16 Proven and Tested Restaurant Marketing Ideas

1. Set up your Google My Business Account

Google my business account is a free listing site for local businesses to make it easy for people to find your business on Google and other Google partner sites. It allows you to put up your Business Details, such as Restaurant Timings, phone number, website and you can even pin down your exact locations on Google Maps.

The great thing about it you can share photos, respond to reviews and share anything unique about your business.

All you have to do is head to Google my Business and make sure you have a valid Gmail account. It will take a minimum of 15 days before your listing will be approved, in addition, google my business team will ask you to submit photos of the interior and exterior of your restaurant and if your restaurant is inside a building you will be required to send photos of the building and short video clip of the area.

2. Set up your Social Media Account Especially Instagram and share some mouth-watering food photos and videos that makes customers drool

Instagram feed: @hoop.ae

People judge based mostly by “appearance”. There’s no doubt about it, especially if its food and one way to showcase it is through social media, as it was the platform that your reach is limitless. Instagram, in particular, is a powerful tool for marketing your restaurant and cafes. People will scroll through your feed and based on what they see, they make a decision whether they want to visit your place or not.

Do you have to hire a photographer?

Well it depends, we know that putting up and maintaining your restaurant business is costly, and you don’t want to shell out more money, you can just use your own smartphone, make sure that it has a high-resolution camera and check out some food photography tutorials available on YouTube.

The thing here is, you should always produce very tempting and mouth-watering food shots.

Tip: Light is the key to creating beautiful still life photos.

3. Make a compelling Restaurant Website

Image from: Maria Bonita Website

As a restaurant owner or manager, you might see a website as an unnecessary expense or you don’t see the necessity of having one. Probably by reading this, you would try reconsidering expanding your online presence.

Telling your story.

What makes brand relatable to its audiences, is a story that lies behind the heart and soul of the brand. How it all started, who are the people behind it? This great piece of information can be showcased in your own website without limitation.

A well-designed restaurant website with a story gives you the chance to show the customer what you’re all about, who you are before they even step foot in your restaurant.

Steps in making a compelling website: First select a domain for your website, head to GoDaddy and purchase one. It would be great if the domain extension is .com or country domain like .ae .uk .ph, these types of extension are less likely to be put into spam when you do the Email Marketing.

Another benefit of having a website is that you can capture those people who visited your website and use their data to do remarketing on their social networking site.

4. Gather your Customer Details using your Restaurant Point of Sales (POS) Software

Does your Restaurant POS Software have the capability of storing customers information, such as Name, Mobile number or email? If it has then it’s time to leverage on using it! In this modern age, the business who have the customers information has a higher chance to win the market, if an only if, they know what to do about it. Probably you might be asking, how to get your customer email, considering it’s a piece of information people are hesitant to share.

Well, you can use these tricks.

Send customer digital receipts:

More and more people are showing their concerns about the environment. One thing that proves it to me personally are the signatures from the email I received from some of our clients. "Save the environment, Print this email if necessary." Using a mobile Point of Sale Software, with of course an email linked it to it would give you the choice to send e-receipts to your customer rather printing it. You have helped the environment and somehow raised awareness at the same time you have captured the heart of the consumer groups who are driving most brands to exercise Social and Environmental Responsibility.

Get your customer’s email in exchange for a discount. Many retailers even restaurants in Dubai are doing this kind of techniques to get customer’s information. Make your offer appealing that it would persuade them to give their email.

Note: You need to think, how much you are willing to spend, just to get Customers information. You might probably want to check your Customer Lifetime Value, by knowing this you would understand how much is it worth spending to acquire a customer or how much the business can spend in Marketing to turn low to mid- value customers to high-value customers.

Use your WIFI for Marketing

Have you ever heard about Social Wifi, probably you have tried signing in to Mall’s Free Wifi, or Hotel Wifi? Now you remember giving your information like email and mobile number to use the service? You can do the same thing to your restaurant. Leverage your wifi system ask your router vendor, IT specialist if they can set up the same thing for you.

5. Restaurant Email Marketing

Now you have the customer email list from your POS Software. Let’s do something about it that would draw your customer back to you.

You need to find the tune on the email you will going to send your email list. To kickstart your campaign why not send your Customer a Welcome and Appreciation Email for coming to your restaurant. Consistency is the key. You should designate a day when are you going to send emails, you should own at least a day of the week, name it and make it your own, Example for #Winewednesday #SushiSunday

Other ideas that you can send on Email Marketing.

• 1. Birthday Greetings with enclosed Promo for Celebrants
• 2. New Menu Items
• 3. Seasonal Greetings
• 4. Chef Tips
• 5. Stories of Employees
• 6. Promotions and New Amenities
• 7. Events

Probably another question that pops into your mind is “Where shall we send these emails Nikkolai?

There are email marketing platforms that you can use to set up your first email campaign for your restaurant, you can either use MailChimp, SendGrid or your own Email Provider.

If you want to know which one, I would recommend when it comes to ease of use, I can say that MailChimp is probably the best. It’s easy to set up and whenever you get lost there are available resources on the web, they also have a group on Facebook where you can raise questions.

