduction to this article on digital marketing, social media now sits at the cusp of all content consumed by people everywhere. People's decisions are also heavily influenced by what they see on social media and, it is imperative to have a well-defined strategy that is working for you in the long run. The first thing would be to establish business accounts for your restaurant on all the relevant social media platforms. Focus on growing engagement with your followers by creating content that has a personal touch to it. Customers like that kind of content and, once the engagement is on an upward trajectory, the follower count will grow too. Maintain a style or design theme for the content you're creating and follow that pattern. Keep reading the comments and process the feedback you're getting and, proceed accordingly. When taking pictures of food make sure to use a high-quality camera with proper lighting. Customers don't like to come across shoddy work and, if feasible, you can choose to hire a professional to do the job for you. Be consistent with what you post since engagement goes down if you have an erratic posting schedule. Reply to customers through social media and encourage them to direct message you if they need something and maintain a good rapport with them.
If you find it hard to manage social media on your own, you could choose to outsource these responsibilities to companies that are better at managing them. These companies offer much more in terms of what they can do for you and, it might be a prudent choice to try it out. They can create ad campaigns that target customers personally. There is so much that could be done using social media and, it might warrant a separate article of its own.
Another aspect of social media marketing is using influencers to market your restaurant. Influencer marketing can be used to drastically expand your reach as each influencer has a unique set of followers that you can tap into. Find out a list of local influencers in your city that have a very similar target audience. Check and see if the influencer has very high engagement with his followers. Once everything is a match you can reach out to that specific influencer and strike up a deal with them to promote your restaurant on their social media. This will help you get more customers coming through your restaurant doors and also increase your follower count.
A loyalty rewards program is another excellent way of engaging with your audience. While it does not fall under a digital marketing idea for your restaurant it is a great strategy to build an address book with all the customers who are visiting your restaurant. This address book can be used when in other ideas where customer details are necessary. Check out this article that we've written about a restaurant loyalty rewards program in particular.
Emails have been along for so long and, for some, it's still the best way to market their products. The algorithms that social media platforms use may or may not work in your favor and, engagement might change from time to time. With email marketing, there is nothing of that sort to worry about. All emails are sent at once with a click of a button. With emails, a different style of content has to be followed as the same style that works for social media will necessarily not work here. You can categorize your customers into different categories and send personalized content based on that category. Building an email mailing list takes time except, the reach is uniform and, customers still do use email regularly. Sending them announcements about your restaurant or current ongoing offers might be the way to go.
Apart from maintaining accounts on the major social media platforms, it is a must to maintain an overall online presence for your restaurant. Digital marketing becomes simpler if your restaurant has a better online presence since each customer's online activity is not the same. Here are some things you can do to establish and maintain your online presence to boost your digital marketing.
SMS marketing is another digital marketing idea for your restaurant that can help you reach out to your customers. This strategy is very similar to that of email marketing but, the one main difference is the style of content used. The text message sent to the customer must be short, concise, and to the point. Apart from that, everything is the same and, you can send ongoing offers to your customer through SMS.
Search Engine Optimization must be a very integral part of your restaurant's digital marketing strategy. Your local SEO point should be very strong as most of the travelers who want to dine in an outside city use google to determine the place. Your restaurant must rank very high on the google search result page for more customers to see your restaurant. It translates to catching more outsiders who generally spend more than people located in the same city. Focus on off-page and on-page SEO for better success in being ranked at the top. Create a blog section on your website and target specific keywords in the restaurant industry and create articles around them to increase traffic and get more reach by ranking at the top of the search results page. Some companies can boost your restaurant's SEO performance by crafting a specific strategy for you. You can choose to use their services to get better results. It takes time for you to see results from SEO but being consistent with what you do and not changing a lot of things will help.
In 2021 it is integral for your restaurant to have a website. Having a website helps advertise all that you do in the best way possible to your customers seamlessly. It is another key area of focus in your digital marketing arsenal. SEO is not possible if you don't have a website of your own. Your website can be used for other purposes as well for example you could choose to add an online food ordering platform to yourself and sell your food directly instead of going through third-party platforms and paying huge fees and being reliant on them. The design of your website is very important as it affects how the content is displayed to the customer. Your website should be fluid and reflect the personality of your restaurant. The website should be fast and responsive and, built using the latest and efficient coding standards. A smooth and well-designed website combined with an aggressive SEO approach will help you reach out to more customers.
At this time and age having a digital marketing strategy is very important for your restaurant to grow. Choose the ones that might work for you and apply them to see the results. If you liked reading this article check out other articles that might be of use to you. If you need any more information feel free to contact us.
, DiNAMIC
23rd April 2021