Things have been tough for business of late and restaurants are no different. However, there are plenty of opportunities for restaurants to improve their marketing.
There have been some pretty impressive stats released of late, all highlighting our need as consumers to research and review products and services.
Depending on the source, you may hear that 90% of diners will research a restaurant prior to visiting, checking out trading times, viewing menus,etc.
So here are seven restaurant marketing ideas, all focused on online opportunities and assuming that your website is already fully functional and presentable.
Google Places/Urbanspoon
I’ve already mentioned the stats indicating that if we’re in your restaurant, then the chances are we’ve visited your website. The stats, again depending on the research, go someway to suggest that approximately one-third of diners have read other customer reviews of your restaurant online. So capitalise on third-party listings and do what you can to encourage happy diners to leave positive reviews on sites such as Google Places, Urbanspoon, Eatability and more. It must also be noted that many of the third-party listings have applications for mobile phones, using GPS facilities to locate restaurants in the immediate area.
Facebook Page
Facebook is the benchmark with more than 500 million members on the planet. In Australia, we have more than 8million Facebook members (what a good place to start promoting). Create your Facebook page and get active. Remember that it will require offline promotion and even a little bit of Facebook advertising to get it kick-started. Use it to accept reservations, post new menus, distribute exclusive dining deals, the opportunities are only limited by your imagination. Maybe you can use a traditionally slow night to promote a Facebook-only special. For example, on Tuesday nights promote a meal deal to fans only, where they have to print off a coupon to redeem. Maybe they have to book through Facebook and this is how you keep track.
Social media presents a great opportunity because people are engaging in conversation, and if there is one thing we love talking about it’s food. Be active on Twitter and you can promote daily specials, links to your new menu, wine tips,etc. Maybe you follow the Facebook idea above and use a slow day to promote a special Twitter Tuesday or Thursday and change the special each week.
Responsive Website
The total web traffic by mobile is not far from surpassing that of desktops. So I ask you, is your restaurant website easy to browse from a mobile phone?
If not then you need to do something now. I would strongly suggest building a responsive website.
In particular, I think it’s going to be very important for restaurants as we are often, already out somewhere when we start thinking about where to eat. An actual mobile site can make the process so much easier for the consumer.
Foursquare/Facebook Places
The future of location-based marketing is argued by many people, some thinking it will be the holy grail, others thinking it’s overrated. Certainly it may be overrated at this very time but discount it at your peril. There are opportunities and it will pay to be in the market before your competitors. Besides it is not going to hurt the back pocket. Maybe you can encourage diners to check-in and leave a tip (see above) when they’re already in your restaurant. Maybe you activate a special, so that when they are in the area they recognise your special and make the decision to come to your restaurant to redeem (think real easy way to send out coupons to people in the immediate area at no cost).
QR Codes
If you have read more than one of my posts you will not be new to QR Codes. I have and will find just about any opportunity for QR Codes to be relevant. But seriously, they can work for restaurants. Once diners are in your restaurant, they are looking at your dinner menu, they are looking at your drinks menu. Why not include a QR Code on each, which sends them to your Facebook page so they can like it, right then and there. Maybe the code sends them to your Google Places listing, so they can leave a review (see above).
Scoopon
This option definitely comes with its caveat. The benefit to going to Scoopon depends on the way you can structure an offer, what your margins are like and whether you are desperate for the cash flow. Scoopon communicates your dining offer to hundreds of thousands of people, so it’s a fantastic branding exercise. It will even get you anywhere between 200 and 2,000 people in to your restaurant over a period of time with payment pre-paid. However, the discount needs to represent a minimum 50% off and of the remaining, Scoopon will take 25%-30%, which leaves you a very little slice of the pie. So why on earth am I suggesting it? Well the thing is, if you get 500 new customers into your restaurant and you throw up such a great deal that you even lose $10 per customer, then the marketing exercise has cost you $5,000. How many new customers has your last $5,000 worth of marketing got into your restaurant? Your local newspaper ad? Your flyers? They will hopefully still drink and you won’t even lose money so do yourself a favour and think about it.
The online world, in particular the social networking tools that have emerged are simply vehicles to encourage conversations. Given that we all eat, we all love dining out given the chance, then why not encourage people to talk about your restaurant. You will either reap the benefits or find out that your food is just not that good. Either way it should be seen as a positive for your business.