6. Partner with Food Delivery Service

A shortcut way, but a little expensive one to establish an only presence is to partner with the Food delivery services. Deliveroo, Zomato, Talabat, UberEats, and the new player CareemNow offer more than delivery services, they also help you sell and market your restaurant across all digital platforms, in exchange you have to pay them a commission on every sale. More and more people are ordering food online, and the above-mentioned companies can be your tickets to gain exposure and increase your sales.

7. Have your own Restaurant Mobile App and Do Push Notifications

When customer installed your restaurant mobile app, you can reach out to users with short messages that users may respond to by clicking the link, this is called push notification. With the beacon technology used by mobile apps, you can notify customer whenever they are near your area about your promos, menu of the day or any event you want them to know.

8. Google Ads for your Restaurant Business

When people search for something who or should I say what is there go to the platform? Google. Be seen by customers at the very moment that they’re searching on Google for the foods you offer. First, you need to have a website to run an ad campaign or landing page where people can take action. Either they can book a table, call you for reservation or directly order on your site. It takes a little time to be up and running and we suggest that you should consult a PPC Specialist to set up your account for you, and guide you before you start, google ads when not tune properly is like throwing your money down the drain.

9. Facebook Pixel for Restaurant Business

Email addresses gathered using your Restaurant POS Software can be used in making a custom audiences for remarketing in Facebook Pixel. You're probably asking, what the heck is Facebook pixel and how it can help your restaurant business? Facebook Pixel is a code that you install on your website to track your visitors and target them on Facebook and partner sites like Instagram.

Have you tried shopping on an e-commerce site, you add some product in your cart but then you’ve decided to purchase it tomorrow, so you close the app and head to Facebook, in your surprise you’ve seen the products you left in the cart in your Facebook or Instagram feeds like they are haunting you? This is because of the Facebook pixel.

Marketers say that you need at least 7-13 touch points in order to make a customer, a real customer, the Facebook pixel is one great tool to re-engage with your customers that visit your website, or customers that you have their email addresses. By building custom audiences in Facebook pixel, and putting customer’s email address, Facebook will find out if these people have a Facebook or Instagram account and whenever you run a campaign and target these people, whatever ad you have Facebook will show it in their feed, messenger, stories, anywhere you want to target them.

10. Encourage and Post User Generated content

Image from: apronsandhammers

User-Generated Content is defined as any type of content that has been created and put out there by unpaid contributors or, using a better term, fans. It can refer to pictures, videos, testimonials, tweets, blog posts, and everything in between. It could be a review, posting favorite food on the menu or any campaign that would encourage your customer to talk about your brand.

11. Schedule Live Music

When you visit a restaurant you probably notice that music is playing in the background. Music psychologically put people’s mind at ease. A short show of live music can help the business and customer because people after a long day or a crappy experience, the best remedy is good food and some live music to take their stress away.

12. Participate in local food event

Look for a local food event in the city that you can participate in. Organizers of such festival spent a lot of money for marketing the event just to attract tens of thousands of visitors, participating in such event is good for gaining exposure for your brand and a great way to increase your bottom line, sales.

13. Press Release

No matter what the news is, you need to have one media outlet that you can reach to publish your story. Having a major publisher sharing story about you increase your quality and trust score as a restaurant business. Why don’t you try to have your press release on one of the well know global media and entertainment company under ITP Media, TimeOut branded as a social companion for people who are in search for about food, attractions, art, culture, shopping, and nightlife?

14. Reach out some help from food bloggers or influencers

We have the so-called celebrity endorsement in traditional marketing, bloggers or influencers are their counterparts in the digital world. They are the so-called go-to person of people who are in search of something. Reach out for an influencer that is in-line of your brand or for the food that you offer, people who you think are being followed by your target audiences. If you are offering healthy meals, reach out to food blogger like Chloe Moir - Chloe Moir Nutrition to feature your restaurant or menu in one of their post, support or send a sample of your food to some models who need a meal that would help them maintain their figure. You’re target customers, trust more product that is being used and endorsed by people they follow.

15. Host a sporting event

Who said that you have to be a sports bar to host a sporting event? There are too many people in the UAE who can’t afford to go to sports bars that are located in prime areas like JBR and Marina. I remember when we are walking down the streets of Deira, we’ve seen a group of people standing outside a restaurant all eyes on the tv screen watching the match of PSG and Manchester United.

UAE residents mostly are sports fanatic, why not seized on the opportunity to hold your own event, if you have a TV in your restaurant maximize it, if you don’t have to try to buy one, aside from the fact that you can use it for the sporting event, you can also flag menu on the screen. Offer free drinks to entice them to come in. The key its success is to advertise it properly. Don’t be discouraged if no one comes in your first event, try it again and next time be more aggressive in your marketing.

16. Offer Gift Cards

Image from: 3fils

A gift unlike your other food in the menu is non-perishable and they not seasonal items as well. People think of Christmas when it comes to restaurant gift cards, but don’t discount birthdays, graduations, Father’s and Mother’s Day, and any other gift-giving occasion! One of the biggest advantages of selling restaurant gift cards is that you generate revenue immediately. The gift card purchaser buys the card upfront, so if the gift card gets lost somewhere (or the giftee just decides never to redeem it), your restaurant still got paid upfront

The brand awareness of that comes with restaurant gift cards can’t be dismissed as benefits.

Tips: Select a gift card design that is relevant all year round!