5 Ways To Market Your Small or Medium Restaurant Business

Published Nov 30, 2018

The restaurant industry, just like any other industry is highly competitive. Spoilt with options, foodies (esp Millenials) love to visit different places. Hundreds of restaurants open each week and how many fail to succeed is a fact known by all and sundry.

In the present day and age of increasing internet connectivity (more than 68% Indians in urban India now have access to the internet)  having a good online presence becomes imperative for any business. The same holds true for your restaurant business as well.

You need a comprehensive online marketing strategy to survive and flourish in today’s market, one that helps you build a brand identity, increases your reach, creates awareness and drives customer engagement.

There are numerous ways to market your restaurant. In this article we have come up with what think are the 5 most important points to keep in mind while defining a marketing strategy for your restaurant:

Have an SEO optimised website for your restaurant

Having an SEO optimised website should be your topmost priority when it comes to framing an online marketing strategy for your restaurant. There are more than 1 million searches on Google per month for the phrase “restaurants near me”.

Try running a Google search for "restaurants near me" and see what you get.

With aggregators such as Zomato, EazyDiner & DineOut, SEO can be hard for restaurants. However, you need to make sure to dominate searches with your brand name and for searches in your location.

Quick tip: no denying that the primary traffic drivers to your restaurant are still aggregator sites, word of mouth and direct brand searches, the key is to be visible for your brand and location-based searches. 

Below are a few things to keep in mind while doing SEO of your restaurant website:

1. Ensure the title of your homepage has your brand name, location and pin code e.g. "Grill House, HSR Layout 560102"
2. List on Google My Business
3. Add the address to your site and make sure it is visible
4. It's a good idea to have your menu items on the website (not a PDF version). If you have a unique or a signature dish on your menu, chances are it might show up if you have a dedicated website page

5. Try to get links from sites that serve your location and community. Any link from contextually relevant sites can help you rank for your local searches. 

Social Media Marketing

Having a strong social media presence also goes a long way to help you build a brand online.

Instagram is arguably one of the most popular online tools for foodies. Posting high quality, drooling photos of dishes is a good way to get more hits on your Instagram page.

Visual content is more appealing and is in high demand online. Hence posting delicious looking pictures of dishes across social media outlets is a sure shot way of grabbing attention.

YouTube is another popular platform among foodies and travellers. Share some wonderful recipes or upload a quick video from your kitchen.

You can also post (if you're lucky enough to have such a specimen!) a bizarre video like the below one.

It's all about generating interesting, useful content for your audience. You can be surprised by the kind of positive effect a good social media marketing strategy can have to your restaurant business.

Digital Feedback

You might be wondering how customer feedback can help you in marketing, correct? Restaurants have been capturing customer feedback for a long time (paper-based forms, of course). Now, with digitization, the same can be done on a digital feedback form.

But 1st to answer the question posed above (i.e. how does capturing customer feedback help in marketing a restaurant). With so many online platforms around, you might think that online reviews should be good enough to understand customer feedback. But if you think about it, most genuine online reviews happen only from customers who are really disappointed with something at your restaurant or who are just habitual to writing reviews online. Thus, you are missing out on a wealth of genuine feedback that you might have otherwise captured. Also, paper forms have become outdated now and digital feedback captured on a tab gives a much more classy feel.

While positive reviews are definitely helpful for your brand, negative reviews are surely not. And the good news is most negative reviews are avoidable. If you are able to capture most negative feedback at the restaurant itself and have some sort of loyalty programme in place (e.g. giving a discount coupon for the next visit!), you end up avoiding a lot of negative reviews online. Now isn't that so much less headache to handle!

Digital feedback from customers also reaches you in real time and gives you the opportunity to address the customer's concern then and there. It's also a good way to save customer's information for future use. SpeQue feedback management solution is one of the best example of digital feedback system for restaurants.

Loyalty Programmes

Having a customer loyalty programme that works is also an essential part of your marketing strategy. While its true that the quality/taste of food and service are the primary reasons for which customers come back again and again to your restaurant, loyalty programmes can definitely not be taken lightly. There is too much competition around nowadays and it's essential to reward your loyal customers lest they don't turn back.

While there might be hundreds of loyalty programmes in the market, not all of them work. So make sure to experiment a little with different programmes before deciding which one works best.

You should consider partnering with online food apps as part of your restaurant marketing plan. Partnering with online apps encourages visitors to check out your restaurant through gamification and customer loyalty programs, which offer visitors a free purchase or discount for visiting a certain number of times.

SpeQue app has a unique loyalty programme to offer that really works. Reach out to us to know more! Even SpeQue restaurant billing software has integrated loyalty program to make it more effective.

Campaigns and newsletters

Campaigns are a good way to engage with your customers and keep them reminded of your brand.   

Campaigns can be personalised if you have access to your customer's data. With data such as when was the previous time someone had come in or to know their eating preferences can help in sending out highly relevant messages which is a much more effective way of doing campaigns.

Newsletters are another good way to let your audience keep up to date with the activities and recent developments at your restaurant. You can organise events and let your customers know about it. However, make sure not to send too many newsletters as well. No one wants their inbox to be flooded with newsletters. Once a month or so should be good enough.

Conclusion

To sum it up, having a strong marketing strategy is a must for every restaurant in today's day and age. As seen above, your marketing strategy can be a good mixture of online and offline. Below is a summary of the few most important points as mentioned above:

1. Hire a professional photographer (or DIY) to create beautiful photos that appeal to foodies.
2. Create a customer loyalty program, using apps such as SpeQue.
3. Set up your Google My Business/Google+ account and encourage reviews.
4. Use Instagram to promote your restaurant’s best visual content.
5. Send an occasional email newsletter.
6. Monitor your restaurant’s social media presence. Tools like HootSuite and Buffer help.
7. Verify the details of your restaurant like phone number, address, and business hours online.
8. Understand who your restaurant’s target patrons are and use it to develop a brand identity online.
9. Make sure your online menu is sleek and functional.
10. Offer coupons and discounts online, through your website or through other services.

SpeQue offers suite of product from restaurant billing software to CRM to manage all under one umbrella.