Once upon a time, marketing your restaurant would have been as simple as placing an ad in the local newspaper and putting signs up around town. Flash forward to the present, and a successful marketing campaign includes everything from a website and social media, to PR and in-restaurant storytelling to enforce your brand. But, above all, it should be ongoing.
When it comes to marketing a successful restaurant, it’s also important for your strategy to grow as your business grows. Here, we look at essential tips for marketing your restaurant to ensure you’re getting in front of your target demographic.
Get Your Brand out There
When you’re first opening your business, your main marketing goal will be to get in front of as many potential diners as possible. It’s also important that you’re creative and consistent with the message you’re sending.
During this crucial stage, you’ll be developing your brand and disseminating it to the public.
When developing your promotional plan and deciding what kind of message you want to send to diners, no two plans will be alike. Have a think about what makes your restaurant unique and how you want people to perceive it. Once you’ve answered these two crucial questions, you’ll be able to determine your marketing message.
For instance, do you want your restaurant to be perceived as homely and attract an older customer base, or do you want to be a trendsetter that attracts hipster millennials?
All of the above will then determine your advertising approach, or if you advertise at all. For many restaurants, the concept of traditional advertising is no longer effective. Instead of traditional advertising, you can look at running a social media campaign, getting listings up on websites like Zomato or trip Advisor, and establishing an email database.
If you haven’t already, make sure you have a website designed and built to suit your restaurant’s style, and create/start using social media pages. Restaurants tend to do particularly well on Facebook and Instagram.
Reviews really do Matter
Once you’ve been open for a while and you’ve started to attract a customer base, it’s all about providing an experience that people want to re-live or that they will recommend to their friends and family.
Online reviews also become essential. In this day and age, diners are less likely to complain to your face if they’ve had a bad experience, and more likely to jump online and leave a bad Google review, Facebook review, or even a bad review on sites like Zomato. Making sure your customers enjoy the dining experience you provide is more important than ever, because word of mouth can now go viral in a heartbeat.
Encourage happy customers to jump online and give you a good review, and continue reaching out to your growing database on social media and through email marketing campaigns.
Consistency is Key
Any form of marketing, whether external or internal needs to be consistent. Make sure you stay true to the style and tone you adopted when you were opening.
Any written communication, whether it’s in the press, on your website, or even on the special’s menu, should be written with a similar tone. If quirky is your thing, that’s great – stick to it!
You should also work on nurturing any relationships with third parties, such as local food bloggers or the press, and no matter what, always look for new avenues to promote your business.
When it comes to marketing your restaurant, there are no short cuts. Marketing is something that needs to be addressed regularly, so that you’re always pushing out fresh content, beautiful imagery, and above all, generating a reputation you can be proud of.
To easily introduce great marketing and promotion techniques via Vectron’s Point of Sale solution contact us at sales@vectron.com.au or 1300 823 876 or for more information visit www.vectron.com.au